Gotta Run. Alarm. Here We Go Again...

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 exhausted every offramp: refusing to dismantle a nuclear program capable of producing ten weapons within one week; refusing to curb a ballistic-missile arsenal aimed at capitals across the region; and murdering – by machine-gun fire – thirty-two thousand of its own citizens whose crime was demanding dignity. By February 28, 2026, Iran was not a theoretical threat. It was an imminent one.

The strike was deliberate in timing and devastating in effect. Intelligence – “golden” intelligence – revealed that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was meeting with the core of Iran’s military leadership in a hardened bunker beneath his Tehran compound. Israel and the United States waited until the moment when responsibility could not be evaded and collateral damage could not be blamed. When they struck, they removed the regime’s brain in one blow. This includes Ali Shamkhani – Senior Adviser to the Supreme Leader, Mohammad Pakpour – Commander-in-Chief, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Abdolrahim Mousavi – Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, and Aziz Nasirzadeh – Minister of Defense. The Supreme Leader. The commanders. The architects of terror and repression. All gone. Not a single civilian killed.

That is what disciplined power looks like.

Iran’s response revealed something else entirely. Ballistic missiles and suicide drones were launched toward Israel and across the Middle East, toward the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. This was not a technical failure. Iranian missiles are accurate. Their engineers know exactly where those weapons land. I know this first-hand. I am a rocket scientist and my colleagues in Iran are quite impressive.

In Bahrain, a missile tore into a residential high-rise. In Dubai, drones struck luxury hotels filled with civilians. In Israel, a ballistic missile slammed directly into a public bomb shelter in Beit Shemesh, an older shelter, built decades ago, never designed to withstand such force. When the sirens sounded, families did what Israelis have been trained to do for a lifetime: they ran to protect their children.

The shelter was pulverized.

Nine people were killed. That number may rise. These were not soldiers. They were children, elderly residents, people who believed – reasonably – that the concrete walls around them meant safety. There was no military target nearby. Not within five miles. This was not a miss. This was intent.

Iran did not fail to hit a military objective. It succeeded in hitting Israelis. This is not an accident of war. It is the point of it.

Since 1979, the Iranian regime has defined itself through death: death of dissidents at home, death of civilians abroad, death elevated to ideology. Israel is not opposed because of policy, but because of existence. Killing Israelis is not excess; it is doctrine. Civilian or soldier, child or grandparent – it is all the same. Death is not regretted. It is celebrated. Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, said it plainly during the 2006 war: “We love death. You love life.” He intended it as a threat. It was a confession.

Israel’s response to the murder of its civilians makes the contrast unbearable to ignore. Israel now controls the skies over Tehran. It can strike almost anything, anywhere. And yet it continues to hit only what matters: missile launchers, command nodes, broadcast centers, IRGC strongholds. The purpose is not punishment. It is neutralization. The Iranian people are not the enemy. The regime that sacrifices them and everyone else to its cult of death is.

This is why Israel and the United States will win.

Not because they are flawless. Not because war is clean. But because they understand that power is a responsibility, not a license. They use force to end wars, not to sanctify killing. Iran uses force to prove that life is cheap.

Wars are not ultimately decided by who fires first or who fires more. They are decided by what a society is fighting for. One side runs civilians into shelters and mourns when they fail. The other aims for the shelter.

That is the difference. And that is the outcome.

Good things,

Ari Sacher