<![CDATA[Donald Trump]]><![CDATA[Iran]]><![CDATA[Israel]]><![CDATA[Operation Epic Fury]]>Featured

Good News! U.S. and Israel Still Blowing Up Bad Stuff and Bad People in Iran With Impunity – HotAir

Phase II of Operation Epic Fury is well underway, and it’s pretty clear the focus of the combined forces of the United States and Israel has moved to removing the oil infrastructure revenue away from the theocracy allegedly running Iran, in addition to the continuous destruction of ballistic missiles, launchers, and drones. 

Outside of the seven Americans lost in the first day’s counterstrikes, a high cost to pay, and thus far one Israeli pilot, it’s hard to overstate how lopsided the excursion is against Iran. War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan “Raisin'” Caine should give a lot more details as to the suspected capacity reduction of the Iranians over the last 96 hours’ worth of almost non-stop air strikes at an 8 AM scheduled briefing from the Pentagon. 

The pictures, however, speak for themselves. There is more propaganda and AI-generated fake photos and videos online than there are actual Iranian missiles and drones being fired off these days, but as far as Iran taking incoming, well, it’s getting to the point where the explosions, both in number and in severity, are nearly Biblical in proportion. 

Saturday night, without destroying Kharg island in the Straits of Hormuz, serving as the pumping station to load oil tankers, refineries and oil storage tanks all over Iran lit up the skyline. 





Iranian TV attempted to pull off CNN’s “Mostly Peaceful Protests” bit after the riots lit city blocks on fire in Kenosha, Wisconsin in the summer of 2020. 

After destroying all of Iran’s Air Force, it looks like the only thing left in the country that can get up to 88 MPH is a camel. 

Day soon followed this hellscape, or at least they tell me it was daytime. It was hard to tell with black clouds raining oil. 

What does it look like to systemically take out Iran’s aerial capabilities one by one? Soemthing like this. 

And as for naval vessels, according to Donald Trump last night at Doral, 51 have been sunk, including this beauty. 

Monday night in Tehran, the hits just kept coming. Don’t let the distance fool you in this clip. This security camera footage is several miles away. Imagine how intense that fireball was if you were up close and personal. 





As for the missile launchers, a key objective being to quickly deny Iran’s ability to project terror on its neighbors, it doesn’t seem to matter where they hide them. They’re being found and taken out with dispatch, even if they’re hiding under overpasses. 

Our Israeli allies are facing a dilemma they didn’t think they would face so soon after the war began – a schism seems to be breaking out between Lebanon, Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy in their midst, and Iran. Hezbollah is quietly asking, by way of the Lebanese government, if there’s a way to negotiate a ceasefire. 

Amit Segal of N12 News in Israel, one of the finer newsmen in the Middle East, has the details.

Lebanon made gestures they want to purge Hezbollah outright from the country, but it probably does not have the military means with which to do so. But if Hezbollah is attempting to separate itself from the sinking ship of state that is Iran in order to try to survive this war, that only isolates Iran further, taking another tentacle off the terror octopus. 

How does Donald Trump think it’s going? He called a fairly spontaneous press conference at Doral in Florida late yesterday afternoon, and summed up his overall assessment this way. 

As for how long this might take, the President said he believed the armed forces were way ahead of schedule, and that the original schedule looked like 4-6 weeks. 





So what would be the conditions to pull back on the reins? This is what Trump said winning looks like.

He also reminded the press corps from Florida, and the very loud minority of doomer/panican social media influencers on X, that this excursion on Iran is keeping exactly with what Donald Trump said in 2015 after coming down the escalator and launching his political career. Here was his stance 11 years ago.

And here is Trump from Doral yesterday. 

Quite simply, Iran had reconstituted their nuclear program, even after the Operation Midnight Hammer strikes, and Trump could not wait any longer to stop it. If anyone is surprised that Trump acted here, they were ignoring what he’s said for over a decade, and they certainly did not read his National Defense Estimate from last year.  





One of the huge questions, as Democrats continue to shut down parts of Homeland Security until Donald Trump and Republicans relent on ICE funding to deport illegal aliens, is the threat of Iranian sleeper cells going active in the United States. Fortunately, actionable intelligence in the wake of the strikes has surfaced in order to help better prevent them. 

On whether newly-minted Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, or Bernie as we like to call him around HotAir, has a target on his back. Here’s Trump’s response. Read between the lines. 

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar was just as vague about whether there’d be a hit put out on Ayatollah Bernie, but then again, not really. 

But according to the Wall Street Journal, if there’s a shot at killing Khamenei 2.0, and perhaps having to kill him again, depending on whether he actually survived the first wave of strikes or not, Trump will let them take it. 

We’ve been promised at least two different days and times since the war began that the world would hear and see the new Supreme Leader. Sadly, there has been zero proof of life. In fact, Iranian media on Monday afternoon said he had been seriously injured in the attacks. The Babylon Bee has the first official portrait of Ayatollah Bernie: 





The President Monday night gave a stern warning to whatever’s left of leadership in Iran, or their Houthis proxies in Yemen, not to interfere with cargo traffic in the Straits of Hormuz. Donald Trump has not dialed up strikes to maximum strength, yet. There’s plenty of headroom on the boom dial…like twentyfold. 

Of course, the price of oil spiked over the weekend to $113 a barrel before retreating just as steeply a day later. It’s still high, but not as high as Trump figured it would go, and it’s only temporary. As a footnote, there is evidence that oil and cargo tankers are indeed navigating the Strait, but are switching off their transponders before going through the hairpin turn, and then turning them on again once they’re safe. In addition to U.S. naval vessels absolutely dominating the waters in the Gulf and serving as an armed escort, an advantage that grows with each sinking of an Iranian ship, the markets seem to be easing in their concerns that this chokepoint was going to cause long-term global energy disruptions. 

The big question Trump critics bring up is what follows a possible regime change in Iran. The President seemed to dismiss the chance of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi coming back to Iran and running a provisional government until elections are called in favor of what Trump really wants, which is the Venezuela option with someone inside Iran’s power structure that A) has a working brain stem with eyes to see what’s happening, and B) wants to live to see tomorrow. 





This war is still very fluid. There’s absolutely no indication, other than unnamed Iranian officials imitating Dr. Rumack telling us Khamenei the younger is alive and well, flying the plane, free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment. There’s no telling how many of the 90-plus million Iranians are going to embrace freedom once they realize all the police stations that served as military outposts for the Iranian goon squads that mowed them down by the tens of thousands are gone. The Iranians just sent a missile into Turkey, which was not at all well-received by President Erdogan. Vladimir Putin, who, *checks notes*, started a war of aggression against Ukraine over four years ago, is suddenly super interested in finding a way for the U.S. and Israel to dial it back a bit on Iran. Perhaps he doesn’t want to see all the drone factories go up in the same fireball as their refineries. 

This could still go sideways, but the list of goals stated by the President going into this conflict is getting checked off, and in a very expedited manner. There is always the risk that Trump will get antsy, declare victory too soon before all the goals are achieved, and call it a day. That was also brought up at Doral, and the best answer he gave all day was this.

Donald Trump seems committed to finishing the job, and also appears to be buoyed by the combined work of U.S. and Israeli forces to finish the job ahead of schedule. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t include this lighthearted satire of what true joint cooperation looks and sounds like in the skies over a defenseless Tehran between American and Israeli pilots. Satire? Yes. Exquisitely satisfying? You betcha. 





Keep delivering the mail. We’re praying and cheering you on from afar. 







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