CoverStory:U.S.-IsraelWaronIranSetsMiddleEastAblaze

A U.S.-Israeli military operation that killed Iran’s supreme leader and about 40 senior Iranian officials has metastasized, drawing missile and drone attacks across the Middle East and narrowing any near-term path back to diplomacy.

The Feb. 28 strike on a heavily guarded compound in central Tehran came just two days after U.S. and Iranian negotiators had publicly signaled progress in a third round of nuclear talks in Geneva. Within hours of the attack, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on social media that Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a joint military operation with Israel. Iranian state media confirmed the death about four hours later, saying the 86-year-old was killed in his office.

During a March 1 phone call, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the U.S. and Israel’s attacks on Iran during ongoing negotiations were unacceptable, and that assassinating a sovereign nation’s leader and instigating regime change violated international law and fundamental norms of international relations.

The killing of Khamenei at the outset of direct war between Iran and the U.S.-Israel alliance has few modern precedents. For Iran, it amounts to the gravest shock to the country since the 1979 revolution. For the Gulf monarchies, which had spent years presenting themselves as islands of stability and growth, it has brought an abrupt return to the harsher political realities of the region.

The residence of Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei in Tehran following a U.S.-Israeli strike on Feb. 28. Photo: VCG

Talks overtaken by war

The strike has immediately cast doubt on the credibility of the three rounds of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks held since early February, fueling suspicions that the negotiations may have served as cover for a military plan already underway.

Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi told Wang during a March 2 phone call that U.S.-Iran talks had made unprecedented progress under Omani mediation but that the U.S. and Israel “have cast aside the existing outcomes of the talks and launched a war,” according to a statement published by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In retrospect, the military plan appears to have proceeded on a parallel track for roughly two months. On Dec. 29, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Trump at Mar-a-Lago and warned that Iran was advancing its ballistic missile program and seeking to revive three nuclear sites bombed by the U.S. in June 2025. The two discussed renewed joint military action.

In January, the White House was reluctant to get into another prolonged Middle East entanglement, while Gulf states urged Washington to show restraint. Later, however, the administration said military action remained on the table. The U.S. later deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups to the region, ratcheting up pressure on Tehran.

On a separate diplomatic track, the U.S. resumed talks with Iran in Muscat, Oman, on Feb. 6. Washington insisted that any deal address not only the nuclear issue but also Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for the so-called Axis of Resistance. Tehran wanted the talks limited to nuclear matters.

Saudi Arabia publicly backed diplomacy. Fahad Nazer, spokesperson for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, said in a statement on X on March 2, “At no point in all our communication with the Trump Administration did we lobby the President to adopt a different policy.”

Yet skepticism in Trump’s circle ran deep from the start. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff doubted a deal was likely, according to various reports. U.S. officials also said intelligence indicated Iran was rebuilding nuclear facilities that Trump had said were destroyed in June.

Hours before the strike, Trump publicly signaled hesitation. He told reporters as he left the White House on Feb. 27 that he was “not happy” with the pace of nuclear talks. Still, he said Washington had not made a final decision.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, later disclosed that at around 4 p.m. that day, Trump issued a direct order from Air Force One: “Operation Epic Fury is approved. No aborts. Good luck,” Caine quoted him as saying.

U.S. President Trump (center), CIA Director John Ratcliffe (left), Secretary of State Marco Rubio (center-right), and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles (right) oversee Operation “Epic Fury” at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 28. Photo: VCG

Gulf under fire

Within an hour of the U.S.-Israeli strike, Iran launched retaliatory strikes on Israel and attacked targets in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman where U.S. forces are based. Missiles and drones struck or threatened locations from Tel Aviv to Manama, the capital of Bahrain.

Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, told Caixin that he had grown used to entering shelters. “This is part of war, and unfortunately we have gotten used to it,” he said.

The number of missiles Iran was firing at Israel appeared to be falling by the day, he added, suggesting Tehran’s strike capacity was declining. “No one is happy about this,” Michael said. “But everyone understands we had no other choice.”

