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Epic Fury and the New West Asian Order: Decoding the Causes, Effects and Aftermath of Endgame

The Middle East has never been a quiet land. Empires have marched across it, prophets have risen from it, and great powers have repeatedly tried to bend it to their will. In 1918, they carved up the Ottoman Empire. Oil transformed its deserts into prize territory. Israel’s creation redrew its political map. The 1979 Iranian Revolution electrified its ideological battles. And in 2003, the American invasion of Iraq once again shook its foundations. Each was called a turning point at the time. And each truly was. What happened last Friday (28 February 2026) belongs in that company of momentous historical events. On 28th Feb, the US-Israel nexus launched ‘Operation Epic Fury’ targeting Iran and firstly, killing the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. We all know what has happened since then. But let us dig deep, look into the reasons, long standing obstacles that led to this escalation and its plausible consequences.


Why does the U.S.–Israel–Iran Triangle Refuse to Settle?


Iran, once a trusted ally of Israel has turned into its most formidable nemesis after the 1979 Islamic revolution. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a leading Shia cleric, arrived in Tehran in February 1979 from exile in Paris. Shia Islamists, under Khomeini’s leadership, took over the reins of the country and turned it into an Islamic Republic, a semidemocratic, theocratic state. The new Iran declared “liberation” of Jerusalem one of its key objectives. And Jerusalem became the cause of another newly born rivalry. For the revolutionaries, Israel- the occupier of Palestine- became ‘little Satan’ and the US, which had orchestrated the 1953 coup against nationalist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossaddegh and had been the principal backer of the Shah, was the ‘great Satan’.


Rivalry after 1979 and its trajectory till ‘Epic Fury’


The 1979 revolution did not only transform Iran. For the Islamist regime, the alliance was an anti-Islam one. From the geopolitical perspective, the Islamist regime also got the impetus to establish its legitimacy in the Islamic world as other leader states like Saudi Arabia were already tilted towards the US. At the time when Arab countries- even if still supportive of the Palestine cause- were moving away from the direct confrontation with the US back Israel, for the newly formed Islamic Republic it became a golden opportunity to win over the Islamic world by bridging the Shia-Sunni divide by supporting and fighting for Palestine. The rivalry has shaped West Asia’s geopolitics since then.


Backed by the United States and Western allies, Israel emerged as the region’s most dominant military power, technologically superior and widely believed to be nuclear-armed. Iran, isolated by American sanctions after the 1979 Revolution, chose a different strategy. Unable to confront Israel directly, Tehran built influence through armed non-state actors.


In the early 1980s, Iran helped create Hezbollah in Lebanon. By the 1990s, it had expanded support to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, embedding itself in the Palestinian resistance ecosystem. When the Oslo peace process collapsed in the late 1990s, Hamas rose to prominence - and Iran’s stake in the Israel-Palestine conflict deepened accordingly.


In southern Lebanon, Israel’s prolonged occupation faced mounting resistance from Hezbollah, which relied on Iranian funding, training, and weapons routed through Syria under the Assad regime. In 2000, after 18 years, Israel withdrew. Hezbollah declared it a historic victory – the first time an Arab force had forced an Israeli pullout.


In 2006, war erupted again. Israel launched a month-long campaign against Lebanon. Hezbollah endured. In a region shaped by asymmetry, survival itself became a political statement.


Fast forward to 2020, President Donald Trump sought sweeping concessions from Iran – curbs on its nuclear programme and a rollback of its regional footprint, particularly its backing of non-state armed groups. Tehran answered “maximum pressure” with “maximum resistance.” It escalated proxy activity, expanded regional brinkmanship, and was widely blamed for attacks on Saudi oil facilities and incidents in Gulf waters.


The confrontation peaked in January 2020 when the U.S. assassinated Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s regional strategy and commander of the IRGC’s external operations wing. The strike was a strategic shock to Tehran. Iran retaliated with missile attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, but both sides signaled restraint. Neither Washington nor Tehran wanted a direct war; escalation was carefully contained.


What unsettled that fragile equilibrium was the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel, an event that redrew the strategic map and reignited the risk of a wider regional conflagration. On 7th October, 2023, when Hamas started the assault again on Israel shortly after the announcement of the India Middle East Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) in the G20 summit held in India, the West saw it another attempt of derailing another project in the region by Iran due to its vested interests. Although the acting of Hamas like a headless bull has been crushed with heavy hand by Israeli defence forces, the seed of escalation remained.


Now, take the whole scenario into the chessboard of geopolitics. The ‘big Satan’ US comes into the picture with another angle called energy diplomacy.


Why Strike Now?


