As coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran continue, current and former defense officials say that while a limited strike lasting several days is feasible, sustaining a broader confrontation — one involving potentially hundreds of incoming missiles — is far more complicated.

The U.S. and Israel undertook a mission known as Operation Epic Fury, targeting Iranian leadership and military sites Saturday. Its duration is still unclear, but the campaign may go on for days, according to U.S. officials. 

Sustaining operations beyond the initial window presents a more complex challenge — one shaped by a ‘zero-sum’ competition for missile defense inventories between the Middle East and Europe.

Officials and analysts warn that certain U.S. missile and air-defense interceptor inventories have been severely drawn down by the relentless pace of recent operations. The strategic dilemma for the Pentagon is that the systems required to shield U.S. bases from Iranian retaliation are the same ones being depleted by the defense of Ukraine and the ongoing protection of Israel.

Iran already has fired counterattacks near U.S. positions in Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan, with several host governments saying their air defense systems intercepted incoming projectiles. No U.S. service member fatalities or injuries have been reported as of Saturday, a U.S. official told Fox News Digital. 

U.S. authorities have not publicly released casualty figures or formal damage assessments.

During the intense June 2025 Iran–Israel conflict, U.S. forces fired more than 150 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Interceptors — roughly a quarter of the total global inventory — and a large number of ship-based standard missiles to protect allies, according to published defense assessments.

This shortfall largely is attributed to the dual pressure of supplying Ukraine against Russian cruise missiles and the surge of batteries to the Middle East. Replenishing these high-end systems can take more than a year, analysts say, because production lines are optimized for peacetime and cannot be surged overnight.

Independent groups have noted the U.S. currently produces roughly 600–650 Patriot PAC-3 MSE missiles annually, reflecting recent contracts to boost production capacity. Analysts say that in a high-intensity war with a near-peer adversary like Iran — where multiple interceptors are often used to defeat a single incoming missile — even a year’s worth of production could be consumed in a matter of weeks, especially after recent drawdowns in Ukraine and the Middle East.

‘The Department of War has everything it needs to execute any mission at the time and place of the President’s choosing and on any timeline,’ Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in response to readiness questions.

Retired Air Force Gen. Charles Wald, former deputy commander of U.S. European Command, said the United States retains the ability to surge conventional strike munitions into the region and draw from prepositioned stocks if a campaign is ordered. 

‘From a conventional munition standpoint, we can always fly in more weapons from around the world,’ Wald told Fox News Digital. ‘There are a lot of weapons stored there with this type of mission in mind.’

The greater concern, he acknowledged, lies on the defensive side. 

‘The issue will be defensive weapons — Patriot, SM-3, and the Arrow system in Israel,’ Wald said. ‘You can never have enough defense.’

Regional analysts caution that in a sustained missile exchange, interceptor inventories — not offensive strike weapons — could become the binding constraint. 

‘There is a limit to how many THAAD missiles can be used,’ Israeli defense analyst Ehud Eilam said. ‘These are not systems you can reproduce overnight.’

Iran is believed to possess between 1,500 ballistic missiles and 2,000 ballistic missiles, as well as drones and shorter-range rockets capable of striking U.S. bases and Gulf energy infrastructure.

Several experts also pointed to the psychological impact of recent U.S. operations. 

The swift Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela in January 2026 and summer 2025’s 12-day exchange with Iran have reinforced confidence in American military capability. However, one former defense official cautioned that success in these tightly scoped missions can create a false sense of momentum toward action in far more complex scenarios.

‘Iran is a very different problem,’ the official said — a large, heavily armed state with extensive missile forces and regional proxy networks that would not resemble a short, surgical operation.

Wald acknowledged that risk. 

‘You don’t want to get people so confident that you don’t consider the risks. It’s not going to be as clean or pure as, say, Venezuela was, or the 12-day war.’

Even as the strikes continue, officials warn that retaliation from Iran and its network of allied militias could broaden the conflict. Iran’s ballistic missiles and drones — coupled with allied groups in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen — already have prompted missile salvos against U.S. bases and Gulf partners, according to defense reporting.

Experts say the 2025 conflict underscored how quickly escalation can test both defensive systems and political will. 

‘Once these things break, you own what follows,’ one former official said, underscoring the risk that missiles and proxy actions could quickly widen a limited U.S. strike.

Wald warned that even a successful military phase would not eliminate the political uncertainty. 

‘Bombing Iran is not going to do regime change,’ he said, emphasizing that air power can degrade capability but cannot guarantee a stable political outcome.

Beyond the immediate exchange, officials say the economic consequences could prove just as consequential. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply transits the Strait of Hormuz, and even limited disruption could send global energy markets sharply higher.

For Washington, the strategic calculus extends beyond the Middle East. China remains the primary long-term competitor, with the war in Ukraine already consuming significant resources. 

