Trump deliberated on Iran for weeks. His ‘massive and ongoing’ operation comes with acknowledgment US lives could be lost

Kevin Liptak

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/28/politics/trump-iran-strikes-decision

President Donald Trump’s announcement of a “massive and ongoing” US military campaign against Iran — and his explicit call for the country’s citizens to shake off their oppressive leadership — put on display his fresh appetite for geopolitical risk and thrust his presidency into a deeper period of uncertainty.

“The United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests,” he said of Iran in a video posted to Truth Social early Saturday morning, in which he starkly acknowledged that US lives may be lost in the operation.

The eight-minute recording laid bare both the president’s objectives in Iran — which had been unclear — and the potential for dire consequences. Trump appears hopeful his major air operation can successfully result in a change in Iran’s regime, despite the vast uncertainties about what might replace it and the limited historical examples of air power alone ousting a country’s leader.

“They rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore,” said Trump, who a US official said is continuing to monitor the strikes from Mar-a-Lago.

The president reached his decision after weeks of deliberation and an attempt by his envoys to strike a rapid diplomatic agreement that would have forced Iran to abandon long-held red lines. The US military is planning for several days of attacks, two sources told CNN, and Iran has already retaliated across the Middle East, including targeting the US Navy base in Bahrain that is home to the Fifth Fleet, a US official said.

Trump never fully publicly laid out his case for war, even during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, despite strikes being a politically perilous move at home, especially for a president who campaigned on ending foreign entanglements. He noted on Saturday the potential cost to American lives.

“The Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties — that often happens in war — but we’re doing this not for now. We’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission,” the president said, adding that US had “taken every possible step to minimize the risk to US personnel in the region.”

To many of Trump’s allies, military action had long appeared inevitable. After telling Iranian protesters at the start of the year that he would come to their support, warning the US was “locked and loaded” to attack, he felt obligated to enforce his red line.

“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations,” Trump told the Iranian people in his video.

“For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond,” he said.

Trump’s motivations for his second set of strikes within Iran since returning to office — conveyed mostly in curt, off-hand public remarks — appeared to shift over time, moving from protecting protesters to curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions to ousting the Iranian regime. He’s also cited Iran’s arsenal of missiles and destabilizing support for regional proxy groups, like Hezbollah and Hamas.

How the latest military action from both the US and Israel advances all, or any, of those objectives remains to be seen. Nor was it clear what the president has been told to expect in the aftermath.

Behind the scenes ahead of the strikes, officials wrestled with a slate of imperfect options that all stopped short of a decisive mission like the one Trump ordered in January to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. US intelligence is uncertain on who would replace Iran’s senior leaders if they are taken out.

Military officials have also warned the president about the steep risks for retaliation. Thousands of American troops based in the Middle East could now potentially be targets for Iran as it carries out promised reprisals.

During intense Situation Room meetings over the last several weeks, Trump and senior officials peppered top Pentagon brass, including Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with questions about each options’ likelihood of success. The answers were often inconclusive, even as Trump ordered a massive military buildup in the Middle East.

In his vague public remarks leading up to the strikes, Trump issued threats not backed by US intelligence — including that Iran would soon have a missile that can hit the US.

“They should make a deal, but they don’t want to quite go far enough,” he said Friday during a stop in Texas. “They don’t want to say the key words: ‘We’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.’”

Yet if Iran’s words alone were the bar for avoiding conflict, the hurdle had already been cleared. The country has repeatedly said it is not pursuing nuclear weapons, including this week.

There are many reasons to question that claim, including Iran’s previous enrichment of uranium to near-weapons grade. But Trump’s emphasis on the country’s words alone only seemed to raise more questions about what, precisely, he was looking for in a deal with the country’s leaders.

He allowed diplomacy to proceed, despite warnings from some senior officials that Iran was notoriously difficult to negotiate with. Some questioned whether Iran’s Supreme Leader, who has ultimate sign-off, would agree to any of Trump’s terms — even if his negotiators seemed more willing to negotiate.

Many inside Trump’s orbit encouraged him to pursue a deal. His envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who engaged in three rounds of indirect talks with the Iranians, entered the discussions with guarded hopes for success.

But others were less encouraging. GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham publicly scoffed at some reported concessions offered by the Iranians. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an urgent visit to Washington this month, said there would unlikely be a more opportune moment to strike Iran.

Throughout, Trump had appeared to people around him wary of taking the country to war, far preferring a diplomatic outcome that he could sell as stronger than the Obama-era nuclear deal he withdrew from. But he was impatient for an agreement, setting short timelines that did not yield the concessions he was seeking from Tehran.

