Somewhere over the Gulf, the sky looked empty. In reality, it was the moment the war began. Four US F‑22 Raptor stealth fighters had just lifted off from a desert base, dropped to low altitude, went radio‑silent — and then vanished from every Iranian radar screen on the map.

At H‑minute, as the F‑22s crossed the invisible line into Iranian airspace, destroyers and submarines unleashed waves of Tomahawk cruise missiles, skimming low over the water toward air‑defense radars, command bunkers and Revolutionary Guard bases. Simultaneously, elite cyber units injected malicious code into Iranian networks, feeding phantom tracks to operators and freezing key consoles at the worst possible moment.

Seven minutes in, the first Tomahawks slammed into coastal radar sites, blowing open corridors in Iran’s air‑defense umbrella. The F‑22s slipped through those gaps, hunting high‑value targets with precision glide bombs — underground command centers, hardened communication nodes, and safe houses used by senior IRGC commanders. Iranian gunners fired blindly into the night, hitting nothing but their own fear.

By the 40‑minute mark, F‑35s from Israel and U.S. bases joined the assault, striking missile depots and drone hubs deeper inland. Overhead, an E‑3 AWACS stitched together a live picture of the chaos, while swarms of drones flooded the battlespace, relaying targeting data in real time.

At 90 minutes, entire sectors of Iran’s integrated air defense were dark, key runways were cratered, and emergency broadcasts in Tehran spoke of “martyrdom” and “treacherous aggression.” In Washington and Tel Aviv, officials called it a “stunning opening blow.” But even as commanders admired the precision of Operation Epic Fury’s first hour and a half, one question already loomed: after a start this explosive, how does anyone stop what comes next?