In the most dramatic escalation since Operation Epic Fury began five days ago, thousands of Kurdish fighters have launched a ground offensive from Iraq into western Iran — and the U.S. Senate just made sure nothing will stop it.
The Iran war entered a terrifying new chapter on Wednesday evening as two seismic developments collided: Fox News confirmed that thousands of Iraqi Kurdish fighters have crossed the border into Iran in a CIA-backed ground offensive, while the U.S. Senate voted 53-47 to kill a war powers resolution that would have forced President Trump to halt military operations.
The message from Washington is unmistakable: this war is accelerating, not winding down.
Kurdish Ground Offensive: The War Goes From Air to Ground
According to multiple reports from CNN, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press, the CIA has been quietly arming Iranian Kurdish dissident groups based in northern Iraq for months — possibly over a year. Now those forces are on the move.
The Atlantic reported that thousands of Iranian Kurdish militants had gathered in Iraqi Kurdistan and were set to receive American and Israeli financial and military support for a major attack on Iranian territory. Kurdish sources told ITV News that weapons had been smuggled into western Iran since early last year, and that Kurdish leaders requested U.S. and Israeli air cover for their ground operations.
President Trump personally spoke with Mustafa Hijri, head of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI), on Tuesday, CNN reported. A Kurdish official told the network that in the coming days, Kurdish groups would participate in ground operations in western Iran.
By Wednesday evening, that timeline had accelerated dramatically. Fox News reported that thousands of Iraqi Kurds had launched a ground offensive into Iran, citing a U.S. source. The Daily Mail confirmed that Kurdish soldiers had taken up positions inside Iranian territory.
Several Kurdish armed groups have released public statements since the beginning of the war hinting at imminent action and urging Iranian military forces to defect.
Senate Kills War Powers Resolution in 53-47 Vote
Just hours before the Kurdish offensive made headlines, the U.S. Senate dealt a decisive blow to Congressional opposition to the war. In a 53-47 vote largely along party lines, senators rejected a war powers resolution introduced by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia that would have directed the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities against Iran.
Only one Republican — Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky — broke ranks to support the measure. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the sole Democrat to vote against it.
“They have shifting goals, different answers every day. And I am truly worried about mission creep,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned ahead of the vote.
But Republicans were unmoved. “The United States and our allies are now in conflict with a brutal, hostile, and dangerous regime,” said GOP Sen. Todd Young of Indiana. “I believe that danger will only grow if we limit the President’s military options at this critical moment.”
This was the eighth war powers resolution Congress has voted on since June 2025. All eight have failed. Even if both chambers passed such a measure, it would face a presidential veto requiring a two-thirds override — a mathematical impossibility in the current political environment.
The political reality is clear: Trump has a green light to prosecute this war as long as he sees fit.
Day 5: ‘We’re Just Getting Started’
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth left no ambiguity about where the campaign is headed.
“We are accelerating, not decelerating,” Hegseth told reporters Wednesday. “Iran’s capabilities are evaporating by the hour, while American strength grows fiercer, smarter and utterly dominant. More bombers and more fighters are arriving just today.”
The numbers are staggering. According to CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper’s latest briefing, Operation Epic Fury now involves:
- Over 50,000 U.S. troops deployed to the theater
- More than 200 fighter jets conducting around-the-clock sorties
- Two aircraft carrier strike groups
- B-52 strategic bombers operating directly over Iran
- B-2 and B-1 stealth bombers
- Over 1,700 Iranian targets struck since February 28
Admiral Cooper described the operation as “24/7 strikes into Iran from seabed to space and cyberspace.” Hegseth added that the U.S. would have “complete control of Iranian skies” in under a week.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reinforced the message: “The United States of America has more than enough capability to not only successfully execute Operation Epic Fury, but to go much further. We have weapons stockpiles in places that many people in this world don’t know about.”
Tehran Burns: Overnight Strikes Hit the Heart of the Capital
While Washington debated, the bombs kept falling. Late Tuesday night and into Wednesday, American and Israeli fighter jets targeted western Tehran in a devastating new wave of strikes.
According to The New York Times, strikes hit the grounds of Mehrabad International Airport — Tehran’s main domestic airport — as well as several locations west of Azadi Square and the Tehransar and Chitgar neighborhoods.
The Israeli Defense Forces confirmed they dismantled Iranian defense and detection systems at Mehrabad, and earlier strikes had already destroyed at least two Iranian F-14 fighter jets on the tarmac. A separate Israeli strike on Bushehr airport destroyed an Iranian air carrier on the ground.
Israel’s Operation Roaring Lion has run in parallel with Epic Fury, with the Israeli Air Force conducting its own extensive campaign against Iranian military infrastructure, command facilities, and the presidential compound in Tehran. Video footage from Iran International showed the IRGC Malek-Ashtar building in Tehran completely destroyed.
Iranian state media reported Wednesday that the death toll from five days of U.S.-Israeli attacks had topped 1,000. The human rights group Hengaw estimated that 1,300 members of Iranian military forces alone had been killed as of late March 2.
Iran Fights Back — But Can It Hold?
Iran has not taken the assault passively. Under what Tehran has dubbed “Operation True Promise IV,” Iran has continued launching ballistic missile barrages at Israel — at least six on March 3 alone — and has struck at U.S. bases and embassies across the Gulf region.
A U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka with a torpedo — the first American torpedo attack on a warship since World War II, and notably the first U.S. attack on Iranian forces outside the Middle East theater.
Iran has also threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil passes. Ship-tracking data showed a 70% reduction in traffic through the strait, and tankers were seen clustered off the coast of Fujairah as vessels either stayed in port or turned back. Trump responded by announcing the U.S. would provide insurance for commercial shipping transiting the strait.
Four U.S. soldiers were killed by an Iranian drone strike, with additional service members seriously wounded — the first American combat deaths of the campaign. NATO also shot down a missile near Turkey, raising fears of the conflict spreading beyond the region.
The Regime Change Question
With Kurdish ground forces now inside Iran, the question the world has been asking since February 28 is becoming harder to dodge: Is this a limited military operation, or is the United States pursuing regime change?
The Trump administration has offered what The New York Times called “a head-snapping series of shifting justifications” for the conflict. Initially framed around Iran’s nuclear program — the IAEA discovered hidden highly enriched uranium on February 27 — the objectives have expanded to include destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, degrading the IRGC, and now apparently supporting armed insurgent groups inside Iran.
Democrats walked away from a classified briefing Tuesday deeply unsatisfied. One senator described being told this was “an open-ended operation that hasn’t even really started in earnest.”
Sen. Kaine put it bluntly: “If you don’t have the guts to vote yes or no on a war vote, how dare you send our sons and daughters into war where they risk their lives.”
But with the Senate vote behind him, a ground campaign underway, and his defense secretary promising weeks more of escalation, President Trump appears to have all the political and military runway he needs.
What Comes Next
The convergence of these developments — the Kurdish ground offensive, the failed war powers vote, the accelerating air campaign, and Iran’s retaliatory strikes across the Gulf — suggests the conflict is entering its most dangerous phase yet.
The question is no longer whether this is a war. It’s how far it goes, how long it lasts, and what the Middle East looks like when it’s over.
This is a developing story. List25 will continue providing updates as the situation evolves.