A sustained regional conflict would draw on naval assets and air-defense systems that planners must also consider for potential future contingencies in Taiwan or North Korea.

Officials familiar with internal deliberations say President Donald Trump has sought a high degree of confidence in how an Iran contingency would unfold — a standard that becomes harder to meet in scenarios involving escalation and political fallout.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.

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Trump issues stern Iran warning as Tehran angrily reacts to speech amid muted world reaction

After radical students overthrew Iran’s shah in 1979 and took hostages in the U.S. embassy, the Middle Eastern nation became a strident and blood-soaked adversary of what its new Islamic fundamentalist dictatorship has long called the ‘Great Satan.’

Since then, Tehran has sponsored terrorism around the globe, including targeting the U.S. in multiple, high-profile instances. Former Reagan Justice Department Chief of Staff Mark Levin said Sunday there are at least 44 examples of Iran targeting Americans either directly or indirectly.

‘The Iranian-Nazi regime … [has] murdered more than 1,000 Americans [and] relentlessly pursued nuclear weapons to use against us — they are genocidal warmongers,’ said Levin, an author, attorney and Fox News Channel host.

The stage for Iran’s transformation from ally to enemy of the U.S. was set in the 1960s, when Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi began clashing with influential Islamic cleric Ruhollah Khomeini. The monarch infuriated the theocrat by liberalizing the national constitution to allow faiths other than Islam to be sworn into office on holy books of their choice.

Khomeini’s rhetoric from France, where he was exiled, intensified during the period known as the White Revolution, including misogynistic and xenophobic sermons and demands that Pahlavi be ousted.

Early aggression toward the US

With Pahlavi as a U.S.-aligned leader, this marked an early instance of antagonism by proxy. As protests engineered by Khomeini broke out in fall 1978, the shah declared martial law, and military police fired on a massive crowd of protesters.

Pahlavi and Empress Farah Pahlavi soon fled on a ‘vacation’ to Egypt but never returned. By February 1979, Khomeini returned to Tehran with significant sectarian support.

Failed Carter strategy develops into hostage crisis

Carter National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski — the father of ‘Morning Joe’ host Mika Brzezinski — coined the term ‘arc of crisis’ and advanced an ultimately failed ‘Green Belt’ strategy that supported an arc of largely unstable but fundamentalist regimes across the Middle East that were also viewed as oppositional to the Soviet Union.

Brzezinski’s envisioned buffer strategy soon collapsed when Khomeini proved to be just as anti-American as anti-Soviet.

In October 1979, after months of debate over whether to admit him to the U.S. amid the new turmoil in Iran, President Jimmy Carter relented and permitted the cancer-stricken shah to seek medical care in New York.

That November, the group ‘Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line’ stormed the U.S. embassy, beginning 444 days of captivity for 52 American hostages.

The U.S. severed diplomatic ties the following April, and one rescue mission failed and left several U.S. servicemembers dead. The shah died that summer in Egypt, leaving Khomeini in full control of the government.

In what was seen as the final offense to Carter, Iran suddenly released the hostages minutes into President Ronald Reagan’s administration on Jan. 20, 1981.

Lebanon hostage crisis

On July 5, 1982, the years-long saga known as the Lebanon Hostage Crisis began with the systematic abductions of foreigners, including Americans, by Hezbollah and Iranian proxies in the Mideast country, according to United Against a Nuclear Iran.

That group, founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Ambassador Mark Wallace, maintains a comprehensive history of Iranian aggression on its website and is a nonpartisan policy organization formed to combat the threats posed by the Islamic Republic.

During the Lebanon Hostage Crisis, several victims spent years imprisoned by Hezbollah, where they were forced to undergo psychological and medical torture, including CIA Beirut Station Chief William Buckley, who was not related to the National Review founder of the same name. 

Buckley was tortured for months by Dr. Aziz al-Abub, a Lebanese Hezbollah psychiatrist and medical expert who reportedly forced him to take phenothiazines and experimented on him to induce interrogation and make an example of him to the West.

Buckley reportedly died in custody amid these experiments on June 3, 1985.

The CIA later memorialized him on its wall in Langley, Va., and Obama-era Director John Brennan said in a 2014 statement that ‘we remember Bill not for the manner in which he died but for the legacy he left behind. From his time as an Army lieutenant colonel to his tenure with the Agency, Bill inspired those around him to do great things despite often dangerous conditions.’

The agency later caught up with the figurehead of the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Jihad terrorist group — carrying out what the Washington Institute described as a rare contemporary CIA assassination nearly 25 years later.

Imad Mughniyeh’s group had announced Buckley’s execution in October 1985, but the actual date was determined later, with allegations that he died not from execution but from the side effects of the medical torture he endured. Former hostage David Jacobsen told the institute that Buckley was often sick and delirious in his cell and ultimately died ‘drowning in his own lung fluids’ after a bout of torture.