In ordering the strikes, Trump overcame certain misgivings at launching an operation his military advisers warned could have an uncertain outcome and could prompt outsized retaliation by Tehran.

And the new operation — which follows limited US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last June — poses significant political risk for a president whose base has opposed foreign wars. In all, Trump has used the US military to target sites in more than than a half-dozen countries in his second term. It’s not clear how long this operation may last or cost, either in terms of money or lives.

In an interview this week, Vice President JD Vance — who has previously warned about sending US troops into harm’s way for uncertain purposes — suggested any operation in Iran would not result in a prolonged conflict akin to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.

“I do think we have to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. I also think that we have to avoid overlearning the lessons of the past,” he told the Washington Post. “Just because one president screwed up a military conflict doesn’t mean we can never engage in military conflict again. We’ve got to be careful about it, but I think the president is being careful.”

Trump acknowledged the risk of a prolonged conflict in his own assessment on Friday. “I guess you could say there’s always a risk. You know, when there’s war, there’s a risk in anything, both good and bad.”

Report: Trump Advisors Want Israel to Attack Iran First to Provoke Iranian Retaliation Against US Assets

According to POLITICO, senior US officials think the 'politics' would be better if Israel started the war

by Dave DeCamp | February 26, 2026

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/02/26/report-trump-advisors-want-israel-to-attack-iran-first-to-provoke-iranian-retaliation-against-us-assets/

Senior advisors to President Trump would prefer if Israel attacks Iran to launch a war against the Islamic Republic rather than having the US lead the opening airstrikes, POLITICO reported on Wednesday.

The thinking is that if Israel starts the war and Iran retaliates against the US, the “politics” would be better for the administration, and it would be easier to justify the war to the American people.

“There’s thinking in and around the administration that the politics are a lot better if the Israelis go first and alone and the Iranians retaliate against us, and give us more reason to take action,” a person familiar with the discussions within the administration told POLITICO.

Polling shows that the idea of a war with Iran is extremely unpopular among Americans and that US voters don’t want to risk American lives to bring about regime change. Support for Israel has also sharply declined in recent years, so a war that Israel leads the US into would also likely have very little support.

Despite the negotiations with Iran, the POLITICO report said that the belief among senior officials is that “we’re going to bomb them,” according to one of the sources, who also acknowledged the risk of major US casualties.

“If we’re talking about a regime-change scale attack, Iran is very likely to retaliate with everything they’ve got. We have a lot of assets in the region, and every one of those is a potential target,” the person said. “And they’re not under the Iron Dome. So there’s a high likelihood of American casualties. And that comes with lots of political risk.”

The Trump administration has failed to make a coherent case to the American people about why they are potentially planning to bomb Iran, as top officials have been pointing to Iran’s nuclear program as a pretext, despite President Trump’s insistence that he “obliterated” the nuclear facilities that were hit with US airstrikes in the June 2025 war.

As Trump Threatens Iran, We’re on the Brink of a Generational Catastrophe

A US war with Iran would be illegal, immoral, and dangerous. We can still stop it.

By Negin Owliaei , 

Truthout

Published

February 20, 2026

https://truthout.org/articles/as-trump-threatens-iran-were-on-the-brink-of-a-generational-catastrophe/

Wielding a golden gavel and a playlist featuring the Beach Boys, Donald Trump ushered in a new era of international humiliation at the inaugural meeting of the U.S.-led Board of Peace. The new body, while established by Trump, has been tasked by a UN Security Council resolution to administer Gaza’s reconstruction efforts. But Trump has also suggested his ambitions for the board go far beyond Gaza, saying it would “almost be looking over the United Nations and making sure it runs properly.”

Trump has demanded that world leaders pony up $1 billion for a permanent seat on the ostensible peacekeeping body, even as he defunds the actual peacekeeping mission of the United Nations, which he has suggested his new institution will supplant. Altogether, the February 19 inaugural meeting was a perfect distillation of Trump’s preferred method of extortion masked as diplomacy.

As soon as the Board of Peace was created, Palestinians and solidarity activists decried it as a farce and as a naked display of imperial ambition; the entire reason for its existence is to fully sidestep Palestinian autonomy in the rebuilding of Gaza. But any lingering doubts about the president’s lack of interest in peace were fully wiped away by his multiple references to bombing Iran during the Board of Peace’s first meeting, which took place in the newly branded Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.

