The strategic calculus of the Middle East has been transformed in the span of a single morning. On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched a coordinated military campaign against Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei along with a significant portion of the Islamic Republic's senior command structure. The geopolitical implications, radiating outward from Tehran to Canberra, will be felt for years, perhaps decades.
A massive US-Israeli joint military offensive called "Operation Epic Fury" targeted Islamic Republic regime leadership and military sites described as posing an "imminent threat." The wave of airstrikes began after sunrise in Iran, with huge explosions ringing out in the capital Tehran, and videos showing large plumes of thick smoke. As 9News reported, an Iranian state media presenter broke down in tears while announcing Khamenei's death, telling viewers the supreme leader had "tasted the drink of martyrdom" — a signal of the profound psychological shock now coursing through Iranian society.
Khamenei was killed alongside other senior leaders during Israel's attack, dubbed "Roar of the Lion," according to Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz. Israel's military said that top Iranian security officials were among those killed, including the country's defence minister, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the secretary of the Iranian Security Council. Sources told CBS News the initial strikes were believed to have killed approximately 40 Iranian officials in total. The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported that more than 200 people were killed in strikes across Iran, as 7News first reported.
Three factors merit particular attention in understanding how this moment came to pass. First, the long arc of Iran's nuclear programme and Tehran's repeated failure to reach a negotiated settlement. The US-Israel attack came after Iran refused American demands that it reduce its nuclear programme. Oman's Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who had been mediating between the US and Iran, said that Iran had agreed to zero stockpiling of nuclear enrichment during active and serious nuclear talks that were still under way. Second, the systematic weakening of Iran's strategic assets: Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon had its top brass decimated following the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack; Israel and Iran traded direct airstrikes for the first time in 2024; and Israel's operations in Syria helped accelerate the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government in December 2024. Third, the domestic vulnerability of the Iranian state itself. By the time Khamenei died, Israel had hobbled two key proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, wiped out Iran's air defences, and, with US help, left Iran's nuclear programme in shambles.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the goal of the joint US-Israeli attack is to "remove the existential threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran," adding that "our joint action will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their destiny into their own hands." President Donald Trump was direct about the operation's scope. "The people that make all the decisions, most of them are gone," Trump told NBC News, adding that "a large amount of leadership" in Iran had also been killed.
From Canberra's perspective, the implications are threefold. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese moved swiftly to align Australia with the strikes, though the language employed was careful to a degree that itself reveals the complexity of Australia's position. Albanese said Iran's nuclear programme was a "threat to global peace and security" and that he supports "the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security." In a press conference at Parliament House, the Prime Minister acknowledged this was "unilateral action taken by the United States." The Albanese government backed the American strike on Iran while confirming Australia was not given prior warning. When asked about the legality of the strikes, both Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong insisted that was a matter for US and Israeli counterparts to explain.
Soon after the attacks, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Smartraveller website warned of the "risk of reprisal attacks and further escalation across the region." The Smartraveller portal was updated to its highest alert level: "Do Not Travel" for Iran and Iraq, and "Reconsider Your Need to Travel" for the wider Gulf region, including the UAE, Qatar, and Jordan. DFAT estimates that upwards of 15,000 Australians are currently in the affected region, many of them dual citizens or expatriates working in the aviation and energy sectors of the Gulf.
What often goes unmentioned in the initial rush to frame such events through a Western strategic lens is the genuine fragility of the post-strike order. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has pledged revenge. The IRGC has already launched attacks on 27 bases hosting US troops in the Middle East, as well as Israeli military facilities in Tel Aviv. Fresh blasts were heard across the Gulf cities of Dubai, Doha and Manama on Sunday morning, after AFP reporters confirmed explosions in Dubai, Doha and Manama, where sirens were activated. A leading Iranian Shia cleric issued an order for Muslims to wage jihad against the United States and Israel; 99-year-old Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi described avenging Khamenei's death as the "religious duty of all Muslims in the world." The succession question remains deeply uncertain: it is unclear who will replace Khamenei to lead a now weakened and vulnerable Iran.
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi called the US-Israeli attack on Iran "unacceptable" and condemned the "blatant killing of a sovereign leader and the incitement of regime change." The European reaction was similarly divided. French President Emmanuel Macron warned that "the outbreak of war between the United States, Israel and Iran carries grave consequences for international peace and security." Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his country rejected "the unilateral military action by the United States and Israel" and demanded "immediate de-escalation and full respect for international law," calling for a "lasting political solution for the region." The United Nations Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting in response.
The dissent is not limited to foreign capitals. Within Australia, the Australian Greens offered an unambiguous rejection. Greens leader Larissa Waters condemned what she called "illegal, abhorrent and unilateral attacks," stating that "Australians do not want to be dragged into another US-Israeli war." A more measured scepticism emerged from within the Coalition itself. Nationals Senator Matt Canavan told The Conversation that "not a single regime change war has left the world a better place in my lifetime." These are not fringe positions. Historical precedent offers genuine cause for caution, given the outcomes in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan after Western-backed or Western-executed regime changes in those countries.
What is often overlooked in the public discourse is that the strongest argument for the strikes is not military triumphalism but the accumulated failure of diplomacy over many years. A Chatham House analyst argues that Khamenei "always assumed that he could play for time" and fundamentally miscalculated how much the world around Iran had changed, with international patience for Iranian foot-dragging exhausted. Australia had itself called upon Iran to come to the negotiating table and abandon any nuclear weapons programme; Iran, Albanese said, "didn't come to the table, just as it has repeatedly failed to comply with its international obligations." That is a defensible position. Whether a military solution produces a more stable Iran, a more stable Middle East, or merely a more dangerous vacuum, is the question that will define the coming months.
For Australia, the balance sheet demands honest accounting. The government's support for the strikes is strategically coherent within the framework of the US alliance and AUKUS obligations, as well as Australia's longstanding commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, to which the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty remains the central instrument. At the same time, Australia had already cut diplomatic relations with Iran and expelled its ambassador last August after accusing Tehran of orchestrating antisemitic attacks on Australian soil. That context is essential: Australia's alignment here is not purely reflexive alliance management. It rests on documented grievances.
The evidence, though incomplete, suggests this crisis will endure well beyond the current week of strikes. Trump has indicated the strikes would continue through the week. The conflict has already damaged air hubs, rocked densely populated areas and disrupted oil shipments. Reasonable people, including senior figures within Australia's own political establishment, disagree about whether military force applied in this manner can produce the stable, sovereign Iran that both the West and the Iranian people deserve. What cannot be disputed is that the strategic order of the Middle East shifted irrevocably on a Saturday morning in late February, and that the consequences for Australia's region, its alliances, its citizens abroad, and its values will demand rigorous, evidence-based deliberation in the months ahead.