Emergency responders arrive at the aftermath of an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Tel Aviv on Feb. 28. Photo: IC photo

In Dubai, Zhan Liangfei, Middle East and North Africa head for Chinese autonomous-driving company WeRide Inc., told Caixin that explosions were heard at multiple locations soon after news of the strike on Iran broke. Employees were told to stay home, he said, and he could see missiles being intercepted overhead from day into night.

As of March 3, the U.A.E. said Iranian missile and drone attacks killed three people and injured dozens. Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said two drones had struck the U.S. embassy in Riyadh on March 3, causing a small fire.

Smoke billows from the U.S. naval base in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, after an Iranian missile attack on Feb. 28. Photo: IC photo

The U.S., Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan issued a joint statement condemning what they called Iran’s “indiscriminate and reckless missile and drone attacks” on their sovereign territory. Iran said a girls’ school in the southern city of Minab had been hit by U.S.-Israeli strikes, killing at least 165 students and staff and injuring dozens of others. U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the Washington is investigating the matter.

Mouin Rabbani, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said Gulf states were angry with Iran for hitting their territory and damaging the region’s image as a safe emerging market. But they were also disappointed with the U.S., he said, because the American military presence had not protected them and instead exposed them to danger.

Qatar, home to Al Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military facility in the region, said Iran fired 66 missiles at the country after the fighting began, injuring at least 16 people.

Even so, the Gulf states drawn into the conflict have so far limited themselves to condemnation and air defense rather than retaliatory strikes on Iranian territory.

The ruins of a girls’ elementary school in Minab city, which was bombed twice on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, reportedly killing more than 160 students and staff. Photo: VCG

Daniel Levy, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, said the more rational choice for Gulf states was to pressure Washington to end the conflict quickly. “Commerce and stability are existential for the Gulf states,” he said.

On March 2, Wang said in a phone call with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi that China values the traditional friendship between China and Iran. He said China supports Iran in safeguarding its sovereignty, security, territorial integrity and national dignity.

In a separate phone call on March 3 with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Wang stated that China opposes the strikes against Iran launched by Israel and the U.S. He said China has consistently advocated settling international and regional hotspot issues through dialogue and consultation.

For many years, China has been committed to advancing a political settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue, Wang said in a Foreign Ministry statement. “The real value of military might lies not on the battlefield, but in the prevention of war. China calls for immediate cessation of military actions to prevent the conflict from further escalating and spiraling out of control,” he said.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (center), Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei (left) and Guardian Council jurist member Alireza Arafi (right) attended the second meeting of the Interim Leadership Council in Tehran on March 2. Photo: VCG

Iran after Khamenei

The death of Khamenei, who dominated Iranian politics for almost 37 years, briefly raised a question over who would succeed him. That was answered early Monday, when Iranian state media announced that Khamenei’s son, 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, has been selected as the country’s new supreme leader. Trump had previously told U.S. media that the younger Khamenei would be “unacceptable.”

For now, analysts said, the Iranian state still appears to be functioning. Rabbani said there was no clear sign of a power vacuum. “Regime change through airstrikes and assassinations is almost impossible,” he said in an interview with Caixin last week. “That requires either internal upheaval or a ground invasion. At the moment, neither seems very likely.”

Hamzeh Safavi, a Tehran University professor and son of former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Yahya Rahim Safavi, told Caixin that immediate regime change was unlikely, but warned that Iran risked a breakdown in governance. “This could trigger unrest, war and sustained small-scale attacks against various targets,” he said. “It could last for a long time.”

Restarting the dialogue between Iran and the U.S. in the near term could be difficult as the new supreme leader may come from the hard-line conservative camp, said Liu Lanyu, associate professor at the China-Arab Reform and Development Institute of Beijing International Studies University, who spoke to Caixin before Khamenei’s successor was announced.

Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, said it remained too early to predict the war’s trajectory. “But one thing is certain: grave dangers lie ahead,” he said.

Citing the lessons of Vietnam and Iraq, Kamrava said major powers’ military campaigns against smaller states often inflict devastating casualties and destruction while failing to achieve the victories imagined at the outset.

“Historians will view this war as a major turning point in the political history of Iran, Israel, the Middle East and the U.S.,” he said. “What is happening today is indeed the beginning of history. And history is often written in tragedy and blood.”

Contact reporter Kelsey Cheng (kelseycheng@caixin.com) and editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)