Strikes slammed into the compound home of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in downtown Tehran on Saturday morning as the United States military, working in concert with Israel, launched a sweeping assault on Iranian military infrastructure. The operation, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, drew immediate and bipartisan support from Capitol Hill, including from one of the Senate's most unlikely voices.
Sen. John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, endorsed President Donald Trump's attacks on Iran in a post on X.
President Trump has been willing to do what's right and necessary to produce real peace in the region.
He followed with a line that could have come from any Republican on the Armed Services Committee: "God bless the United States, our great military, and Israel."
A U.S. official told Fox News Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin that Trump's military armada in the Middle East is targeting military targets and ballistic missile sites that pose an "imminent threat." The same official drew a clear operational line: the U.S. military is not targeting Iran's leadership, but Israel is.
Trump issued a video statement on social media with a message aimed squarely at the Iranian people.
When we are finished, take over your government; It will be yours to take.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina posted a string of messages on X beginning after 3 a.m. ET, and the senator was not holding back.
As I watch and monitor this historic operation, I'm in awe of President Trump's determination to be a man of peace but at the end of the day, evil's worst nightmare.
Fox News reports that Graham called the operation "necessary and long justified," praised its planning, and predicted it would be "violent, extensive, and I believe, at the end of the day, successful." He described the regime as having "American blood on its hands" and said its demise is more than warranted.
But Graham also looked beyond the immediate strikes to what could follow. He pointed to normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, calling the likelihood "exceedingly high" and referencing conversations he had last week with key players in the region who agreed: if the ayatollah's regime falls, historic peace advances.
The biggest change in the Middle East in a thousand years is upon us.
Senate Armed Forces Committee Chair Roger Wicker of Mississippi issued a detailed statement laying out the operation's objectives as stated by the president:
Wicker framed the threat in global terms, noting that without military force, Iran's regime would continue growing its ability to threaten Americans, "working in concert with the Chinese Communist Party, the Russian dictator Putin, North Korea, and other terrorist allies."
The Iranian regime has never been weaker.
He commended the service members executing the mission, saying their operational proficiency is "unrivaled the world over" and that the results would speak for themselves in the coming days.
Fetterman's endorsement is the story within the story. This is a Democrat who won his Senate seat with progressive support, who campaigned on the cultural signifiers of the American left, and who now finds himself routinely standing with the sitting Republican president on matters of national security and the Middle East.
The Democratic Party has spent years cultivating an activist base that views American military power with deep suspicion and treats any Israeli military operation as inherently suspect. Fetterman has refused to play along. His statement Saturday morning contained no caveats, no "but we must also consider," no ritual invocation of diplomatic alternatives. He praised the president. He blessed the military. He blessed Israel.
That is a significant departure from the reflexive posture of his party, and it raises a question Democratic leadership will have to answer eventually: Is Fetterman an outlier, or is he simply saying what other Democrats think but lack the spine to voice?
Not every Republican was celebratory. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky posted that Trump "has not sought congressional approval," calling the strikes "acts of war unauthorized by Congress." He did note that a briefing was held with the Gang of Eight earlier in the week.
Massie's objection is constitutionally serious and deserves engagement on its own terms. The question of war powers has been unresolved for decades, and it predates this administration by a long stretch. Presidents of both parties have ordered strikes without prior congressional authorization, invoking executive authority to respond to imminent threats. The Gang of Eight briefing suggests the White House was not operating in a vacuum, even if formal authorization was not sought.
This debate will continue. It should. But the operational reality on Saturday morning was that American and Israeli forces were dismantling an imminent nuclear and ballistic threat from a regime that has funded terrorism across the globe, attacked American service members and allies, and spent decades mortgaging the futures of ordinary Iranians to pursue what Wicker called an "obsessive and apocalyptic vision."
The U.S. has authorized non-essential embassy personnel to leave Israel amid escalating tensions with Iran. Sirens sounded across Israel on Saturday morning. The scope and duration of Operation Epic Fury remain to be seen, but the stated objectives, eliminating Iran's nuclear ambitions, degrading its missile infrastructure, and destroying its ability to project terror, are not small goals. They represent a fundamental reshaping of the Middle East security architecture.
Graham's prediction about Saudi-Israeli normalization, if it bears out, would vindicate a vision that many in Washington dismissed as fantasy. Wicker's statement that Americans will be safer "not just today, but for generations to come" is a bet on the decisiveness of this moment.
Trump's message to the Iranian people was the sharpest signal of all. Not a threat. An invitation. Take your country back.
Whether that invitation is answered depends on what the Iranian people do when the dust settles. What is already clear is that the regime that has terrorized them and the region for decades is absorbing blows it was never supposed to face.
