US-Israel Military Action Against Iran with Executive Director at the SPME Asaf Romirowsky

In early **2026, the United States and Israel launched a major coordinated military campaign against Iran—dubbed Operation Lion’s Roar by Israel and Operation Epic Fury by the U.S.—targeting Iranian nuclear, missile, and military infrastructure and resulting in the deaths of key Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and significant retaliation across the region. Against the backdrop of this sharp escalation, Asaf Romirowsky, Executive Director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and a historian of Middle Eastern affairs, has emphasized the broader ideological and geopolitical stakes shaping American and allied policy, framing the conflict as part of a long-standing confrontation with Islamist forces that extend beyond conventional battlefields into academic, cultural, and political arenas—a perspective consistent with his scholarship on Middle East policy and the narratives that influence Western perceptions of regional threats.