Epic Fury and Lion’s Roar reshape Iran’s options

Epic Fury – After military campaigns launched on 28 February were met with early losses of air control, Iran’s depleted strike capabilities and disrupted supply chain point toward a short Gulf War chapter—while Washington, Tel Aviv, and even Kurdish actors gamble over wha

On 28 February. the campaigns now branded ‘Epic Fury’ and ‘Lion’s Roar’ began—named with the kind of theatrical certainty that usually arrives right before reality corrects the story. By the time Tehran realized it was losing control of the skies early on. the damage had already become strategic. not symbolic.

The chapter now unfolding. which starts with the alleged annihilation of Iran’s Supreme Leader. senior military commanders. and the head of the Revolutionary Guards. as well as its defence minister. is likely to be short. The reason isn’t only the shock of the strikes. It’s what the author argues Tehran can no longer do after targeted bombing hits its armaments supply chain: replenish dwindling short- and medium-range ballistic missile stocks. estimated at a few thousand warheads.

Even if Iran keeps producing drones, the picture painted is of a regime becoming increasingly militarily toothless. Hezbollah’s entry into the Israel-Hamas war in 2023–2024 is described as failing to advance the Palestinians’ cause while costing Lebanon dearly. and now opening a new front that the overpowering Israeli response has shown will not be enough to alter the military balance.

Within that military arithmetic, the range of futures becomes smaller—but the political risk does not. While any attempt to speculate during the war is described as fraught with pitfalls, divergent scenarios are already visible.

The United States, in this account, desires regime change but has not made it a stated goal of the war. Trump is said to have argued that the best-case scenario would be that ‘somebody from within’ take the reins—a possibility compared to Venezuela. where power shifts occur from inside the system at the right moment. In that model, the process would end Iran’s military programmes and open the door to something like ‘reconstruction’.

Another path is grimly different: the survival of the regime by turning Iran into an isolated and tyrannical state. akin to the surreal and cruel reign of terror depicted in Boualem Sansal’s 2084. After the unprecedentedly large uprising that rocked the country in January 2026—followed by thousands of extrajudicial executions and around 50. 000 arrests—the article’s argument is that the state could be pushed further into totalitarian control.

There is, it says, a precedent for this pattern in the repression after the end of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988). It recalls that Ayatollah Khomeini regarded the conflict as a fresh instantiation of the Battle of Karbala. with the Prophet Muhammed’s grandson killed in 680. After the war ended. the Supreme Leader. aged 89. is described as avenging humiliation by ordering the execution of several thousand political prisoners—many due to be released or not yet tried—and by issuing a fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie for his novel The Satanic Verses.

Those who run Iran’s military. paramilitary. legal. and economic institutions—whether they are driven by ideology or by self-preservation—are described as knowing what an overthrow of a deeply hated regime would mean. The article points to the brutality that was displayed in 1979: vast numbers of extrajudicial executions. victims paraded half-naked. and confiscation of property of former leaders to enrich their bonyads (‘charitable foundations’). The implication is not subtle. People who ordered that kind of violence in 1979, the author argues, also understand what they would face if they fell.

The piece then turns to a scenario described as preferred by many Israeli leaders: the restoration of the Pahlavi monarchy. likened to the Bourbon return to power in 1815. Reza Pahlavi, the son of the dictatorial monarch overthrown in 1979, is described as having learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Almost half a century after paving the way for the Islamic Revolution through its ineptitude. corruption. and repression. the ousted dynasty is said to blow hot and cold—sometimes promising a secular. democratic regime. other times advocating for absolute power.

Still in opposition. Reza Pahlavi is said to need—at least for ‘purely cynical reasons’—to bring together all opposition forces. Yet the article says he has already ordered ‘his’ army to protect ‘the unity of the country’ against what he considers Kurdish ‘separatism’: Kurdish organizations’ demand for cultural. political. and administrative recognition.

The final scenario is an insurrection, something Trump and Netanyahu are said to have encouraged in several conflicting statements. The article stresses that an insurrection is not a spontaneous riot—unlike the kind of mass protest movement Iran has become accustomed to since the first movement in 1999. Instead. it requires logistics. preparation. and armed forces capable of fighting—forces currently available. in this telling. among the ‘minorities’. with the Kurds chief among them.

Repression, the article says, has long been harsher in Kurdistan, where Khomeini declared the Islamic Republic’s first jihad in 1979. Kurdish guerrilla forces have become weaker since 1983, but have not disappeared. The region is described as majority-Sunni. cross-border. carrying a strong sense of national identity. and openly opposed to central. Shiite. Persian power.

