Since the opening of the Epic Fury / Roar of the Lion war last week, Iran has made its strategic choice clear. It is not trying to win the air war in a classic sense. It is trying to bankrupt its adversaries. Wave after wave of low-cost Shahed suicide drones have been launched toward the Gulf States – at the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait – with the UAE bearing the brunt. By the end of the first week of battle, more than 1,300 drones had been fired at the Emirates alone. Most were

Wars are often described in terms of power: who has more of it, who used it first, who escalated. That framing is comforting to those who want moral symmetry where none exists. Operation Lion’s Roar (Operation Epic Fury in the U.S.) is not about symmetry. It is about choice. Specifically, how power is used, and what a society believes is worth protecting. On Saturday morning, Israel and the United States acted. Not theatrically. Not impulsively. They acted after Iran had exha

I just finished listening to a talk that described Israel’s victory in 1948 as “partially victorious.” The speaker highlighted that while the fledgling state survived the invasion by five Arab armies, it lost vital territories – the Old City of Jerusalem, the Etzion Bloc, and other lands allocated under the UN partition plan – and endured heartbreaking losses, with a full one percent of the population killed. In that moment of existential peril, mere survival was hailed as vi