This morning, Operation Epic Fury was a defensible executive action against a genuine nuclear threat. By tonight, it is a regional war. Iran launched ballistic missiles and drones at U.S. military installations in Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The world's busiest airport is closed. And in a provincial city called Minab, on the southern coast of Iran, between 85 and 108 elementary school girls are dead. [1] Conservatives who supported the original strikes — including this writer — now have to reckon with all of it.
What the School Changes
The deaths at Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school are real. France24, Le Monde, and Reuters correspondents have authenticated footage. The revised toll — 85 to 108 children aged 7 to 12, killed during a class change when the school roof collapsed — is the worst single civilian casualty event of the operation. [2] No strategic argument makes that number acceptable on its face, and no serious conservative should pretend otherwise. The proximity justification — that the school sat adjacent to an IRGC naval base — explains the targeting logic. It does not, by itself, close the accountability question. [3]
What the School Doesn't Change
Accountability requires facts, and the facts are still coming in. CENTCOM has acknowledged the reports and opened an investigation. [3] The Iranian regime's history of manipulating casualty figures — exaggerating numbers during past conflicts, staging imagery, attributing its own air defense failures to adversary strikes — is well-documented, and that track record cannot be set aside simply because a tragic toll is plausible. What is confirmed: the school was adjacent to an IRGC naval base that was a designated military target. What is under investigation: whether the school was struck by offensive ordnance, by Iranian air defense debris, or by some combination. That distinction matters — militarily, legally, and morally. [1]
