Iran Crisis Assessment II: Operation Epic Fury

As Operation Epic Fury enters its third week, Wikistrat's expert analysis of the US-Iran conflict reveals a striking shift: Iran's regime is proving more durable than expected, while escalation risks widen across the region. Twelve senior Iran specialists weigh in on regime stability, US and Iranian miscalculations, and the conflict's most dangerous unknowns

A week ago, the question was how long the Islamic Republic could last. Today, twelve senior Iran specialists are asking a different one: how does this end for anyone?

For Wikistrat's second expert survey of Operation Epic Fury, fielded toward the end of Week 2, the panel's collective verdict is sobering: the regime is holding. Not thriving, not winning, but holding. Its coercive apparatus is intact, the anticipated popular uprising has not materialized, and its missile and drone campaign, degraded but not exhausted, has outlasted early projections by a significant margin.

Meanwhile, the conflict's most underpriced risk is no longer in Iran at all. Yemen is now the theatre experts are watching most closely, with Houthi escalation flagged as the variable most likely to produce strategic surprise.

The miscalculations question produced the sharpest responses in the survey: Tehran fundamentally misread Trump's willingness to go to war; Washington appears to have assumed that military pressure and decapitation strikes would cascade into regime collapse. Neither assumption held.

The result, as Week 3 begins, is a conflict where both sides are locked in, neither has a clear path to its stated objectives, and neither has a credible off-ramp. That ambiguity, experts warn, is itself a form of strategic miscalculation.

Download the full report here.