The article adds that Donald Trump took the time to personally call two major Iraqi Kurd political figures to discuss ‘future scenarios’, and that on 6 March he said he would support any Kurdish uprising in the country.

All signs. it claims. point to Iranian military installations on the other side of the Iran–Iraq border—above all else a Kurdish–Kurdish border—having been destroyed to lay the groundwork for a potential Kurdish armed revolt. It cites an article published in The Jerusalem Post on 2 March by A.J. Jaff arguing that ‘Iran’s periphery holds the key’ and is its ‘centre of gravity’. But the author ends the scenario with the central obstacle: after betrayals. will Kurdish actors accept the risk without sufficient guarantees that they can pursue their agenda. namely ‘a democratic and federal Iran’?.

The broader war is described as taking place outside any legal framework. underscoring the ineffectiveness of the international community. which calls in sick when it is needed. Yet the article argues this conflict has a historical thread: part of a long chain going back to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. which sets the destruction of Israel as an ultimate objective. and part of a shorter chain beginning with the attacks of 7 October 2023.

Throughout the first chain. Israel is described as demanding the destruction of Iran’s military capacities to ensure its own survival. Since 7 October. the article claims Israel is no longer hiding an ambition: to become the centre of gravity of the Middle East by the 2030s. reshaping the region to suit its ends.

Proof is given in what the article describes as a warm welcome for Narendra Modi in February 2026. where he ‘rhapsodized at length’ on the alliance between the two ‘democracies’ and ‘civilizations’. Netanyahu, it continues, is also seeking to draw Israel into international axes beyond the Middle East. The military alliance forged with Cyprus and Greece is said to have made Israel a major maritime power in the Mediterranean. And after using the war to marginalize opposition. it argues. the coalition of supremacist parties led by Netanyahu—the Israeli prime minister—is now described as a genuine ‘hegemonic bloc’. likely to be returned to power at elections planned for autumn 2026.

Future historians. the article predicts. will see 7 October as a turning point: an opportunity for Israel to take a strategic line that. it says. Washington lacked. It describes U.S. Middle East policies as erratic since the end of the Cold War and says strategic thinking was absent in Washington. pointing back to the contrast with the 2003 invasion of Iraq by Anglo–American forces.

The article also argues that burying the question of a legitimate Palestinian national cause under the ruins of Gaza has helped Israel reduce Hezbollah in Lebanon to tatters. and destroy Syria as an Iranian protectorate. Syria. described as a gateway to Lebanon. is said to have been a crucial strategic zone for Tehran since the beginning of the 1980s.

In September 2013. when Bashar al-Assad’s regime was weakened by the opposition. the article cites former Basij commander Mehdi Taeb explaining his country’s ‘geopolitical’ vision: ‘Syria is the 35th province and a strategic province for [Iran] … If the enemy attacks and aims to capture both Syria and Khuzestan. our priority would be Syria. Because if we hold on to Syria. we would be able to retake Khuzestan; yet if Syria were lost. we would not be able to keep even Tehran.’.

The weakening of Tehran’s power, the article says, began with Hezbollah’s defeat by Israel in 2024 and accelerated past the point of no return with the fall of Assad—over a few days in December of the same year.

Even if the Islamic regime stays in Tehran. it argues it will no longer have the means to achieve its hegemonic ambitions. The article claims it already has precious little legitimacy internationally. and says the political and social dissent of January 2026—where traditional small business-owning middle classes participated for the first time—was so brutal that the state has come to be seen as the embodiment of evil. It then adds that few voices in Europe speak out against the war. and that even those that do insist Tehran is primarily to blame for the conflict.

A winner, the article asks, in the cycle of wars and collapsing states and societies sending shockwaves through the Middle East for decades—only partially linked to the Palestinian question. For 2023–2026, it suggests the answer appears to be yes.

But the caution arrives from history inside the same piece. The author says confidence and certainty make poor advisors. and that power can become a hazard for those who wield it. It cites political philosopher Pierre Hassner, who on the eve of George W. Bush’s ill-advised war in 2003 prophesied that ‘in the long term, the complexity of the world will have its revenge’. In this account, that revenge is the reminder: this time, the warning has not been missed.

The article was originally published in Esprit on 6 March 2026, and the English translation includes some minor revisions. It was published in cooperation with CAIRN International Edition.

Iran Israel Gulf Wars Epic Fury Lion’s Roar Hezbollah Kurdish uprising Pahlavi monarchy Revolutionary Guards Supreme Leader Pierre Hassner Pierre Hassner revenge Boualem Sansal 2084 The Satanic Verses fatwa