Operation Epic Fury Looks Like an Epic Failure

Are we heading for the mother of all TACOs?

It is now 10 days since the beginning of ‘Operation Epic Fury,’ launched during the Jewish celebration of Purim. I think we can now conclude this looks like one of the worst thought-out military operations in recent memory.

* There is still no sign of major domestic unrest in Iran. The figures like 30,000 dead protesters were always unbelievable, but whatever hopes liberal reformers had before the strikes, the actual outcome of the strikes on Iranian politics has been to put a more hardline faction in charge and galvanise the country against a state that opened the war bombing an elementary school which killed 160+ children.

* There is likely no military means by which the US can keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Even with American/Israeli air dominance, it cannot destroy Iranian drone production faster than Iran can sustain or rebuild it. According to Western estimates, Shahed drones are already produced in the thousands per month, and the best analysis of this I have seen based on recent battlefield evidence concludes it would be many months before drone production becomes degraded enough to protect the Strait.

* Many of Iran’s drones are already produced at dual-use plants and they can repurpose other civilian plants. There is probably no way America can eliminate this threat enough to secure the Strait without a ground invasion. People are waving this away by pointing to America’s air power, but Nazi Germany reached its peak production of airplanes in 1944 while the country was under relentless bombardment.

* Iran still possesses hundreds of cruise and anti-ship missiles designed specifically to target vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, many deployed on mobile launchers along the coast. Even with air superiority, suppressing a dispersed arsenal like that without a ground campaign would be extremely difficult.

* Oil markets are now pricing in the risk of prolonged disruption, and if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed this could become the largest supply shock in modern history. Every Western economy is already on the brink, with little room left to manoeuvre on debt or interest rates.

* Aside from oil, the Strait closing gives the world a major disruption in fertiliser exports; and nearly half the world’s sulfur which is used for extracting phosphate for fertilizer, as well as copper and uranium extraction. This means that a long disruption could cascade into semiconductor and data-centre supply chains.

* The US is spending about >$1.4 billion a day on this war, with Iran now in control of a civilizational choke point maintained by $20,000 drones.

* Rather than give the Iranians an easy off-ramp Trump has demanded UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER, treated all regime politicians and heads of state as legitimate targets for assassination, and made it clear any negotiations conducted by America/Israel will be done in bad faith.

It’s hard to see how America comes away with anything like a victory from this. Trump resisted an Iran war throughout his first term because of his fear about the knock-on effects on oil, but it seems the success of the Venezuela action has led to hubris.

One thing about Trump though, whether on tariffs or Greenland, he has always been willing to reverse course when markets got spooked. At this point I think the most likely outcome is the mother of all TACOs with Trump declaring total victory and rapidly de-escalating. But Israel is absolutely committed to at least a month’s long war with Iran, and all America can offer Iran is a return to the same unstable status quo that makes an eventual resumption of war inevitable. Even if Trump decides he wants an off-ramp, he has fundamentally changed the structure of the conflict. The likely result is that Iran re-establishes deterrence across the Gulf, which will be hard to read as anything but a strategic defeat for the United States.