From Tehran: The smoke was still rising over the Pasteur district when Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that the most consequential operation in a generation was complete. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man who had ruled the Islamic Republic of Iran for nearly four decades, was dead. The compound that housed his residence, Iran's presidency, and the national security apparatus had been reduced to rubble by simultaneous strikes so precise, so coordinated, and so audacious that even hardened intelligence veterans struggled to find precedent for them.
The operation, codenamed Roaring Lion by Israel and Operation Epic Fury by the United States Department of Defense, targeted key officials, military commanders, and facilities. According to CNN's reporting, drawing on five people familiar with the matter, months-long planning preceded the strikes, allowing the US and Israel to pinpoint their targets, attain tactical surprise, and secure mutual support. The intelligence effort was patient and methodical: airstrikes on Iran began around 9:45 a.m. Iranian time on Saturday, 28 February, the first day of the Iranian work and school week.
The timing was deliberate. An Israeli source told CNN that Khamenei felt less vulnerable during daylight hours and had let his guard down. Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir captured the gravity of the moment in a note to pilots before the operation: "On Saturday at dawn, Operation Roaring Lion begins. You are cleared to strike your targets. We're making history."
Among those confirmed killed were IRGC commander Mohammad Pakpour, Iran's Defence Minister Amir Nasirzadeh, Supreme Leader adviser Ali Shamkhani, and chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Mohammad Bagheri. Israel later stated its initial strikes used over 1,200 bombs in 24 hours. US forces conducted nearly 900 strikes, employing aircraft, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones.
As news of Khamenei's death broke, Iranians began pouring into the streets in an expression of joy, shock, and disbelief, though security forces were deployed to prevent an uprising alongside a renewed internet blackout. The scenes were complex and contradictory: footage showed security forces opening fire on celebrants in the streets, while in southern Iran, a monument dedicated to the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was toppled by a crowd.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said more than 200 people were killed in strikes across Iran. Iranian state media said one of the airstrikes hit a girls' primary school in southern Iran, killing at least 85 children according to local prosecutors. These civilian casualties represent the sharpest challenge to the legal and moral case for the operation, and they deserve to be named plainly rather than buried in the strategic calculus.
Iran's retaliation was immediate and sweeping. Iran launched dozens of drones and ballistic missiles throughout the Persian Gulf, targeting Israel as well as US military bases in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Three US soldiers were killed in action and five seriously wounded after Iranian attacks on a military base in Kuwait, according to US Central Command. At least nine people were killed in an Iranian missile attack on the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh.
The Diplomatic Wreckage Before the Bombs
The strikes did not emerge from nowhere. For weeks, American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had conducted three rounds of indirect talks with Iran, seeking a commitment to permanently end uranium enrichment. Just the day before the strikes began, on 27 February 2026, Oman's Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi said a "breakthrough" had been reached and Iran had agreed never to stockpile enriched uranium and to full verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency, with Iran agreeing to irreversibly downgrade its current enriched uranium to the lowest level possible. Al-Busaidi said peace was "within reach."
That context sits uncomfortably alongside the decision to strike. China called for an immediate ceasefire, with state media describing the US-Israel attack as an "undisguised assault on sovereignty" and arguing that resorting to force at the very moment diplomacy showed promise sends a dangerous message. Oman's Foreign Minister said he was "dismayed" that active and serious negotiations had "yet again been undermined."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the strikes by both sides at an emergency Security Council meeting, warning: "We are witnessing a grave threat to international peace and security. Military action carries the risk of igniting a chain of events that no one can control in the most volatile region of the world."
Those who argue the strikes were justified point to a different timeline: beginning in late December 2025, massive nationwide anti-government protests erupted in Iran driven by economic crisis and collapse of the rial, becoming the largest in scale since the 1979 revolution and spreading to over 100 cities. The Iranian government responded with violent repression, with the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency estimating the death toll at 7,000. The nuclear question, too, was acute: the International Atomic Energy Agency had warned earlier in the year that Iran's enriched nuclear material remained largely intact despite previous strikes on enrichment facilities.