David Dodge, then-president of the American University in Beirut, was also kidnapped for about a year, and U.S. journalist Terry Anderson was held in captivity for more than six years.

Reagan-era bombings and murders of American servicemembers

On April 18, 1983, an Iran-backed group seen as the predecessor to today’s Lebanese Hezbollah bombed the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans.

That October, a suicide truck bomb linked to Iran hit a U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, killing 241 servicemembers, in what remains the deadliest single day for the Corps since Iwo Jima.

According to the MEMRI translation of Khomeini’s representative to Lebanon, Sayyed Issa Tabatabai’s interview with the IRNA: ‘I quickly went to Lebanon and provided what was needed in order to [carry out] martyrdom operations in the place where the Americans and Israelis were.’ 

He added, ‘The efforts to establish [Hezbollah] started in [Lebanon’s] Baalbek area, where members of [Iran’s] Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) arrived. I had no part in establishing the [political] party [Hezbollah], but God made it possible for me to continue the military activity with the group that had cooperated with us prior to the [Islamic] Revolution’s victory.’

The MEMRI report continued, ‘It is noteworthy that the part of the interview in which Tabatabai acknowledged receiving Khomeini’s fatwa ordering attacks on American and Israeli targets in Lebanon was removed by IRNA from its website shortly after publication. This is apparently because no official representative of Khomeini, the father of the Islamic Republic, or of Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, had ever said that Iran had any involvement in ordering, planning and carrying out the massive bombings in Lebanon against U.S.’

In 1985, Iran-backed Hezbollah hijacked Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 847 as it departed Athens. The hijackers collected IDs from the passengers and singled out U.S. Navy Seabee Robert Stethem of Waldorf, Md., mistaking him for a Marine and blaming him for involvement in the Lebanese Civil War.

The hijackers tortured Stethem as they flew to Beirut before shooting him dead, dumping him on the tarmac, and shooting him again.

Operation Praying Mantis

In 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf and nearly sank. The Roberts had been escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers as a protective measure.

After the mines were matched to the Iranian ship Ajr, which had been captured by the Americans earlier that year, President Reagan sprang into retaliatory action.

Reagan’s operation destroyed two oil platforms reportedly used as Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) surveillance structures, leading Iran to begin attacking nonmilitary targets.

The mission also claimed two other Iranian ships and was considered the largest naval surface engagement since World War II.

Two Americans died in a helicopter crash during the operation, while dozens of Iranian officers were killed.

Clinton-Bush-Obama era; 9/11

The FBI linked a 1996 attack on an American military housing complex in Saudi Arabia to another Iranian-backed terrorist group.

Hezbollah al-Hejaz was blamed for the Khobar Towers bombing in June of that year, which killed 19 U.S. servicemembers.

In the aftermath of Al Qaeda’s 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole destroyer in Aden, Yemen, American courts found Iran indirectly liable in that it provided support for the terrorists – in part by letting them be trained in Tehran-linked Hezbollah bases in Lebanon.

In 2015, FISA Judge Rudolph Contreras found Iran and Sudan liable, and during the Biden administration. Sudan agreed to settle claims of murdered sailors’ families.

After 9/11, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq, Iran and its proxies were suspected of causing a large portion of American casualties by supplying land mines to the Iraqi Shia insurgents. In 2019, the Department of Defense officially raised its estimate to more than 600 troop casualties directly tied to Iran or its proxies, meaning one in six Iraq War losses were caused by Tehran.

Navy Cmdr. Sean Robertson told the Army Times at the time that ‘these [American] casualties were the result of explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), other improvised explosive devices (IEDs), improvised rocket-assisted munitions (IRAMs), rockets, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), small arms, sniper fire, and other attacks in Iraq.’

During his first term in the White House, President Donald Trump ordered a strike on the IRGC, killing its legendary commander, Qassem Soleimani.

While Iran was not directly implicated as having specific knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, it was found to be complicit in facilitating the planned terrorism.

The report, led by former New Jersey Republican Gov. Tom Kean Sr., found a ‘persistence of contacts’ between Iranian officials and Al Qaeda.

Chapter 7 of the report found that Iran at least knew that the terrorists being trained by Hezbollah were going to act against the U.S. and/or Israel. The findings thereby blew apart critics’ claims that the Sunni terror group could get along with its religious archenemy, the Shia who ran Iran.

Tehran border patrol officials also did not stamp passports of Al Qaeda operatives traveling around the region, as the marking would have been flagged upon application for any U.S. visa.

In 2016, hackers linked to the IRGC were indicted by the Justice Department – including one 34-year-old Iranian national who allegedly gained access to the controls of a major dam in Rye Brook, N.Y., near the confluence of Interstate 287 and the New England Thruway.

In 2011, the U.S. also foiled an IRGC plot targeting the homeland, in which a District of Columbia restaurant was to be bombed to kill Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Adel al-Jubeir.

