On February 28, 2026, at approximately 7:30 am local time, the US and Israel launched a joint offensive on Iran, with at least 30 attacks by air and sea. The operation, called Roaring Lion (“Roaring Lion”), would have second Axios as targets the leaders of the Iranian military apparatus but also the supreme leader Al Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian. Numerous missiles caused explosions in the capital Tehran and other cities of the Islamic country. The Iranian Pasdaran have implemented a counteroffensive with missiles launched on American bases in the Gulf area (Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait) and at Israeli sites.
As also confirmed by New York Timesthe operation takes place on a larger scale than that of the 12-day war of June 2025. As on that occasion, however, it is precisely the Iranian nuclear program at the center of the official motivations for the attacks: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared that it is a “preventive attack to remove existential threats” to the security of the Jewish country. American President Donald Trump, for his part, declared that the objective of the operation is to weaken Iranian missile activity, after the failure to reach a nuclear deal with Iran in recent weeks, but he also reiterated his incitement to the Iranian people for an uprising against the Al Khamenei regime.
As already emerged in the 12-day war, the fall of the regime would appear to be the real objective of Israel and the USA. An underground conflict over the dominion of the Middle East has been ongoing for years between Israel and Iran, which worsened after the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 given Iran’s great support – including economic – for Hamas. In this sense, a weakening of Iran’s leadership in the Middle East would effectively put Israel in a position of supremacy over the entire area. Even the USA, historic allies of Israel, have an interest in the fall of Al Khamenei, which would affect the huge supply of Iranian oil to China.
