It’s Noon in Israel: Operation Roaring Lion Shakes Iran

The War Has Begun

The smoking ruins of the Supreme Leader’s compound in Tehran.

It’s Saturday, February 28, and it has begun. At 10 a.m. this morning, Israeli and American fighters launched from the same runways, toward the same targets, for the same goals—for the first time. According to Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, the goals of the new Operation Roaring Lion are as follows:

• Elimination of the nuclear program

• Elimination of the missile threat

• The overthrow of the regime (though Trump left that component for the Iranian people to complete)

A surprise attack on a Saturday morning is nothing new to Israelis. Thankfully, this time they are on the other side of it. Yes, surprise. Despite weeks of buildup and tension, the U.S. and Israel caught the Iranian military with its pants down and Ali Khamenei while he was in bed. Israel dropped thirty bombs on the Supreme Leader’s compound (less than half the number used against Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah) and according to reports, Khamenei is “almost certainly dead.”

But let me ask the question many are asking. After all, we were told by Trump that Operation Rising Lion ended with the defeat of the Iranian nuclear project. So how can Trump and Netanyahu say today that the goal is to destroy the Iranian nuclear project?

Well, Donald Trump said it was completely destroyed. Israel did not use that rhetoric. Israel said the more accurate thing—that we had set them back years.

Unless the regime is overthrown, it’s possible that even this operation may not be enough. Leave the regime alive with rocks, sticks, and rubble, and, likely as not, they will try to build a nuclear bomb.

So why now?

Three dramatic things happened.

First—perhaps the most minor—the Iranians began attempting to move their weapons manufacturing deeper underground. What’s the big deal? Wasn’t it underground last time? Yes—but this time it would have been so deep that even a squadron of American bombers with fourteen 30,000-pound bunker busters might not have been able to penetrate it.

Second was the increasing size of the ballistic missile arsenal and manufacturing capacity, which posed a serious threat to Israel and the region.

Third was the opportunity created by Operation Rising Lion: regime change. The uprising in Iran, had it not been for the massacre of 30,000 Iranians, might well have led to the fall of the Islamic Republic. While the protestors are beaten down, there is still a chance, and that that opportunity is just too strategically valuable to miss.

You may remember during June, the world waited with bated breath for Trump to make a decision to join in the strike in Iran, only to find out that Trump had given the green light almost a week before Operation Midnight Hammer. After a month of similarly bated breath surrounding the possibility of a diplomatic solution, when did Trump actually decide to strike?

It appears the choice was made weeks ago. As usual, there was back and forth. Trump hesitated and explored diplomatic options, but for all intents and purposes, the decision for the operation had already been made by the time the sides sat down for the first time in Geneva.

Today was just a taste of what a joint U.S.-Israel attack can bring to bear. Think of Israel as a pair of brass knuckles and the U.S. as two clenched fists. One brings overwhelming power; the other, effectiveness. Israel isn’t lacking in power, but for a sense of proportion: Operation Rising Lion involved 1,000 strikes; the U.S. war in Iraq in 2003 involved 116,000.

Not for nothing did Netanyahu say that the rising lion will pale in comparison to its roar.

But this is about more than Israel. To my eye, Trump is genuinely done with the regime. In his announcement of the strikes, he wasn’t Mr. Nice Trump. As he pointed out, this regime has been shouting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” for decades. They finance terrorism. They launch terrorism. They are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans and thousands of Israelis. Enough is enough.

There are moments in the life of a nation when every individual has the same thought simultaneously. When the first missile siren went off, I and millions of others were in synagogue listening to three biblical passages known as Zachor (“Remember”). Jews read from the Torah in synagogue at least four times a week, more on festivals. But this section, where we are commanded to remember the attempted genocide of the Jews by the Amalekites, is the only time we are biblically mandated to listen.

When the alarms began to blare, I—and every other Jew—had the same thought: remember those who tried to kill us, who on October 7, like the Amalekites, ambushed and murdered our people. We thought of the murderous regime and heard the echoes of the last words of the verse: “You shall blot out the memory of Amalek.”

For the past two years, Israel has endured the vitriol and poisonous rhetoric of the modern Amalek. This Saturday his X has been silenced.

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