Meanwhile Trump has initiated a huge military buildup near Iran including multiple aircraft carriers and warships. The buildup is so massive it has drawn parallels to the buildup preceding the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The buildup comes on the heels of the U.S.’s June 2025 aggression against Iran, when the U.S. bombed multiple Iranian nuclear sites during negotiations over the same nuclear program that the U.S. claims to be negotiating over today. That attack came during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran, which was conducted with U.S. arms and logistical support and funded with the help of U.S. taxpayers. During that war, more than 1,000 Iranians were killed. Trump has now said that Iran has “10 to 15 days” to make a deal. Following the charade of last year’s negotiations, analysts expect a U.S. attack on Iran to now come at any moment. New reporting has suggested that U.S. strikes could even target individual Iranian leaders, with the aim of bringing about regime change in the country.

A war between the U.S. and Iran would be undeniably disastrous. U.S. allies across the region have spent weeks urging restraint. Even the U.K., in an uncharacteristically defiant move, has reportedly told Trump it would not allow the U.S. military to use Diego Garcia, the Indian Ocean island that the two countries ethnically cleansed in order to build a military base, to bomb Iran, for fear of violating international law.

The majority of people in the U.S. are also against such an attack. Multiple U.S. polls from recent weeks have shown broad resistance to the use of military force in Iran, and a strong desire for Trump to seek congressional approval before launching an attack against another country.

So how did we arrive in this position, where, despite widespread domestic and international opposition, Trump’s murderous impulses are treated as inevitable? Over and over, pundits have framed this as a war that the U.S. is falling into, or one that it is sleepwalking toward. But there is not some gravitational force pulling the U.S. and Iran toward major military catastrophe. This is a war of choice by the U.S., and we must remember that it could be stopped in an instant.

We’ve been on a slow march toward this outcome, both over the decades that the powers that be in the U.S. and Israel have worked to manufacture consent for military action against Iran, and more deeply since they broke the dam on such an attack last June. There has been no accountability for that illegal attack, just as there has been no accountability for the U.S. kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro — neither move was met with articles of impeachment for Trump nor for the cabinet members who orchestrated the attack. And there has been no accountability for the U.S.’s backing of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, even when some of those backers acknowledge themselves that U.S. support for the Israeli military went against domestic law.

And even before these last years, there has been no real accountability for the invasion of Iraq, to which a war with Iran has long been compared. Many of the architects of that war have proceeded to build storied careers in government and media without seeing so much as a single consequence for their devastating actions. In a grim twist of irony, even former Bush speechwriter David Frum — the same man who labeled Iran a member of the “axis of evil” — is now wringing his hands about the lack of consent from Congress or the U.S. public for a regime change war in the Middle East, writing: “We are poised days away from a major regime-change war in the Middle East, and not only has Congress not been consulted, but probably not 1 American in 10 has any idea that such a war is imminent.”

Trump is getting away with this because, for decades, we have let warmongers unleash their worst with little to no repercussions. But when it comes to Congress, part of the lack of opposition is because, at some level, there actually is a lack of opposition: Coercing other countries, especially Iran, has long been a bipartisan pastime.

During the Obama administration, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) bucked his own party to come out against the landmark nuclear deal with Iran, which is widely considered to have been one of the most successful tools keeping escalations like this from happening. After Trump’s prior attack against Iran in June, Schumer hit him from the right, accusing the president of folding too early and letting Iran “get away with everything.” Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) has been largely silent about Trump’s saber-rattling, save for a singular reference to Congress’s authority to declare war.

While some lawmakers have been more vocal in their opposition to Trump’s buildup, the only halfway meaningful response from Congress to the Trump administration has come from Reps. Ro Khanna (D-California) and Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who are moving to force a war powers vote next week, to bring Congress on the record about whether Trump should be forced to terminate his military plans against Iran. But while these kinds of votes are necessary — anything that could potentially stop such a disaster is necessary — real opposition to Trump’s warmaking would require more than these process-oriented critiques.

A war with Iran is wrong because it’s morally wrong — not only because it’s illegal under the Constitution, or under international law. Laws can be useful tools for stopping military action — indeed, it appears the U.K.’s concerns about running afoul of international law could in fact materially affect Trump’s plans for military action. But we must be honest about the limitations of such laws as we hear the drumbeats for war, illegal or not, grow louder. We need real, principled opposition that will put fear of accountability into the hearts of the architects and defenders of this aggression, whether that comes from the streets or the ballot box or legal avenues or the halls of Congress.

Inherent in some of the critiques of Trump’s buildup is the idea that a war with Iran could be conducted a “right” way — with congressional permission, with actual strategic objectives, or as a more limited air war compared to a 2003-style invasion with boots on the ground. But there is no right way to conduct this war; no matter what happens, no matter who approves it, it will be deadly and dangerous and lead to further terror across the entirety of the region.

