US Military Operation ‘Epic Fury’ against Iran: Current Phase and Prospects for Diplomacy

The US military operation ‘Epic Fury’ against Iran is ongoing, but the possibility of a diplomatic resolution to the conflict is not ruled out.

Additional army forces are being deployed to the region, including special forces, airborne units, and marines. This is being done to build up the strike group and to potentially conduct limited ground operations. Such operations may embrace seizing the oil-producing island of Kharg or removing remaining enriched uranium from Iranian nuclear facilities. According to The Wall Street Journal, President Trump is considering conducting a military operation to remove approximately 450 kg of uranium from Iran.

Trump regularly boasts of the military successes of his army, emphasising that the campaign will be short and will end in a ‘brilliant victory’ in the near future.

For its part, Iran is not agreeing to capitulate and is not asking for a cessation of hostilities. In other words, Iran has been preparing for this struggle since 1988. It expected to be outmatched in the air. It anticipated strikes aspiring to behead the country and had plans for succession and decentralisation. Such a regime is unlikely to collapse or splinter. It is ready for a protracted war. It continues to counterattack Israeli territory, as well as US military, diplomatic, and economic assets in countries across the Middle East (particularly in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, and Iraq). Tehran is employing a ‘dispersed tactic’ of missile and drone strikes, testing and hitting the enemy’s air and missile defence systems, while also dealing a blow to the military arsenal and economic interests of the United States and Israel. In this regard, it is significant to make note of the damaging of the US aircraft carrier Gerald Ford, the destruction of a costly US Air Force E-3 Sentry airborne early warning and control aircraft (worth up to $700 million) at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, as well as damage to an aluminium plant in Bahrain.

The intensifying airstrikes on Iranian territory are naturally depleting the Iranian side’s defence arsenal. Nevertheless, Tehran retains the capacity for continued command and resistance. The enemy has not succeeded in annihilating the underground military arsenal (missiles, drones, ammunition, etc.) or the naval infrastructure of the army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps........

© New Eastern Outlook