https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-28-2026
"Early this morning, the U.S. and Israel launched a major military assault on
Iran. Early reports suggested that Israel targeted senior officials in Iran’s
government while the U.S. attacked military targets. The U.S. government named
the assault “Operation Epic Fury.” Iran state media reported the strikes killed
at least 200 people, including 118 students from a girls’ school, and wounded
more than 700.
Iran retaliated with strikes against Israel, where one person was killed and
121 others injured, and with strikes on U.S. bases in Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait,
Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. U.S. Central Command
said there are no U.S. casualties and there has been little damage to U.S.
facilities.
Shortly after the strikes, President Donald J. Trump, who was in Florida at
Mar-a-Lago, posted an 8-minute video on social media announcing “major combat
operations in Iran.” He warned: “The lives of courageous American heroes may be
lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war. But we’re doing
this not for now. We’re doing this for the future. And it is a noble mission.”
Trump referred to that mission vaguely, rehearsing a litany of complaints over
the tensions and sometimes combat between the U.S. and Iran since 1979, but
indicated the U.S. and Israel were attacking to prevent the country’s murderous
regime from becoming “a nuclear-armed Iran.”
In June 2025, the Trump administration struck Iran’s nuclear laboratories at
Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, after which Trump insisted the U.S. had
“completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities. In his message, Trump said
the U.S. in negotiations afterward warned Iran “never to resume their malicious
pursuit of nuclear weapons, and we sought repeatedly to make a deal. We tried.
They wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it. Again they wanted to do it.
They didn’t want to do it. They didn’t know what was happening. They just
wanted to practice evil. But Iran refused, just as it has for decades and
decades.”
Trump did not mention the landmark 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated by Trump’s predecessor Barack
Obama, that limited Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Trump withdrew the U.S. from
that accord in 2018, and within a year, Iran was ignoring the limits the JCPOA
imposed."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
