At least from my limited perspective, the biggest surprise coming from Operation Epic Fury so far is the counterstrike reaction from Iran toward the rest of the region. I have reached out to several people about this, and everyone has a different response.
Within a few hours of the operation against Iran beginning, the Iranian regime began firing counterstrikes against the entire Arab region. Instead of their traditional approach toward striking back at limited U.S. military bases in/around Iraq and/or Israel, Iran began firing missiles and drones into the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain.
Brief recap map of the first 24 hours of attack sites, contrast with a map of known U.S. military bases.
This seemingly wanton striking out against the entire middle east region was not something CTH expected to see.
Additionally, the Iranian targets were not just limited to U.S. military bases, the missiles and drones were launching toward all kinds of random infrastructure throughout the Arab world. Most of these missiles and drones have been intercepted; however, no one has yet established a reasonable thesis as to why Iran chose this approach.
In a recent interview with Jake Tapper, President Trump also said the White House and Pentagon were surprised at the civilian targets selected by Iran for retaliatory strikes. The White House, State Dept and U.S. military did not expect to see Iran retaliate against regional allied partners, and the reaction has been for the Arab countries to be even more supportive of the attacks against Iran.
All of the Arab countries that seemingly would have sat on the sidelines and given tacit support, are now openly providing support and even expressing a willingness to get involved with their own military to assist. This is a first.
That said, the action by Iran doesn’t change the approach the U.S. is taking, but it does beg the question: why are they doing it?
Again, these are not U.S. military installations being targeted; Iran isn’t just shooting missiles and drones at U.S. bases, they are targeting nonmilitary infrastructure and even civilian targets (hotels, apartment buildings, commercial real estate).
The expenditure of the Iranian counterstrike armament, the targets they are selecting, doesn’t gain Iran any material benefit. So, why do it?
Any thoughts?
President Donald Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper in a nine-minute phone interview Monday morning that the US military is “knocking the crap” out of Iran – but the “big wave” is yet to come.https://t.co/0rhIowcppw pic.twitter.com/sWLrvDLmVi
— CNN (@CNN) March 2, 2026
Jake Tapper notes President Trump has said “a big wave is yet to come,” meaning the U.S is prepared to launch another phase against Iran that will hit even harder than the current targeting of military assets and infrastructure.
I’m left to wonder if the regional targeting by Iran is strategic, or if their top tiers of military command structure were so devastated the local command centers were essentially left to use their own targeting decisions, and that led to a random set of launches at just about everything they could program as a target set.
However, a “big wave yet to come” might make sense, if you think about Iran’s seemingly wanton striking at every regional nation as probing to destroy radar capacity and air defenses.
If Iran is holding back strategic hypersonic missiles for later strikes after probing or degradation strikes, then yes as soon as those hypersonic launch locations surface there would need to be a massive blitz of overwhelming force to preempt the launches.
Essentially, what a person might call “a big wave yet to come.”
Iran continues to maliciously launch ballistic missiles, indiscriminately targeting military and civilian locations throughout the region. U.S. forces remain on the hunt to eliminate this threat. As the President has said, our resolve has never been stronger. pic.twitter.com/SDdvaL38yp
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 2, 2026
BREAKING: The UAE is projected to exhaust its interceptor missile stock within one week at the current rate of fire, and Qatar within four days; both are urgently seeking additional military support from the United States – Bloomberg
— Faytuks Network (@FaytuksNetwork) March 2, 2026
UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain do not have nukes. There is a limit to what Iran can do to the US and Israel.
POTUS’ efforts to consolidate the Middle East via the Abraham Accord is now making mores sense. There is a method to this madness. Instead of sitting by passively, they are now engaged. May the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and us keep us safe from the enemy. And may He bless us to do His will.
By attacking the entire region, Iran wants to widen the war into a multi-nation circular firing squad, hunker down and see who remains standing. Strategy by deflection, my guess.
Iran expects major unrest in the ME once all of their neighbors are engulfed, at least, in the effects/collateral damage of war. This of course puts huge strain on the US/Allies (do we have any?) to defend a much larger area.
Its their ‘Operation Chaos’.
Iran also knows that, should the current regime survive, they’ll be forgiven by the neighbors they are bombing because they’ll just claim “it was necessary to defeat the great evil”. And sadly, that will work.
NATO countries are certainly no longer our Allies… You can count out Canada and the EU… We are actually allied with Hungary and a few South/Central American countries…
Being allied with Russia would be our best bet for world peace, if our politicians would just “wake up and smell the roses”…
Uh, if my mortal enemy, who lives in the next town over, was using my completely neutral neighbor’s home to throw grenades into my back yard, where my children were playing, I would probably want to burn my completely neutral neighbor’s home to the ground.
Since Israel has more spies in countries than any other I wouldn’t rule out the Iranian strikes are being targeted by Israeli/Western forces to force support of Israel. Proof? Of course not. Israel wants land more than anything and we know they will do ANYTHING to defend themselves.
Yes, of course, those damn joos are causing all our problems….
All of this is occurring during the time of the Jewish Holiday of Purim.
Queen Esther thwarted Haman’s plan to annihilate the Jewish people .
He had convinced the King of Persia to carry this out. Queen Esther convince the King
to annihilate Haman and his sons instead.
The Ayatollah was the modern day Haman.
With that background, let’s remember when the Israelites left Egypt and were at the Sea of Reeds
when the Egyptian army was hot on their tail.
God, through Moses, parted the sea and the Israelites crossed.
The Egyptians, ABANDONING ALL REASON, followed them, and were drowned.
The miracle of the parting of the sea was not as great as was the removal of the Free Will of the Egyptians.
Any military man who had just experienced the 10 Plagues, would have realized that the dry land in the middle of the sea
was for the now free slaves to cross, not for them. They would have not followed.
I think that is exactly what is happening here.
God has removed the free will of the Persian army and has forced them to act against their own best interests.
maybe they are baiting us into using our cache up first then strike more strategic targets after most of the region’s armament is used up….making us fire off more than we would have …
It is the Shi’a muslims getting last licks (for the time being) in against the Sunni muslims; it is an ancient power struggle.
“Sunni and Shi’a Muslims share the core beliefs of Islam: … The key differences revolve around religious authority and historical memory. Regarding leadership and authority, Sunnis do not believe any one person after the Prophet has divine authority. …”
https://religionunplugged.com/news/2026/3/4/islam-sunni-shia-the-difference-and-why-it-matters-irani
Iran knows their energy infrastructure will eventually be targeted, so they are striking GCC energy infrastructure while they still possess the offensive capability to do so. Iran is in a use it or loose it situation with their missiles and lauchers. They know its only a matter of time before they are destroyed on the ground in Iran if they dont use them now.
The “civilian” targets are being struck becasue they are soft and it is a significant hit to the tourism industry, stability and prestiege, espesialy in the UAE.
As Shi’a Muslims, they may be trying to bring about the appearance of the Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi, following this now centuries long Major Occultation with an Apocalypse.
This should not surprise anyone. These people have been bothering everyone and at this point have nothing left but to lash out. CBN has been speculating for a while about Iran taking out whatever it can hit.