Since the launch of Operation Epic Fury on February 28, U.S. and Israeli forces have, over 18 days of combat through March 17, killed 49 senior Iranian officials — including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — and dismantled Iran's C4ISR systems, air defense networks, air force, and surface naval capabilities. While the campaign has not fully prevented Iran from continuing long-range strikes using ballistic missiles and drones, precision targeting of mobile missile launchers, drone launch vehicles, and underground tunnel entrances has caused a sharp decline in the number of such weapons deployed.
Objectives Remain Elusive as Washington Weighs Escalation
Operation Epic Fury appears designed to achieve five core objectives, based on statements from senior U.S. officials and the trajectory of joint military operations:
(1) Iran permanently abandons its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
(2) Iran permanently ceases ballistic missile and drone strikes against other countries.
(3) Iran stops arming, financing, and directing terrorist proxy organizations abroad.
(4) Iran stops disrupting maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Critically, Washington had originally calculated that a swift, overwhelming air campaign could neutralize the Iranian threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East — freeing military resources for redeployment to the Indo-Pacific to strengthen deterrence against China as a long-term strategic competitor. Achieving that rapid outcome, analysts note, hinged on identifying the equivalent of a Rodríguez-style regime in Iran: a governing authority capable of stabilizing internal order while complying with U.S. demands.
Despite holding a decisive battlefield advantage, the U.S.-Israeli coalition has not produced that outcome. Iran's leadership, though significantly weakened, has shown no signs of political collapse or breakdown in morale. In recent days, Iran has intensified attacks on oil tankers and cargo vessels in the Strait of Hormuz using drones, unmanned surface vessels, underwater unmanned vehicles, and naval mines — posing a significant threat to oil prices and broader consumer prices in the United States and around the world.
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These developments suggest the probability of achieving U.S. objectives through air power alone has fallen sharply, and that Operation Epic Fury may be entering a prolonged phase. According to defense analysts, the Trump administration may now be compelled to consider escalatory options it had sought to avoid — specifically, deploying ground forces to strike discrete targets inside Iran, including known nuclear storage facilities and positions from which attacks on the Strait of Hormuz have been launched. Forces potentially available for such a mission include special operations units, the 82nd Airborne Division, and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (31st MEU) — approximately 2,500 Marines aboard the USS Tripoli — which has been ordered to redeploy from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East.
Why Washington Is Considering a Ground Option
The logic behind a potential ground operation, defense analysts argue, follows directly from the absence of a viable political alternative inside Iran. Without a compliant successor regime, fully neutralizing Iran's nuclear storage infrastructure and securing freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz — the two outcomes that would allow Washington to declare a clear victory — may require boots on the ground.
Before the initial U.S.-Israeli air strikes against Iran in June 2025 — a separate operation preceding Epic Fury — Iran already held a substantial nuclear stockpile. According to IAEA estimates, this included over 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, and nearly 200 kilograms enriched to 20 percent. The latter can be converted to weapons-grade uranium relatively quickly. One probable storage site is a deep underground facility near Pickaxe Mountain, outside Natanz in central Iran. At an estimated depth of 79 to 100 meters, it lies beyond the reach of the U.S. military's GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which can penetrate to approximately 61 meters.
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Given the limitations of air-delivered munitions, analysts suggest the only viable path to rapidly neutralizing Iran's nuclear threat may be inserting special operations forces — supported by elite Rangers or 82nd Airborne units providing perimeter security— via transport aircraft or helicopters through Iran's substantially degraded airspace. Forces would land near Pickaxe Mountain, assault the underground facility, and extract radioactive materials using specially trained teams.
The Strait of Hormuz presents a distinct but related challenge. Although the U.S.-Israeli campaign has destroyed the majority of Iran's operational surface warships and coastal anti-ship missile batteries, Iran retains the capacity to use islands in the strait and approximately 160 kilometers of coastline along the strait's northern shore as launch platforms for drones, unmanned surface vessels, and underwater unmanned vehicles. Conventional naval convoy escorts offer limited effectiveness against low-radar-signature threats approaching at sea-skimming altitudes or from below the surface within a waterway only 39 to 97 kilometers wide.
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One proposed solution, according to defense analysts, would be a Marine amphibious assault — supported by naval and air superiority — to seize key islands including Larak, Hormuz, and Qeshm, destroy their military infrastructure, and subsequently deny Iranian drone operations from Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa. Success would both degrade Iran's unmanned systems capability and enable the emplacement of reconnaissance and intercept systems to protect shipping. This operational concept closely resembles the U.S. Marine Corps' Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) doctrine developed for the Indo-Pacific — which analysts suggest is a primary rationale behind the Central Command request to redeploy the 31st MEU.
The Risks of Ground Operations Should Not Be Underestimated
While these prospective ground operations may appear limited in scale, and the risk of Iranian air defense engagement is relatively low, the limited scale of these prospective operations should not be mistaken for limited risk.
Iran can likely anticipate the probable targets of any ground offensive, making strategic surprise extremely difficult to achieve. In the case of the Pickaxe Mountain facility, Iranian ground forces could leverage their familiarity with surrounding mountainous terrain to mount ambushes. Even moderate U.S. casualties — or the capture of American personnel — could generate significant political backlash domestically, analysts note.
Even if an initial assault succeeded, fully securing and clearing a deep tunnel complex before extracting nuclear materials could require several days of sustained operations. Establishing a temporary airstrip nearby would likely be necessary to transport equipment and evacuate materials. This extends the operational timeline, increases logistical demands, and exposes U.S. forces to sustained Iranian ground and drone attacks throughout.
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The island seizure mission in the Strait of Hormuz carries comparatively lower risk — but is not without complications. Iran is assessed to have pre-positioned substantial stocks of components across dispersed locations, enabling continued production of loitering munitions in low-infrastructure facilities. This would allow ongoing drone strikes against both commercial shipping and U.S. Marine positions on seized islands. Ensuring comprehensive maritime security in the strait, analysts argue, would ultimately require not only a naval presence and extensive surveillance assets monitoring the entire northern Iranian coastline, but potentially additional ground forces to occupy and hold positions on Iranian soil along the strait's northern shore.
In sum, deploying ground forces to strike discrete targets inside Iran could give Washington a plausible path to completing its two primary objectives and ending the Iranian threat to U.S. Middle East interests within a shorter timeframe. However, there remains a meaningful probability that such an escalation still fails to produce a clean, rapid conclusion to the conflict. It amounts to a high-stakes gamble
*The author is a research fellow at the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies and a research fellow at theCentre for Advanced Technology(CAT) at Tamkang University.
This article was originally published in le penseur（奔騰思潮） and is republished here with permission.
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