The fundamental question is not whether this war was coming. It is whether anyone has seriously reckoned with where it leads.
On the second day of Operation Epic Fury, the joint US-Israeli offensive against Iran that began on 28 February, three US service members were killed and at least five seriously wounded, the first American casualties since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Saturday. The attack that killed the three soldiers occurred in Kuwait, where they formed part of an Army sustainment unit. President Donald Trump, speaking to NBC News, did not shy away from the arithmetic of war. "We expect casualties with something like this. We have three, but we expect casualties," Trump said, referencing the soldiers who died.
The casualties arrived alongside confirmation of a development that will define the region for a generation. Iranian state media confirmed that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, was killed in air strikes targeting his office in Tehran. Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi and a jurist from the Guardian Council are now in charge during a "transitional phase," according to the state Islamic Republic News Agency. Iran said it had established a three-person temporary leadership council to govern the country under Islamic law before a panel of Shia clerics chooses a new supreme leader.
The scope of the military operation, as disclosed by US Central Command, is considerable. According to 9News, the assets deployed include B-2 stealth bombers, LUCAS drones, Patriot interceptor missile systems and nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. Targets struck include ballistic missile sites, naval vessels and command centres. Central Command said it had struck an Iranian Jamaran-class corvette, a small warship, and that the ship was sinking at a pier at an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman. Nuclear sites, according to the same reporting, were not among the targets disclosed publicly.
Trump declared that the objective of the operation is to destroy Iran's missile and military capabilities, prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and ultimately topple the regime. He told NBC that the operation was "ahead of schedule." Strip away the talking points and what remains is an explicit statement of regime-change intent from the White House, a position with profound legal and strategic implications.
The counter-argument deserves serious consideration
Let us be honest about what is really happening here: the legal basis for these strikes is genuinely contested, and the debate is not merely academic posturing from adversaries of the West. The UN Secretary-General noted that the joint military operation occurred following indirect talks between the US and Iran mediated by Oman, "squandering an opportunity for diplomacy". Norway's Foreign Minister went further. "The attack is described by Israel as a preventive strike, but it is not in line with international law. Preventive attacks require an immediately imminent threat," he said.
The UN Security Council did not authorise the 28 February strikes, leaving only the claim of self-defence for possible justification. International law scholars cited by SBS News point out that there was no Iranian armed attack on US or Israeli territory immediately before the strikes, making even the anticipatory self-defence argument difficult to sustain. The Atlantic Council's analysis identifies the core tension plainly: the United States and Israel launched an unprecedented campaign aimed at creating the conditions for regime change, and this is not a classic preventive strike. There was no immediate Iranian threat triggering the operation.
The retaliation has been swift and broad. Eight Arab countries have reported missile attacks: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Oman and Qatar. Iran has announced it is closing the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of global oil supplies passes. The waves of violence have disrupted travel throughout the Middle East, rocked densely populated areas and hindered the flow of oil through a vital shipping lane.
Proponents of the strikes argue the moral and strategic calculus is not so simple. Israel's ambassador to the United Nations told the Security Council that Israel's strikes took place to stop "an existential threat before it became irreversible," arguing the regime had been building nuclear weapons in disregard for international law while murdering its own citizens and expanding proxy forces across the region. There is some uncomfortable truth in that framing. Israel and Iranian proxies have been engaged in conflict since 1985, which escalated into two direct strikes in 2024, and in 2025 they fought a 12-day war. The grievances are not invented.
Canberra's calculated support
For Australia, this conflict cannot be filed away as a distant problem. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that Australia stands with the people of Iran in their struggle against oppression, and that for decades the Iranian regime has been a destabilising force through its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes, support for armed proxies, and brutal acts of violence. Australia supports action to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, Wong confirmed, though Australia did not participate in the strikes.
More than 4,000 Australians have registered for help to leave the Middle East, with around 2,900 in Iran and 1,300 in Israel. Australian officials have been deployed to Iran's border with Azerbaijan to assist those able to cross. The government has upgraded its travel advice to "Do Not Travel" for Israel, Lebanon, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. Australians travelling home via the kangaroo route through Dubai, Doha or Abu Dhabi face severe disruption as the conflict closes airspace across the region.
The Albanese government's position walks a careful line: backing the strategic objective while insisting on Australian non-participation and calling for de-escalation in the same breath. Questioned repeatedly on whether facilities such as Pine Gap played any role, the Prime Minister offered only that "we don't talk about intelligence." That is not transparency. It is, however, an understandable response from a government trying to manage alliance obligations alongside domestic opinion and international law.
The Australian Greens have been considerably less measured, condemning the strikes outright and describing Labor's position as support for what they term illegal attacks. That characterisation overstates the legal certainty on one side, just as supporters of the strikes tend to overstate it on the other.
The endgame no one can name
History will judge this moment by what comes next, not by the precision of the opening strikes. The Atlantic Council's analysts put it plainly: despite early tactical achievements, the central question remains unresolved: what is the endgame? Western allies have expressed concern that Washington lacks a coherent strategy for the aftermath of the attacks, noting the minimal preparation for post-conflict reconstruction and government transition.
If we accept that the Iranian regime posed a genuine and growing threat (and the evidence of its nuclear enrichment trajectory, its proxy networks and its domestic repression suggests we should), then the case for action is not frivolous. But the precedent being set, of major powers targeting foreign heads of state and explicitly pursuing regime change without UN Security Council authorisation, is one that cuts in multiple directions. UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the "military escalation" and warned that the use of force and subsequent retaliation "undermine international peace and security," with grave consequences for civilians and regional stability.
Voters deserve better than either cheerful triumphalism or reflexive anti-Americanism. The hard truth is that both the strategic case for acting and the legal case for restraint have genuine substance. What this moment demands is not a bumper sticker. It demands clear war aims, a credible transition plan for Iran, and the diplomatic groundwork to prevent a conflict that has already killed Americans in Kuwait from consuming the region entirely.