Iranian-born U.S. citizen Manssoor Arbabsiar and Quds Force member Gholam Shakuri were charged in the incident. Arbabsiar was arrested at New york’s JFK Airport and Shakuri remains at large.

A confidential federal source met with Arbabsiar in Mexico that July, where the suspect agreed to pay $100,000 toward a $1.5 million bounty placed on al-Jubeir, according to the Justice Department.

Then-FBI Director Robert Mueller said at the time that the arrests depict the U.S. ‘increased ability … to bring together the intelligence and law enforcement resources necessary to better identify and disrupt those threats, regardless of their origin.’

Biden era

By 2020, Iran was blamed for several recent attacks on commercial oil tankers, and after Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dispatched ballistic missiles at Al-Asad Air Base in Iraq.

Several dozen U.S. troops were wounded.

After Hamas militants massacred Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah launched about 180 attacks on Western forces in the region, including a drone strike on a base in Jordan that killed three Americans.

Trump era: Assassination plot on the president

After an Afghan-born Iranian proxy and two American men were charged with allegedly trying to hunt down and assassinate an Iranian-born American critic of the ayatollah’s regime, the Justice Department disclosed that Trump was also the subject of a similar assassination plot.

Farhad Shakeri, who had spent 14 years in a New York state prison for robbery and made U.S. contacts to create a ‘network of criminal associates’ to ‘supply the IRGC with operatives’ domestically, was allegedly seeking to kill Masih Alinejad — a journalist who often appears on Fox News Channel.

Shakeri remained at large, likely in Iran, as of 2024, but his American counterparts were put on trial in Brooklyn.

Jonathon Loadholt of Staten Island and Carlisle Rivera of Brooklyn allegedly ‘were recruited as part of that network to silence and kill, on U.S. soil, an American journalist who has been a prominent critic of the regime,’ according to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland.

‘We will not stand for the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people and America’s national security,’ Garland said, as the criminal complaint suggested Shakeri and Rivera first met while serving time.

The two men stalked Alinejad and were also accused of rotating plates on Loadholt’s car to avoid suspicion, while then-FBI Director Christopher Wray mentioned Trump as another target of an Iranian plot in a related statement on the Alinejad case.

Shakeri reportedly spoke to the FBI voluntarily from Iran, where he disclosed efforts to assassinate Trump, according to The New York Times.

Shakeri said he was told to create a plan to kill Trump after an IRGC meeting that October and that, if he could not, the assumption from the militia was that Trump would lose to Kamala Harris and be ‘easier to assassinate’ while out of office.

‘Thanks to the hard work of the FBI, their deadly schemes were disrupted.  We’re committed to using the full resources of the FBI to protect our citizens from Iran or any other adversary who targets Americans,’ Wray said in a statement at the time.

Trump has since warned Iran repeatedly to back down, with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth overseeing 2025 airstrikes on nuclear facilities, and the administration ultimately taking what it described as long-term military action to force regime change.

‘Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,’ Trump said Saturday.

Fox News Digital’s Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.

Iran entered a new chapter Saturday after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed, abruptly ending more than three decades of authoritarian rule and setting in motion a leadership transition the regime has long prepared.

A senior Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel that while Khamenei’s demise is a ‘massive blow’ to the Islamic Republic, Tehran anticipated the possibility and took steps to withstand such a scenario.

‘Mere survival, at this point, would be considered a victory,’ the diplomat said of the regime, according to the outlet, following U.S. and Israeli strikes across the country.

A recent report from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) outlined three broad trajectories for a post-Khamenei Iran: managed regime continuity, an overt or creeping military takeover, or systemic collapse.

CFR cautioned that even a leadership change at the top would not necessarily translate into meaningful political reform in the near term, given the regime’s deeply institutionalized power structure and its record of using force to maintain control.

The report notes that the real balance of power rests within a tight circle of clerical elites and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

It describes a likely ‘continuity’ scenario as producing ‘Khamenei-ism without Khamenei,’ in which a successor from within the regime preserves the ideological framework of the Islamic Republic while relying on established security institutions to preserve stability.

‘The Islamic Republic’s constitution includes a succession process. The Assembly of Experts, a clerical body, is constitutionally charged with selecting the next supreme leader,’ Jason Brodsky, policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told Fox News Digital. 

‘In the interim, should there be a leadership vacancy, an interim leadership council is formed comprised of the president, chief justice, and a member of the Guardian Council selected by the Expediency Council,’ he added. ‘The IRGC is a key stakeholder in this process, and will heavily influence its outcome.’

Over the past three decades, the Bayt-e Rahbari, or the Office of the Supreme Leader, expanded into what a February report by UANI described as a ‘sprawling parallel state’ operating alongside Iran’s formal institutions.