With Russia, one of the world’s largest energy suppliers, already bogged down in Ukraine, Saudi Arabia firmly anchored within the American security architecture, Venezuela, long positioned as a potential counterweight in oil politics, have already been hijacked, Iran stood as the last major revisionist energy power capable of both disrupting markets and defying Washington’s regional design.

By fixing most of the players on the chessboard, the structure had become unusually permissive; alternative suppliers were aligned or weakened; great power attention was fragmented. What followed was not a spark in dry grass; it was a match long held, now deliberately struck.


The Bolts Out of the Blue


What started as a strategic coordinated strike, resulted in creating regional shockwaves. The tensions did not thaw immediately. As Iran retaliated by firing a flurry of missiles and drones which fell not only in critical defence infrastructures across the gulf, but also in civilian and commercial infrastructure across the region. And because of this, human presence and vulnerability all became visible as cities long known for West Asian prosperity bore the brunt. In Dubai, globally recognised landmarks such as the Fairmont Hotel and the Burj Al Arab were struck by falling missile debris and drone fragments. Fires broke out, civilians were injured, and emergency services moved swiftly to contain the damage. For residents and expatriates alike, the attacks were a stark reminder that even cities long viewed as insulated from frontline conflict are not immune to regional escalation.


One of the most evident signs that the conflict had crossed a threshold came with the attack on Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery, one of the largest energy processing facilities in the world. Iranian drones were intercepted, but not before fragments fell across the site, forcing operators to halt operations. What is usually a landscape of controlled precision, pipelines humming, tankers loading, fell abruptly silent. The shutdown was described as precautionary, but its message was unmistakable: the war had reached the heart of the global energy system.


The shockwaves did not stop at one refinery. In Qatar, Ras Laffan, the industrial engine powering nearly a fifth of the world’s LNG, fell unusually quiet after attacks shook the area. In Israel, offshore gas platforms that normally operate without pause were temporarily shut. In Kurdistan, oil pumps were switched off, not because they had been hit, but because uncertainty had crept into every calculation. Across the region, facilities built for constant motion stood in uneasy silence, a reminder that in modern conflict, fear can interrupt supply chains as effectively as fire.


What Next For Iran- Continuity, Transition or Collapse?


Going by the current set up, a three-person interim leadership council has assumed leadership functions. And the council will continue until the ‘Assembly of Experts’ selects a permanent successor. Given the fact that there is no clear successor visible at this moment with the similar stature, it could be a more militant and more unpredictable Iran with wounded pride, having more young stars in its ranks seeking revenge and thus accelerating the nuclear programmes with whatever survived in the underground facilities after the strikes.


A second case scenario would be a controlled transition powered by the US and installing a so-called more liberal, democratic regime as it claims every time. As of now, it is the least likely, given that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard controls the muscle, the money, and the street militias that enforce order. And it is highly unlikely that America will deploy boots on the ground to change that equation after the experience it has got in Iraq.


The third case scenario, which seems to be the most dangerous one, is a collapse whereas all the militant groups across the Arabian peninsula, from Hezbollah to Hamas, from Houthis to Jihadists, starts acting like a ‘headless lion’ and starts asserting and charting their own area of influence without having the central leadership. Al-Qaeda after bin Laden, the Taliban after Mullah Omar are great examples to show that decapitation of terrorist and militant organisations fragment them into autonomous, less controllable cells. It can also bolster the Kurdish and Baloch groups inside Iran to vouch for their separation and could lead to alteration of the map of Iran itself.


The Ripple Effects - What is at stake for India?


In this interconnected world of Interdependence, what is happening in West Asia, is not limited to that place only. As it seems the global oil shock is on its way as Iran has closed the ‘Strait of Hormuz’ through which almost 20% of global oil and ⅓ of LNG passes. A country that is going to get affected hugely is India as 80-85% of oil we import only.


Furthermore, New Delhi has to balance a tightrope as three players involved - US, Israel and Iran - are in some way or the other are sharing good ties with India. The US, despite the Trump factor, remains India’s major technology and security partner and anchor of the QUAD and Indo-Pacific initiatives. Israel, not only a close defence partner but also the supplier of the critical mineral technology when India is in need. Iran, on the other hand, beyond shared history and cultural links, Iran hosts the strategically important Chabahar Port, a gateway for Indian trade and connectivity to Afghanistan and Central Asia. It also remains a key alternative source of oil for India, helping diversify energy supplies from the Gulf.


It is a noticeable fact that the US fondness of military interventions are led by the single fact that neither of them takes place or affects their homeland. On the other hand, for India, even if it is not directly involved or appreciates any of these conflicts, there are consequences to be borne out. But, there is no way New Delhi can pull all the three strings towards the same direction. Openly criticising any of the military actions are not strategically wise either. Hence, keeping all the doors open and treating each by its own merit would be the best feasible option as it seems.


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