This escalation also comes at an especially brutal time for Iranian civilians, who faced a marked increase in state repression in response to anti-government protests earlier this year. As U.S. airpower moved into place, Iranians were observing traditional 40-day mourning ceremonies for the thousands of people killed in the violent crackdown on protesters. The grief has been heavy to bear. And as Hanieh Jodat wrote in Truthout last month, the back-and-forth threats from the United States have added a burden of psychological warfare to those of us with ties to Iran — we were already struggling to reach loved ones in our homeland due to the state-imposed communications shutdown there.

While some in the diaspora have cheered on an invasion out of rage toward the Iranian state, those of us who study history know there is no such thing as bombing a country into liberation, especially not at the hands of the same people who have spent years backing genocide in Palestine. As it did last year, the Iranian state will use the instability and fear of a war to further crack down on labor, student, and feminist movements pushing for liberatory change within the country. A war would only inflict further trauma on a population onto which a desperate amount of violence and repression has been forced in under a year.

Back in July, after Israel’s assault on Iran, a video emerged that put to rest the already laughable idea that Israel’s “precision attacks” were targeting Iranian military sites, as if that would have made a war of choice more defensible. The video shows a densely populated street in Tehran’s Tajrish district. Two missiles strike in quick succession, one hitting a building and another hitting the city street, forcefully pushing cars into the air. The video is dramatic and heartbreaking, especially because it features a popular area that anyone familiar with Tehran likely knows well. Iranian authorities said that 17 people were killed in the strike, including two children and one pregnant person.

That is what war looks like. That is what the U.S. could impose on Iran yet again if we do not act to stop it. And the consequences this time around could be far more wide-ranging and disastrous for everyone involved.

The U.S. Is Sprinting Towards Disaster

In the last seven or eight weeks, the president has made a series of unhinged threats to start a war, and he has been amassing forces to start it

Daniel Larison

Feb 24, 2026

https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/the-us-is-sprinting-towards-disaster

The Financial Times reports on the Iran crisis that the president has created:

“Who wants this? Nobody wants this,” said [Aaron David] Miller at the Carnegie Endowment. “We’re sleepwalking towards a war, in search of a strategy.”

There is almost no support for a new war, but there is a vocal group of hardliners in the Republican Party and in Washington that has been seeking this conflict for decades. The report mentions Mark Levin as one example, and there are also ideological fanatics in the Senate including Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham. Genocide denier Bret Stephens chimed in again this week with a despicable plea for war. They have been goading Trump to attack, and I fear they are going to get what they want.

The vocal fanatics might not matter as much if they faced real opposition, but there is virtually no one in the Republican Party pushing in the opposite direction. Regardless, Trump has usually been inclined to listen to the hardliners when there is a division in the party. The president has consistently given the Iran hawks whatever they want, and there is no reason to assume that he won’t do it again this time. The vast majority of Americans doesn’t want this, but the very worst people in our country are clamoring for it.

One of the many reasons why the decision to wage war should not be left to any one person is that it is relatively easy for a small faction to control that decision. It is even easier when the president is as ignorant and easily swayed as Trump is. If the decision rested with all of the people’s elected representatives as it is supposed to, there would at least be a chance that more rational views might prevail.

Miller is right that attacking Iran is very unpopular, but I don’t know that sleepwalking is the right way to describe what is unfolding. In the last seven or eight weeks, the president has made a series of unhinged threats to start a war and he has been amassing forces to start it. That feels very much like sprinting towards the edge of a cliff. The president is not sleepwalking into anything, but it seems that his opponents in Congress are fast asleep.

I see claims that the president is trapping himself into a war that he supposedly doesn’t want, but I see no evidence that he doesn’t want to attack. He is doing almost everything that other interventionist presidents would do. The only thing he isn’t doing is going through the motions of explaining to the public why he is doing it. He feels no need to tell Congress or the public anything, but that isn’t an indication that he isn’t going to go through with it.

If Trump doesn’t want war, that isn’t because he doesn’t want to use force. Saying he doesn’t want war is another way of saying that he wants Iran to surrender without firing a shot. He wants to wage war on them, but he would prefer it if they did not retaliate. The president’s idea of peace is a world where he dictates extreme terms to other nations and they gratefully bow before him. He is going to unleash death and destruction on Iran because they refuse to bow.

It’s important to remember that the president’s “deal” rhetoric is nothing more than a smokescreen. He is setting it up so he can claim that he was prepared to make a “deal” but the Iranians refused to cooperate. Trump is trying to make it look as if it is Iran’s fault if there is a conflict when it is 100% his doing. Trump has had at least half a dozen opportunities to change course since the start of the year, and each time he has chosen to keep heading for the edge of that cliff. It is always possible that he could veer away at the last moment, but at this point there is no reason to expect that he will do that.