The analysis characterizes the Office as the regime’s ‘hidden nerve center,’ extending control across the military, security establishment and major economic foundations in ways that make the system’s authority institutional rather than dependent on Khamenei’s physical presence.

‘The supreme leader today is no longer just one man; he is represented through an all-encompassing institution that consolidates power, manages succession, and guarantees continuity,’ the non-partisan policy organization said. ‘The Islamic Republic’s most enduring strength lies in this hidden architecture of control, which will continue to shape the country’s future long after Khamenei himself departs from the scene.’

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World leaders split over military action as US-Israel strike Iran in coordinated operation

New York City’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing blowback from conservatives on social media over his post condemning the U.S. attack on Iran that led to the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

On Saturday, as a joint strike on Iran by the United States and Israel was developing, Mamdani blasted the Trump administration’s decision in a post on X that has been viewed roughly 20 million times. 

‘Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression,’ Mamdani wrote.

‘Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war. Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change.’

Mamdani said Americans prefer ‘relief from the affordability crisis’ before speaking directly to Iranians in New York City.

‘You are part of the fabric of this city — you are our neighbors, small business owners, students, artists, workers, and community leaders,’ Mamdani said. ‘You will be safe here.’

The post was quickly slammed by conservatives on social media making the case that Mamdani’s response appeared sympathetic to Iran’s brutal regime and pointing to his lack of public reaction to the Iranian protesters killed in recent years.

‘Comrade Mayor is rooting for the Ayatollah,’ GOP Sen. Ted Cruz posted on X. ‘They can chant together.’

‘Do u say anything pro American ?’ Fox News host Brian Kilmeade posted on X. ‘do u know any Iranians – ? they hate @fr_Khamenei they celebrate his death, you should be celebrating his death ! hes killed thousands of American’s and just killed 30k Iranians, did u even say a word about that? You are an embarrassment !! Please quit.’

‘I don’t feel safe in New York listening to someone like you, Mamdani, who sympathizes with the regime that killed more than 30,000 unarmed Iranians in less than 24 hours,’ Iranian American journalist Masih Alinejad posted on X. 

‘We Iranians do not allow you to lecture us about war while you had nothing to say when the Islamic Republic shot schoolgirls and blinded more than 10,000 innocent people in the streets. You were busy celebrating the hijab while women of my beloved country Iran were jailed and raped by Islamic Security forces for removing it. 

‘And NOW you find your voice to defend the regime? No. I will not let you claim the moral high ground. The people of Iran want to be free. Where were you when they needed solidarity?’

‘How is it that you can’t differentiate between good and evil?’ Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman posted on X. ‘Why is this so hard for you?’

‘It takes a particular kind of audacity, or ignorance, for a city mayor to appoint himself the conscience of American foreign policy while his constituents step over garbage on their way to work,’ GOP Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X. ‘History will not remember his bravery. It will not remember him at all.’

‘Iranian New Yorkers are thrilled today and see right through you,’ Republican New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino posted on X. 

‘When Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, UAE, Bahrain all support today’s operation eliminating world’s #1 sponsor of terror, but New York City’s Mayor @ZohranMamdani is shilling for Iran,’ Republican New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov posted on X. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani’s office for comment.

Shortly after Mamdani’s post, it was announced by President Trump and Israeli officials that the military operation resulted in Khamenei’s death.

Israeli leaders confirmed Khamenei’s compound and offices were reduced to rubble early Saturday after a targeted strike in downtown Tehran.

‘Khamenei was the contemporary Middle East’s longest-serving autocrat. He did not get to be that way by being a gambler. Khamenei was an ideologue, but one who ruthlessly pursued the preservation and protection of his ideology, often taking two steps forward and one step back,’ Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of FDD’s Iran program, told Fox News Digital.

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Omar, Squad lash out at Trump in response to Iran strike: ‘Illegal regime change war’

Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Amir-Saeid Iravani condemned U.S. strikes against Iran that targeted the country’s military leadership and killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, calling the attack a double standard and promising the country would defend itself at a U.N. Security Council meeting Saturday.

Iravani accused the U.S. of undermining its claims of pursuing international stability while attacking a sovereign country for its ‘domestic’ activities.

‘Neither the charter nor international law recognize internal matters of a state as justification for the use of force by other states. The rule of law would be replaced by the rule of force,’ Iravani said.

‘Iran will continue to exercise its right of self-defense decisively and without hesitation until the aggression ceases in full and unequivocal terms.’

On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump ordered the execution of Operation Epic Fury, citing Tehran’s continued efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.

‘It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. I’ll say it again. They can never have a nuclear weapon,’ Trump said in remarks about the attack Saturday.

Trump said the strikes were meant to ‘defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime’ and that they had come after Iran had refused to abandon plans to develop nuclear capabilities.

Iravani called the attack a continuation of longstanding U.S. aggression against Iran.

