Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain
Feb 18, 2026
A former senior U.S. intelligence official who is an informal advisor to the Trump administration on Middle East policy told Drop Site that, based on his discussions with current officials, he assesses an 80-90% likelihood of U.S. strikes within weeks.
Iran realizes that it is facing an unprecedented threat from the U.S. if a deal that conforms with Trump’s terms is not reached, former Pentagon official Jasmine El-Gamal told Drop Site. “This is not a dress rehearsal,” she said. “This is it. This is not the negotiations of last year or the year before or the year before that. They’re backed into a corner. There’s no off ramp.”
Can’t have elections during a war. Or some bullshit according to diddlin Donnie.
that’s just a ukranian thing. lol
Iran isn’t Iraq. This will be a major war with a technologically advanced military. Eventually, there will be a draft. Unfortunately, they’re probably smart enough to do it by Zip code, meaning it will be another Vietnam: a war of the poor and the not-white.
Eventually, there will be a draft. Unfortunately, they’re probably smart enough to do it by Zip code, meaning it will be another Vietnam: a war of the poor and the not-white.
epstein’s effective lottery wins and the fact that such a large number of lottery winners had ties to the government proves that they’re capable of doing this.
Endangering US soldiers to distract the public from the Epstein Files. The pedo loser will give himself the Medal of Honor after the bombing campaign,
This is a problematic framing. While Trump personally may want to distract from the Epstein files, the media itself is doing a great job burying them without him by frothing at the mouth about that news anchor lady’s mother getting kidnapped and doing wall to wall breathless coverage on that while talking zero about the Epstein files.
Also Lindsey Graham and other neo-cons including John Bolton have wanted to regime change Iran since at least the beginning of the George W. Bush administration and constantly inveighed for it. Rubio is very much of that faction and the US interests are broadly served by seizing control of global oil supply. They already took out the head of Venezuela and subordinated control of their oil to the US. They need only take out Iran and having already gotten Europe to not use Russian oil they’ll control oil flows globally in a way that lets them inflict pain on China (even with Russia stepping in to supply China some oil it’s not enough for its needs).
This is part of a grand geo-political strategy of maintaining hegemony that has little to do with Trump. Nancy Pelosi, has applauded applying pain to the Iranian people to try and get them to overthrow their government. It is in the interests of the US and the zionist entity known as “israel” to destroy Iran’s current government even without the oil due to their presence as a regional power not on the US/“israel” side (the oil just makes it more appealing and serves even more objectives).
Every American who called Russians orcs better be getting ready to fully embrace that label.
seriously. they don’t get half the shit they deserve.
The American invaders versus the Persian defenders. A full scale bombardment.
what’s new after iraq?
They just need to channel the power of ahura mazda and send in the Immortal regiment.
Is the likelihood of an invasion based on something Iran is doing? Or is it dependent on how horrifying the next Epstein file drop will be? I mean…I know the fucking answer to this already. Doesn’t make it any less infuriating. This piece of shit will start World War III, all to distract everyone from the fact that he raped children. “No new wars.”
It is about controlling the straight of hormuz for the usa and to crush any resistance to the greater israel plan for Israel
I know this is naive but is there ZERO international efforts to stop this blatant terrorism?
Russia and China have been sending military aid to Iran. China has also cut the US off from rare earths supplies which is affecting American military production. Clearly that hasn’t been a sufficient deterrent though.
And there’s really nothing that can be done in terms of international law because the US simply ignores it.
Obviously neither Russia nor China want to have a direct military confrontation with the US either. That would be WW3, and likely lead to a nuclear holocaust.
So, it seems like a war on Iran is unavoidable at this point.
With a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie why is Russia being so nice?
They’re not nice. They wanted to be part of the western club since the fall of USSR, but the west chose to have an antagonistic relationship instead which pushed Russia towards the Global South, because it’s the only option they had. Iran is important to both Russia and China geographically since it creates a route to Middle East and Africa, and it acts as the key force to contain US and Israeli influence in the region.
China has also cut the US off from rare earths supplies which is affecting American military
I thought they capitulated in this, no?
It sounds like its incumbent on american citizens, then
Nope, they never lifted restrictions on that.
Good. I hope they never do
Yeah, if China stops supplying rare earths, that’s really going to cripple US military production capacity going forward.
I guess that also explains the recent american involvement in Africa too
Europe outsourced their militarism to the US for 40-60 years.
Who would stop this? As in, who has the forces to do so?
Ugh, its so true. But like, what about the UN ( i know, i know). What about congress? (Again). Where is anything?
But like, what about the UN ( i know, i know).
Well, I mean, do you? You’re asking about a body created by and hosted in the US and funded also largely by the US. It’s toothless and useless because nobody has ever done anything substantial to legitimize it except the US and now that the US has decided that unilateral fascism is the easy path, what exactly does anyone expect?
It’s like a microcosm of the sum of Europe’s problems rn, tbh.
But surely there are economic sanctions or SOME even milqtoast consequences that can get ball rolling
Im aware how reckless the un is but those sorts of rebukes on the international stage DO make a difference
I dunno what planet you’ve been on, but the international efforts for the last few major wars have been very little but finger wagging.
I totally know that but like … notning? Really? UN? NATO? WEF? Anybody?
It used to be the USSR but that era is long gone and the US filled the void.
Not even China wants to go down that route.
Iran also failed to properly maintain and upgrade their military since the end of the war with Iraq. They have an internal political issue which is why they have the IRGC, which is a completely separate entity from the national military.
It was in the supreme leader’s interest to keep the main military weak to ensure he couldn’t be couped, but now that has left them extremely exposed.
Didnt know that. Makes sense. Do you think he could rally a defense force?
Probably not within the given time frame, the US is still trying to figure out a way to topple the government without a land invasion which would be insanely more expensive.
Even without it, their airforce is practically nonexistent so they would be under constant air strikes which could cause desertion or internal rebellion.
Hmmm. Well, I hope Iran prevails.
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Willing? Do you mean: doing all the harm?
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Im not advocating for that regime. Thats a separate issue.
However, the usa abd pissrael goaded Iran into a much more severe reaction. Do you remember when pissrael said they had agents inciting insurrection amongst the protesters?
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I think countries should bomb the USA as they have ice concentration camps. And while they do so I hope that the civilian deaths are people like you
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Again, this is not me advocating for the regime. However, as an anti-imperiliast, I can hope that the people of Iran make changes to their government on their own, without 2000 lb palestinian child murder bombs from the usa
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Eh, it’s Iran. Most of the world hates them, so good luck gathering support.
Hell awaits.
Most of the woeld hate your country
Most of the world hates them
Just most of the white world
yeah I saw almost no coverage on this today. the zone is flooded, and boy is it shit.
Don lemon though, they covered it extensively.
Trump is finally about to become presidential.
Also getting his Nobel peace prize aaaany minute now.
lol didn’t Machado already give him hers in hopes of being crowned queen of Venezuela
trump immediately makes fun of her too. i still have second hand embarrassment for that one.
🤣
Iran is such a beautiful country. I’ve watched people motorcycle and bicycle through it on YouTube and the people are so kind and warm. It’s really upsetting the way America wields it’s might.
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