At present, the overall scenario is characterized by the nearing completion of SEAD/DEAD operations. In this sense, the takeoff of 17 U.S. tanker aircraft en route to the Middle East on the morning of Tuesday, March 3, represents the clearest signal so far of an imminent intensification of the air campaign.
With SEAD/DEAD operations in an advanced phase and British bases now available, an important targeting with strategic bombers is likely within the next 12 hours, which would allow for a significantly higher volume of firepower than observed in previous days.
This is a dynamic that will likely repeat in the following nights in order to maximize both the number of targets hit and the level of destruction of the same, accelerating the generation of the kinetic effects defined during the planning phase on the long list of targets simultaneously designated. Regarding the duration of the operations, however, if the declared objective is the degradation of Iran’s military-industrial potential, this is a result that requires a campaign of at least three weeks at the current sortie rate.
Moreover, this scenario would require constant reassessment of the situation, also because the analysis of damage caused by bombings (BDA – Bomb Damage Assessment) is necessarily delayed when dealing with such a high number of targets distributed over a large theater and with such a high operational tempo.
The issue remains open regarding the enriched uranium reserves still present in Iran, amounting to about 441 kilograms at 60% according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose securing and possible subsequent exfiltration constitutes a reasonable priority in order to minimize proliferation risks, and which, outside of effective Iranian cooperation, is unlikely to be achieved by the air bombing campaign alone.
The ultimate joint objective of the two operations, therefore, appears in fact to be a regime change.
While Epic Fury intends, in order, to neutralize Iran’s current and prospective missile capabilities, destroy its naval forces, deny Tehran the possibility to develop a military nuclear program, and ultimately prevent it from supporting aligned militias in the region, when combined with the profound institutional disarticulation perpetrated by Roaring Lion, it creates the characteristic conditions for a collapse of the established state order. On the other hand, there is no concrete indicator regarding the methods and timing with which this should translate into institutional subversion: on the ground, no significant protests are recorded nor do signals attributable to the presence of fifth columns emerge.
The scenario that seems most likely to emerge is rather the affirmation, precisely by virtue of the war context, of a military figure oriented towards maximalist positions. In the absence of the emergence of heterodirected and compliant leadership, the conflict increasingly takes on the contours of a war of attrition, predominantly air-missile based. Although it can erode Iran’s offensive potential more than significantly, this dynamic alone may not be sufficient to determine a regime change.
The continuation and evolution of hostilities also appears to be mainly linked to the strength of the regional arsenals of all actors actively or passively involved in the conflict and their respective capacity to sustain the logistical-operational effort over time