‘Mr. president, this morning the United States regime, jointly and in coordination with the Israeli regime, initiated an unprovoked and premeditated aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran for the second time in recent months,’ Irvani said, referring to strikes the U.S. carried out against its nuclear enrichment sites last year.

‘The president of the United States and the prime minister of the Israeli regime have openly claimed responsibility for this act of aggression and have explicitly articulated regime change as their objective, an unmistakable admission of their intent to violate Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.’

U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz pushed back on Iravani’s characterizations.

‘For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted, quote, ‘Death to America’ at every turn. At every opening, it has sought to eradicate the state of Israel. It has waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder,’ Waltz said.

Iravani did not address the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran on its nuclear development plans.

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Bipartisan revolt targets Trump’s war powers after massive Iran strikes

Ben Rhodes, a leading figure within the Obama administration who pushed for the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, was blasted on social media Saturday after he criticized U.S. military strikes on Iran. 

In the immediate aftermath of the joint attack by the U.S. and Israel, Rhodes was posting criticism of the administration on social media saying that Trump and Netanyahu ‘seem to be totally unconcerned about the human beings – on all sides – who will suffer.’

‘Trump’s second term has been the worst case scenario,’ Rhodes said in another X post. 

Rhodes was quickly ridiculed by many conservatives on social media who pointed to the Obama-era Iran deal as a catalyst for allowing the situation to escalate to this point and placing blame on the Obama administration for not taking the threat from Iran seriously.

‘Yes we were much better off with a president who drew redlines and failed to enforce them,’ American Enterprise Institute fellow and Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen posted on X. ‘Team Obama might want to sit this one out.’

‘Oh look the guy who literally created this mess in the first place has chimed in,’ Republican digital operative Alec Sears posted on X. 

‘You were part of the team who gave billions of dollars to the Iranian Regime – you helped fund this terror on human beings,’ former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell posted on X. ‘Once again, President Trump is cleaning up your mess.’

‘You had eight years to do something on this issue,’ Red State writer Bonchie posted on X. ‘Instead, you became a foreign operative doing everything you could to preserve an Islamist regime.’

‘You put these circumstances in place.’

‘The Obama crew weeps for the mullahs,’ former Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh posted on X. 

‘Ben Rhodes bears responsibility for how America got to this point,’ Middle East geopolitical analyst and Red Ax Strategies President Matthew Brodsky posted on X. ‘He is a spineless agent of influence for the regime in Iran. It’s taken years to undo the damage of his foreign policy.’

On Saturday afternoon, it was reported that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled the Islamic Republic for more than three decades, was killed in the strike against Iran.

Israeli leaders confirmed Khamenei’s compound and offices were reduced to rubble early Saturday after a targeted strike in downtown Tehran.

‘Khamenei was the contemporary Middle East’s longest-serving autocrat. He did not get to be that way by being a gambler. Khamenei was an ideologue, but one who ruthlessly pursued the preservation and protection of his ideology, often taking two steps forward and one step back,’ Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of FDD’s Iran program, told Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter contributed to this report.

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Omar, Squad lash out at Trump in response to Iran strike: ‘Illegal regime change war’

Iran’s militant and unyielding supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled the Islamic Republic for more than three decades and oversaw an era of harsh internal repression and confrontation with the United States and Israel, has died following the Israeli strike in Tehran, as his compound was reduced to rubble, a senior Israeli official told Fox News Digital.

‘Khamenei was the contemporary Middle East’s longest-serving autocrat. He did not get to be that way by being a gambler. Khamenei was an ideologue, but one who ruthlessly pursued the preservation and protection of his ideology, often taking two steps forward and one step back,’ Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of FDD’s Iran program, told Fox News Digital. 

‘Khamenei’s worldview was shaped by his militant anti-Americanism and antisemitism, which first manifested itself in his protests against the Shah of Iran,’ he added.

Born April 19, 1939, in Mashhad, eastern Iran, Khamenei was among the Islamist activists who played a central role in the 1979 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. A close ally of Iran’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Khamenei rose through the new system and served as president from 1981 to 1989 before becoming supreme leader after Khomeini’s death that same year.

Decades in power, Khamenei consolidated control over Iran’s political and security system, presiding over repeated crackdowns on dissent and maintaining a hardline posture toward Washington and Jerusalem.

‘Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule has been marked by unrelenting brutality and repression, both within Iran and beyond its borders,’ said Lisa Daftari, an expert on Iran and editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk. She pointed to executions and the enforcement of strict social controls as defining features of the system under Khamenei’s leadership.

His ultra-conservative style of leadership did face challenges, however. In 2009, following disputed elections in which Khamenei declared victory for the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, massive protests erupted across the country.

Mass demonstrations also broke out in 2022 after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, died while detained by the morality police for allegedly wearing her headscarf improperly. The protests were brutally put down, with many of those arrested and put to death by his regime.

