The Numbers Are Staggering — and They’re Still Climbing
As Operation Epic Fury grinds into its fourth week, U.S. Central Command confirmed Monday that American forces have conducted more than 9,000 airstrikes inside Iran since the campaign launched on February 28. The figure makes this the most sustained aerial bombardment by U.S. forces since the opening phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 — and the strikes show no sign of stopping.
Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency dropped a bombshell of its own: the global energy crisis triggered by the war is now worse than the twin oil shocks of the 1970s and the Russia-Ukraine gas crisis combined. IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol, speaking at Australia’s National Press Club in Canberra, warned that “no country will be immune” if the conflict continues on its current trajectory.
A War on Multiple Fronts
The conflict has metastasized far beyond Iran’s borders. On Monday, Israel launched fresh strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs — a Hezbollah stronghold that hadn’t been hit since Friday — after issuing evacuation orders. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed continued strikes on Iranian government infrastructure in Tehran, including a Defense and Armed Forces Logistics Ministry weapons production site east of the capital.
Iran, for its part, has not been passive. Over the weekend, Iranian missiles struck the Israeli cities of Dimona and Arad, injuring more than 200 people including children. The strikes on Dimona — located just eight miles from Israel’s primary nuclear facility — sent shockwaves through the security establishment and raised urgent questions about the effectiveness of Israel’s multi-layered missile defense systems.
Israeli military officials faced sharp scrutiny over why the projectiles weren’t intercepted, with some analysts suggesting Israel may be rationing its most sophisticated Arrow interceptors to avoid depleting stockpiles.
The Energy Crisis Nobody Was Ready For
The IEA’s Birol didn’t mince words. The current crisis has already removed 11 million barrels of oil per day from global markets — more than double what was lost during the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks combined. Natural gas disruptions have reached approximately 140 billion cubic meters, dwarfing the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Oil prices have surged more than 50 percent since late February. Daily oil exports from the Middle East have fallen by at least 60 percent since the war began, according to U.S. Treasury data.
The damage is physical, not just logistical. Birol revealed that at least 40 energy assets across nine countries in the Middle East have been “severely or very severely damaged” — oil and gas fields, refineries, and pipelines that will take considerable time to repair, even after a ceasefire.
“This crisis, as things stand now, is two oil crises and one gas crisis put all together,” Birol said. And it’s not limited to hydrocarbons: global flows of petrochemicals, fertilizers, sulfur, and helium have all been disrupted.
The IEA released a record-breaking 400 million barrels from strategic reserves on March 11, and Birol signaled willingness to release more — but cautioned that emergency stockpiles can only “reduce the pain,” not solve the underlying crisis.
The Strait of Hormuz: The World’s Most Dangerous Chokepoint
At the heart of the crisis sits the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. Roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas typically transits this corridor — and Iran has effectively shut it down.
Iran’s Permanent Representative to the International Maritime Organization reiterated Monday that Iran will not allow U.S., Israeli, or allied vessels through the strait. The UK Maritime Trade Operations has recorded 21 confirmed maritime incidents in the strait since the war began, though the last confirmed Iranian attack on a vessel was March 11.
President Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum on Saturday demanding Iran “fully open” the strait, threatening to “obliterate” Iranian power plants if Tehran refused. On Monday, he extended the deadline to Friday, citing what he called “very strong talks” with Iranian officials.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf shot back: “No negotiations have been held with the U.S.” He accused Trump of using “fake news” to “manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the U.S. and Israel are trapped.”
The Khatam ol Anbia Central Headquarters — Iran’s main military command — warned it would “completely close” the strait and target regional energy infrastructure and companies with U.S. shareholders if Iranian power plants are attacked.
Degrading Iran’s War Machine
CENTCOM’s air campaign has been methodically targeting Iran’s missile production and storage capabilities. On Saturday, the Pentagon published satellite imagery showing damage to Iran’s Kuh-e Barjamali ballistic missile assembly facility — the final production site for solid-propellant missiles at the Khojir Aerospace Complex southeast of Tehran.
The facility produced an array of weapons including the Fath-360 (120 km range), Fateh-110 (300 km range), Zolfaghar (700 km range), and the medium-range Haj Qasem ballistic missile (1,400 km range). Notably, Iran has been supplying Russia with Fath-360 missiles for its war in Ukraine — a supply line that may now be permanently severed.
The IRGC Ground Forces Commander, Brigadier General Mohammad Karami, made a notable visit to military units in western and northwestern Iran over the weekend — a move analysts see as significant given reports of possible armed Kurdish mobilization along the Iran-Iraq border and combined force strikes on at least two IRGC divisions in the region.
Deal or No Deal?
The diplomatic picture is as murky as the battlefield. Trump claimed Monday that his son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff were leading negotiations, and that the U.S. was communicating with an unnamed Iranian leader. He said the two sides had found “many, like 15 points” of agreement, and demanded an end to Iranian nuclear enrichment and elimination of uranium stockpiles — terms Tehran has consistently rejected.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had spoken with Trump, who believed it was possible to “leverage” military achievements to “realize the objectives of the war in an agreement.”
But Iran’s foreign ministry dismissed the claims as an effort “to reduce energy prices and to buy time for implementing his military plans.”
The Human Cost
Lost in the geopolitical chess match are the human numbers. More than 2,000 people have been killed since the war began, according to the New York Times — most of them in Iran and Lebanon. In Israel, 15 people have died from Iranian strikes. Red Crescent workers in Tehran were filmed Monday clearing rubble from destroyed apartment buildings, while children in the Israeli West Bank town of Peduel used school desks to drag missile debris away from their playground.
The U.S. has suffered casualties too — six American service members killed in action as of early March, according to CENTCOM, with recovery operations ongoing.
As the war enters its fourth week with no ceasefire in sight, the world watches a conflict that has already reshaped global energy markets, tested the limits of missile defense technology, and left a trail of destruction stretching from Tehran to Tel Aviv to the trading floors of London and New York.
The question isn’t whether this war will have lasting consequences. It’s whether anyone can stop it before those consequences become irreversible.