Was Operation Epic Fury a surprise? For anyone who has watched the DC scene and PDJT for years the answer has to be No. While PDJT abhors war, he also knows that sometimes force is necessary. Trump is not unpredictable in what actions he will take. What is unpredictable is the timing of his moves. PDJT’s actions in the past are a clear view into what he might do in the future.
That being said there has been a very significant surprise in the current war theater. And that is what Iran has done in terms of counter strikes. Shortly after Operation Epic Fury began, the Iranian regime began firing counterstrikes against the entire Arab region. Instead of their traditional approach toward striking back at 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.
Some of these attacks were targeted at US facilities (bases, consulates, etc.). However, many other attacks were directed at the civilian populations of these countries. This striking out at other Muslim nations was not one of the expected reactions to this attack.
Normally the Arab states would have sat on the sidelines while giving tacit approval to the attacks. Now they are openly given support and are even expressing a willingness for their own militaries to get involved. When in history has an Arab state been openly on the side of Israel in any conflict in the Middle East?
The more important question is why is Iran doing this? The expenditure of the Iranian counterstrike armament, the targets they are selecting, doesn’t gain Iran any material benefit. In fact, it is arousing Middle East sentiment against them.
One of the things that Iran boasted about before the hostilities commenced was that even if their top people were eliminated, the war would go on. Local commanders would be allowed to act on their own. Is this what happened? Did this lead to a random set of launches at just about everything they could program as a target set?
Or does Occam’s Razor have a say here? Let’s be reminded that Iran is a different sect of Islam. Iran is a majority Shia country, one of a very few in the world. Most of the Middle East is majority Sunni of one form or another. Basically, Iran is disliked a little less than Israel by those Arab nations. Did the powers that be in Iran decide that they were going down for the count and decided to inflict what damage they could on their frenemies?
Of course, it is important to remember that Iranian’s have a 50+ year history of conducting terror attacks on civilian populations. How many tens of thousands of their own people have been murdered by the current regime? So, seeing such attacks on civilians now probably should have been expected.
It will be interesting to watch this play out.