Iran-US-Israel war: Part II - the United States' underestimations.

Late February 2026. Flight tracking enthusiasts found to their surprise, a massive armada of heavy duty C17A Globemaster III transport aircraft of the United States Air Force Air Mobility Wing, setting off from their premier European airbase, Ramstein in Germany, to Al Udeid in Qatar, as well as some bound for other Middle Eastern airbases like Muwaffaq Salti in Jordan and Al Dhafra in the United Arab Emirates.

Little did they know that this mobilization, touted to be the largest since Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, would in mere hours, lead to the start of one of the largest conflicts in the 21st century. Mere hours later, Operation Epic Fury of the United States, Operation Roaring Lion of Israel, and Operation True Promise IV of Iran, would become household names like a wildfire spreading through a forest.

The causes for this conflict are many, and said causes can be debated and argued in great detail and at great length. However, in this article, we will focus on the immediate response of the United States, and its operation in the war, Operation Epic Fury, and its falterings and analyse its position and strategy in inflicting damage to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

This war, started by the United States and Israel, which have given multiple, erratic and inconsistent justifications for triggering the war after the unsuccessful Geneva and Vienna nuclear negotiations. Many varying and sometimes contradicting claims have been made by the United States under the current Donald Trump administration regarding the war, and its increasing involvement is being viewed with very high levels of domestic apathy and suspicion.

Under Epic Fury, The United States has sent massive armadas of transport aircraft, refueler aircraft like the KC-135R “Stratotanker”, fighter platforms such as the F-15, F/A-18, F-22 among others, as well as Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance aircraft such as the P-8 “Poseidon” and the E-3B “Sentry”, according to claims made by the United States Central Command or CENTCOM.

This war is largely being viewed as an existential war, or a war of survival for the current Iranian regime, led by Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the successor and son of the former slain leader Ali Khamenei. Therefore, the risk tolerance of said regime is seen as significantly higher, and is thus tacitly or directly incentivized to move up the escalation ladder much faster than the United States, or even Israel which has been touting this war as an existential one for its own part as well.

The United States in its sudden and hasty declaration of the war is now being seen as having made a gross underestimation of the Iranian regime’s ability and asymmetric warfare capability. Even Iran itself knows that it would not win in a conventional war with the United States alone, let alone with the combined power of Israel and possibly all the Gulf countries in a united front against it. But the real war will not be fought on absolute capability, it will be fought on resilience, and risk tolerances of not only the belligerent parties, but also other secondary dependencies.

Combined with the United States’ very visible deployments and multiple advance warnings to Iran regarding the impending war, gave Iran disproportionate time to prepare, strategize and hunker down for the long run, which is a massive advantage, as opposed to if the element of surprise would have been maintained, which could have yielded much different results to what is playing out right now.

The United States, because of its underestimation of Iranian capabilities, finds its resources being too thinly stretched, with many jumbo transport C-5M “Super Galaxy” aircraft being seen flying from East Asian bases such as Okinawa in Japan, and Osan near Seoul in South Korea to Diego Garcia, the UK-owned airbase in the Mauritian Islands, for forward deployment in the Middle East, thus, making another costly bet on the stability of East Asia in the relative lull of US activity in the critical waters of the South China Sea and the Sea of Japan.

The Hormuz Strait blockade and its resulting current economic fallout as well as the potential of possible future fallout has now forced the US to also order its 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit based in Okinawa to the Persian Gulf in order to carry out escort and protection operations for the ships wanting to traverse the Iran-blockaded Strait, leading to a further drain on its own resources.

But the largest challenge will now be a domestic one. The Trump administration now finds itself staring down the barrel of the mid-term elections due this year. According to the Economist, with a mere 40% approval rating, Donald Trump now finds himself in an increasingly difficult to maintain the razor thin 1 and 3-seat majorities in the House and the Senate respectively, making any further actions incredibly arduous to push through Congress, in most cases, even nigh impossible. It is to be seen in the near future how the US administration handles this paradigm, or does not, since either way, the results will be visible sooner than one may expect.