The Biggest Surprise, So far, Within Operation Epic Fury, March 2, 2026 | Sundance |

 

The Biggest Surprise, So far, Within Operation Epic Fury

 

March 2, 2026 | Sundance |

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

Posted in Big Government, Deep State, Iran, Operation Epic Fury, President Trump, Uncategorized