A U.S. Air Force F-16 takes flight in the Middle East in support of Operation Epic Fury in a file photo from March 2. (U.S. Navy / Getty Images)
By Joe Saunders July 29, 2026 at 6:19pm
A new round of fighting emerging in Iran this week brought a new player that could change the game entirely.
U.S. forces launched new airstrikes against Iran on Wednesday, U.S. Central Command announced, while earlier, and for the first time, the Saudi Arabian military joined with the U.S. in striking Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, The Associated Press reported.
And, according to Fox News, a former deputy CENTCOM commander said those developments and others could signify Iran being pushed to a “tipping point.”
U.S. Central Command issued a statement Tuesday on the social media platform X announcing the attacks with the Saudis targeted “Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed to attack U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure.”
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 29, 2026
The action also came hours after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had launched missile attacks against a U.S. military base in the region. The missiles were all shot down.
According to Fox, retired Navy Vice Adm. Robert Harward, a retired SEAL and former deputy CENTCOM commander, said the development means “you’re seeing the pressure build on Iran on all fronts.”
Foreign governments are taking part in the fighting now, where they hadn’t before, he said.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah group appears to be losing ground politically in Lebanon, he said.
And in Iran itself, public executions by the regime on Tuesday drew crowds of dissent, according to Fox News.
“You see the Lebanese government making an agreement with Israel to undermine and try to get rid of Hezbollah,” Harward said Tuesday on “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” according to Fox.
“You’re seeing the British willing to contribute ships to the blockade.
“You’re seeing other countries willing to go after the Houthis. So the pressure is building tremendously in Iran, and you’re starting to see some breaking points there in the executions in Isfahan yesterday.”
That could mean trouble for Tehran, he said.
“The people came out to protest, and they had to shoot them down to prevent them from overwhelming the execution team, so the pressure in Iran is building, and we could see a tipping point come here in the not too distant future,” he added.
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Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn’t need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
Nationality
American