Trump's Off-Ramps and Iran's Succession Crisis
Even as bombs continued to fall on Sunday, signals of possible de-escalation emerged. Trump told The Atlantic: "They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner." A diplomatic solution, Trump told CBS News, was "easily" possible: "Much easier now than it was a day ago, obviously, because they are getting beat up badly."
Iran's top security official Ali Larijani said the United States and Israel were seeking to "plunder and disintegrate" the country and warned that a temporary leadership council would be established, with any "secessionist groups" attempting to take action facing a harsh response. Under Iran's constitution, electing Khamenei's successor falls to an 88-member body of qualified clerics. Until the assembly acts, a three-member council of the president, the head of the judiciary, and a jurist of the Guardian Council assumes the supreme leader's duties.
The political reality is that Khamenei's death does not guarantee a change in Iran's character. His death does not necessarily mean a new regime will take over, as other hard-liners in Iran could take his place, especially with the IRGC remaining as a centre of political power. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, framed the objective more modestly: "The goal of this operation is to change the threat, not the regime. When this operation is over, no matter who takes over in Iran, they will not have ballistic missiles to hurt us, Israel or the region."
Australia's Strategic Calculation
For Canberra, the events of 28 February demanded a rapid public response. Australia "stands with the brave people of Iran", Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Defence Minister Richard Marles, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a joint statement, declaring support for US actions to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Albanese also pointed to Iran having directed at least two attacks on Australian soil in 2024, describing them as "appalling acts targeting Australia's Jewish community" intended to "create fear, divide our society and challenge our sovereignty."
The practical consequences for Australians were immediate. Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade re-issued its highest 'Do Not Travel' advice for Iran and raised Israel and Lebanon to 'Reconsider Your Need to Travel'. The Australian embassy in Tehran was placed in 'draw-down' mode, with dependants already evacuated. Australians still in Iran were urged by the DFAT Smartraveller portal to leave as soon as it was safe to do so and to shelter in place if departure was not possible. Australian carriers Qantas and Virgin began re-routing over the Arabian Peninsula, adding 20 to 40 minutes to Europe-bound sectors.
The Economic Threat No One Can Ignore
Whatever diplomatic resolution eventually emerges, the immediate economic stakes are severe. Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz had effectively come to a halt as shipping companies took precautionary measures, with Brent crude oil futures forecast to spike by $20 when trading reopened. Iran's IRGC had already warned vessels over radio that "no ship is allowed to pass the Strait of Hormuz."
More than 14 million barrels per day flowed through the Strait in 2025, or a third of the world's total seaborne crude exports, with about three-quarters of those barrels going to China, India, Japan, and South Korea. China receives half its crude imports through the Strait. The implications for Australia are indirect but real: disruption to Asian energy markets strikes at the heart of Australian export demand, and higher oil prices feed directly into domestic petrol costs and inflation at a time when household budgets remain stretched.
"A prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a guaranteed global recession," energy analyst Bob McNally told CNBC. Analysts at Rystad Energy were more measured, noting that while Iran has never before fully closed the waterway, it has attacked oil tankers and laid mines through its waters, and any disruption would add significant risk and shipping premiums to oil and gas prices as barrels are diverted.
The honest assessment is that the world does not yet know what it has set in motion. The killing of Khamenei removes a figure who was, by any reasonable measure, a destabilising force, the architect of proxy networks that brought violence to the streets of Tehran, Beirut, Gaza, and even Australian cities. At the same time, the operation was launched at the very moment when diplomatic progress, however fragile, appeared possible. Both things can be true.
The question Australians should be asking is not whether the Iranian regime deserved to be confronted, but whether the confrontation was structured in a way that maximises the chance of lasting stability rather than a generation of deepened enmity. Trump's signal that he is willing to talk with Iran's new leaders is, for now, the most significant piece of news to emerge from Sunday's chaos. Whether those talks materialise, and what they demand of all sides, will determine whether this week is remembered as the moment a dangerous regime was brought to account, or the moment a dangerous new chapter began. The United Nations and the Australian Parliament will both face hard questions about the limits and the obligations of the international rules-based order in the days ahead. Reasonable people will disagree sharply about those answers. What they cannot disagree about is the urgency of finding them.