In late December, Iran was again rocked by protests and a fierce brutal security response. According to an Iran International investigation, as many as 30,000 people may have been killed across two days, Jan. 8 to 9, 2026.

International monitors and rights groups have repeatedly documented high execution numbers in Iran in recent years as well. Amnesty International said Iranian authorities executed more than 1,000 people in 2025, calling it the highest yearly figure the organization recorded in at least 15 years. Separately, a U.N. report said Iran executed at least 975 people in 2024, the highest number since 2015.

Across the region, Khamenei invested heavily in Iran’s network of allied militias and armed groups, a strategy used to project Iranian power beyond its borders. From the West Bank and Gaza, where he backed terror groups such as Hamas, to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi extremists in Yemen, as well as other militant militias in Iraq, Iran under Khamenei’s spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the terror groups.

However, his prized proxies, as well as the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, collapsed under Israeli military pressure following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. During a 12-day war in June 2025, Israel also succeeded in taking out some of Khamenei’s closest aides and senior security figures, leaving the long-serving leader significantly weakened.

Yet analysts argue that Khamenei’s most enduring legacy may be the institutional machinery he built at home to safeguard the system.

A recent report by United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), authored by Saeid Golkar and Kasra Aarabi, describes the Bayt, the Office of the Supreme Leader, as a parallel structure embedded across Iran’s military, economy, religious institutions and bureaucracy.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Aarabi said, ‘It is the hidden nerve center of the regime in Iran… it operates as a state within a state.’ He argued that even Khamenei’s removal would not necessarily dismantle the system. ‘Even if he is eliminated, the Bayt as an institution enables the Supreme Leader to function,’ Aarabi said, adding, ‘Think of the Supreme Leader as an institution rather than just a single individual.’

Aarabi also warned that ‘eliminating Khamenei in isolation on its own is not enough,’ calling for a broader strategy aimed at the wider apparatus surrounding the supreme leader. ‘You have to dismantle this extensive apparatus that he has created,’ he said.

‘Unlike Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Republic, Khamenei institutionalized his power. Today, the Islamic Republic is more a product of Khamenei than Khomeini,’ FDD’s Ben Taleblu added.

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The Islamic Republic of Iran has built a coalition of largely Shiite terrorist proxies — the axis of resistance — that will join Tehran in counterstrikes in response to the joint U.S.-Israel preventive attacks on Iran’s military installations and leadership.

The most dangerous of Iran’s allies is its main strategic partner, the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah. 

Israel’s army had been intensely targeting Hezbollah positions ahead of the U.S. campaign, Operation Epic Fury.

Hezbollah

The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) is obligated to disarm Hezbollah, according to the November 2024 ceasefire with Israel. 

‘In Lebanon, we continue to act daily against attempts by the Hezbollah terrorist organization to rebuild and rearm,’ Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Effie Defrin said Friday.

‘An example of this is the strike we carried out yesterday in the Baalbek area, during which we targeted ammunition depots and eliminated terrorists from the Radwan Force. We will not allow Hezbollah to rebuild its capabilities and pose a threat to Israeli civilians.’

An official from Hezbollah said Wednesday that the jihadi terrorist organization will not intervene militarily if the U.S. delivers ‘limited’ strikes on Iran. Yet the Hezbollah official said the organization regards any attack against Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a ‘red line.’

According to the Israel-based Alma Research and Education Center (Alma), ‘Hezbollah fields a substantial combat force, estimated at around 40,000-50,000 active combatants and an additional 30,000-50,000 reservists. Central to its offensive structure is the Radwan Unit, which Hezbollah is making major efforts to rebuild and restore.’

IDF Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, president and founder of Alma in northern Israel, told Fox News Digital the ‘Lebanese army is not putting much effort into disarming Hezbollah. The outcome of that is good intentions are just words. As a resident of the north, I have not seen any systematic disarmament.’

Edy Cohen, a Lebanese-born Israeli scholar of Hezbollah, told Fox News Digital the ‘Lebanese population does not see Hezbollah as resistance’ because Hezbollah lost its recent war against Israel. He said Hezbollah failed in its efforts to aid Hamas in Gaza to defeat Israel after its Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of the Jewish state.

Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces

The second Iranian-backed proxy is the Shiite militia movement in Iraq. Entifadh Qanbar, a former spokesman for the deputy prime minister of Iraq, told Fox News Digital he believes the Shiite militia will join Iran in the war.

‘Many second-tier Shia leaders, militia lords, as I like to call them, harbor ambitions to rise and challenge the aging top-tier top leadership,’ Qanbar said. ‘They have accumulated enormous wealth, and the only way they can compete with the old guard is by proving to Iran that they are bold, reckless and ready to fight in defense of Tehran.

