US and Israel launch major offensive against Iran, killing supreme leader Khamenei

On Saturday, the United States and Israel launched a sweeping military campaign against Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, fundamentally altering the balance of power in the Middle East and triggering a regional conflict that has now spread across multiple countries and into Europe.

The strikes did not come without warning. For weeks, Washington had threatened military action if Tehran refused to dismantle its military nuclear program. Four rounds of negotiations in Geneva yielded no agreement. Two days after the final round of talks, American and Israeli warplanes began their assault. What was initially expected to be a limited, surgical strike designed to pressure Iran back to the negotiating table became something far larger—a comprehensive campaign that decapitated the Iranian government's highest authority and left the regime in chaos.

The stated rationale for the operation has been contradictory from the start. The Pentagon's leadership insisted the attacks were not aimed at regime change. Trump himself said otherwise. In a video posted to his Truth Social platform, the president urged Iran's security forces to surrender or "face certain death," and told the Iranian people that once the operation concluded, they would have their chance to seize control of their government—"probably your only opportunity for generations." Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations, saw little ambiguity in Trump's presentation: the objective, she concluded, was regime change, and the Iranian leadership had been left with no exit except surrender.

Trump also cited Iran's missile arsenal as justification, claiming the country was developing long-range weapons capable of reaching American territory and threatening European allies and U.S. troops stationed abroad. Intelligence assessments do not support the assertion that Iran possesses or is close to possessing missiles that can strike the continental United States. Iran does, however, maintain short-range ballistic missiles that pose a genuine threat to American military installations and personnel across the Middle East—a reality demonstrated by Iran's subsequent response.

The scale of the American and Israeli air campaign has been enormous. Thousands of sorties have struck military infrastructure, government buildings, missile production facilities, air defense systems, and command centers. Israeli forces claim to have hit launcher sites and Iranian Revolutionary Guard headquarters. The U.S. military reports attacking Iran's ballistic missile program and the Revolutionary Guard's command structure; at least one Iranian warship was sunk. The human toll has been severe. The Iranian Red Crescent reported 787 deaths across the country. A single strike on a girls' primary school in southern Iran killed at least 175 people, most of them children. The school stood near a Revolutionary Guard naval base, though it remains unclear whether it was deliberately targeted or struck in error.

Iran's retaliation has been swift and widespread. Six American service members died in attacks on U.S. bases in Kuwait. The U.S. embassy in Kuwait was struck by drones, as was the embassy in Riyadh. Three American aircraft were shot down by friendly fire from Kuwaiti air defenses during what the military described as an apparent incident of fratricide; all six crew members ejected safely and were recovered. In Saudi Arabia, Iranian drones triggered a fire at the Ras Tanura oil refinery and were intercepted near Prince Sultan Air Base south of the capital. Israel absorbed at least ten deaths, including nine people killed in a missile strike on Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem—the deadliest single incident since the conflict began. A woman also died in a missile attack on Tel Aviv. The barrages have sent Israelis repeatedly into air raid shelters.

The conflict has rippled across the entire region and beyond. Hezbollah in Lebanon broke a year-long ceasefire with rocket fire, prompting Israeli airstrikes on Beirut and the south, followed by Israeli troop movements across the border. Gulf states allied with Washington or hosting American military bases have absorbed hundreds of Iranian drone and missile strikes. In the United Arab Emirates, luxury hotels in Dubai caught fire, explosions shattered apartment tower windows, and the international airport sustained damage. At least six people died and more than one hundred were wounded across the Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Three of the dead in the Emirates were migrant workers from Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh—a reminder that the region's massive foreign workforce faces particular vulnerability. In Qatar, Iranian strikes hit two energy facilities, prompting QatarEnergy to halt liquefied natural gas production, sending global energy prices surging. Qatar's air force downed two Iranian Su-24 bombers. A British military base in Cyprus was attacked by Iranian drones, pulling Europe directly into the conflict for the first time. France and Greece mobilized fighter jets and frigates to defend the island.

The conflict has also sparked violence far from the battlefield. In Pakistan, at least 22 people died on Sunday as crowds gathered to protest the American and Israeli strikes. At least ten of those deaths occurred when demonstrators attempted to storm the U.S. consulate in Karachi. The war that Gulf governments had openly opposed—caught between their American security guarantor and their now-decapitated, desperate neighbor—has arrived at their doorstep. If the fighting extends beyond three weeks, as Trump has suggested it may last five weeks or longer, American and Israeli arsenals will begin to deplete, and the air defense systems protecting against Iranian missiles will face mounting strain. The regional order that has held for decades is unraveling in real time.