‘Their ambitions have blinded their rational thinking. These are militia terrorists with little understanding of the outside world, yet they are dangerously overconfident. They are loose cannons, completely out of control, and Iran is prepared to throw them into the fire because they are expendable. That is why you see Kataeb Hezbollah in Iraq issuing threats, while older, more established militias like Hezbollah Lebanon have made it clear they will not participate.’

The pro-Iran Iraqi militia accuses the U.S. of bombing it and pledged a retaliatory response on Saturday. Kataeb Hezbollah said the U.S. is responsible for a strike that targeted an Iraqi military base that houses the Iranian proxy militia. The Iraqi terrorist group says it will ‘soon start assaulting American bases in response to their attacks.’

Houthis

The third wing of the axis of resistance is the Houthi movement in Yemen.

The Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have decided to resume missile and drone attacks on shipping routes and on Israel in support of Iran, according to two senior Houthi officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because there is no official announcement from the Houthi leadership, according to The Associated Press.

One of the officials said the rebels’ first attack could come as soon as ‘tonight.’ Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip is also part of the axis of resistance and Hamas and Iran are also partners in their campaigns to destroy the Jewish state.

THE Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Four people were injured in a hotel fire in Palm Jumeirah area of Dubai after a loud explosion was reportedly heard as the Iranian regime launched retaliatory strikes in the Middle East.

The Dubai Media Office, a government entity, said in a statement Saturday that the site was secured and the fire had been contained.

‘The safety and wellbeing of residents and visitors remain the highest priority. Authorities continue to take all necessary measures to safeguard the public. The public is urged to remain calm, rely solely on verified information from official sources, and refrain from circulating videos or images on social media,’ the media office wrote on X.

Dubai authorities confirmed that ‘an incident’ occurred in a building in the Palm Jumeirah area and emergency response teams responded, although they did not elaborate on what caused the incident.

Reports suggest United Arab Emirates forces intercepted an Iranian air attack in retaliation for U.S. forces conducting Operation Epic Fury against Iran.

Iran’s retaliation against the U.S. and Israel’s attacks has been focused on Israel and U.S. assets in the Middle East. Explosions have reportedly been heard in several countries hosting U.S. forces, including Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan.

Many Gulf states condemned Iran’s retaliatory strikes on their territories and affirmed solidarity with their neighbors in the region.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said it reserves its ‘full right’ to defend itself after what it described as Iranian aggression targeting Qatari territory, while Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry warned of ‘grave consequences resulting from the continued violation of states’ sovereignty and the principles of international law.’

The United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Defense said the country ‘was subjected to a blatant attack involving Iranian ballistic missiles,’ adding that air defense systems ‘successfully intercepted a number of missiles.’ It stated the UAE ‘reserves its full right to respond.’

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FBI Director Kash Patel said Saturday that he has placed the bureau’s counterterrorism and intelligence teams on high alert as U.S. operations against Iran unfold.

‘Last night, I instructed our Counterterrorism and intelligence teams to be on high alert and mobilize all assisting security assets needed,’ Patel wrote on X. ‘Our JTTFs throughout the country are working 24/7, as always, to address and disrupt any potential threats to the homeland.’

Patel added that while the U.S. military is handling force protection overseas, the FBI ‘remains at the forefront of deterring attacks here at home’ and will continue working around the clock to protect Americans.

A law enforcement source said the shift typically means the bureau would increase surveillance of priority suspects, task confidential sources and review technical intelligence collection.

The heightened posture follows ongoing U.S. strikes on Iranian targets as tensions escalate across the region.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she is ‘in direct coordination with our federal intelligence and law enforcement partners as we continue to closely monitor and thwart any potential threats to the homeland.’

The alert also unfolds during a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

Jason Pack, a retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent and Fox News contributor, said heightened vigilance is standard practice when U.S. military operations intersect with adversaries that have historically responded through indirect or unconventional retaliation.

‘The intelligence and counterterrorism communities work on this kind of scenario continuously, long before any conflict begins,’ Pack said. ‘When the United States commits to a joint military campaign with Israel, the domestic threat environment doesn’t simply remain static. It could shift, potentially significantly.’

Pack said adversarial actors — including Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas’s external networks and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps proxies — have historically demonstrated both intent and, in some cases, the capability to respond to American military commitments.

Pack said such steps reflect a proactive posture.

‘This is not reactive,’ he said. ‘It’s an ongoing discipline built into the daily work of understanding threats before they materialize.’

Meanwhile, the U.S. Secret Service said it is actively monitoring the situation and coordinating with federal and local partners. The agency said its protective model is adaptable to the current security environment and that the public may notice an increased law enforcement presence around protected sites.

In Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Police Department said it is closely monitoring events in Iran and coordinating with local, state and federal partners to safeguard residents and visitors.

‘At this time, there are no known threats to DC,’ the department said. ‘We are prepared to increase our presence as needed.’

Police urged residents to remain vigilant and report suspicious activity.

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