A wise president would never have done any of the things that Trump has done. A wise president doesn’t fire off reckless threats to attack another country out of the blue. A wise president doesn’t deliver unhinged ultimatums demanding that another government surrender its core interests. A wise president doesn’t send a huge number of ships to carry out the reckless threats he never should have made.

If the president were wise, he would stop all of this and recall our ships. He would drop his extreme unrealistic demands and settle for a reasonable compromise on the nuclear issue. He would lift as many of the sanctions on Iran as he possibly could. In short, he would repudiate his entire Iran policy and try something else.

Why Arab states are terrified of US war with Iran

They see the military build-up and know that bombing and regime change can have consequences, especially geopolitical ones

Eldar Mamedov

Feb 21, 2026

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-war-gulf-states

As an American attack on Iran seems increasingly inevitable, America’s allies in the Persian Gulf — the very nations hosting U.S. bases and bracing anxiously for an Iranian blowback — are terrified of escalation and are lobbying Washington to stop it .

The scale of the U.S. mobilization is indeed staggering. As reported by the Responsible Statecraft’s Kelley Vlahos, at least 108 air tankers are in or heading to the CENTCOM theater. As military officers reckon, strikes can now happen “at any moment.” These preparations suggest not only that the operation may be imminent, but also that it could be more sustainable and long-lasting than a one-off strike in Iranian nuclear sites last June.

There is an increasing sense of doom among the regional observers: given the scale of the build-up, there is no face-saving way for President Donald Trump to call off strikes and rescue himself from a situation into which he has needlessly driven himself into.

But while U.S. military planners look at target lists, Iraq and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states see only risk.

“They may like to see the Iranian leadership weakened, but all of them are more concerned about a scenario of chaos and uncertainty and the possibility of more radical elements coming to power there,” Anna Jacobs Khalaf, a Gulf analyst and non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, told Al Jazeera last month.

Since January, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman, alongside Turkey and Egypt, have been engaged in intense diplomacy to pull Washington and Tehran back from the brink. This is not because they harbor any sympathy for Tehran, but because they realize they would be on the front lines of the Iranian retaliation, and what happens after if the regime were to collapse.

As regional analyst Galip Dalay notes, in addition to the economic and security destabilization that might occur, there is the fact that as a rising hegemon in the region, Israel greatly benefits from the regime’s collapse.

“Iran’s power and ambition across the region is diminished, and the prospect of an Iran-centric order has receded,” he wrote for Chatham House this week. “For Middle Eastern leaders, the threats have changed: the greatest risks are now an expansionist and aggressive Israel, and the chaos of a potentially collapsed Iranian state.”

Bader al-Saif, an assistant history professor at Kuwait University, said something similar to the New York Times. “Bombing Iran goes against the calculus and interests of the Arab Gulf States, Neutralizing the current regime, whether through regime change or internal leadership reconfiguration, can potentially translate into the unparalleled hegemony of Israel, which won’t serve the Gulf States.”

For predominant Shi'a Iraq, the risk of political and social unrest looms. After decades of upheaval, following the U.S. invasion in 2003, Iraq is still struggling to form a stable political system and coherent government. Baghdad is desperate to stay out of this fight.

An expert with a profound knowledge of Iraqi politics who spoke with the Responsible Statecraft on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter, said, smaller, hardline Shi'a groups like Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat Nujaba might feel compelled to attack the American troops in the region in Tehran's defense.

However, the same source said that the main Shi'a political forces, comprising the Shiite Coordination Framework, including the State of the Law Coalition led by prospective Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and the Fatah Alliance led by another influential commander turned politician Hadi al-Ameri, view a U.S.-Iran conflagration on their soil as an existential threat to their fragile sovereignty.

Tehran, too, is interested in ensuring Iraq stays outside the fray. What Tehran needs as it fights for its own survival is a functional neighbor and trade partner, capable of buying Iranian electricity, not a country relapsing into failure and chaos.

The danger to the Gulf is multidimensional. First, there is the immediate physical threat. Iran has repeatedly signaled that U.S. bases in the region are legitimate targets. The June 2025 attack on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, following the U.S. strikes during the 12-day war, while with no casualties, remains a fresh and terrifying memory for Gulf leaders.

Any new, sustained campaign could see facilities in Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain come under fire from Iranian missiles or drone barrages. Statements from Iranian officials, such as Ali Shamkhani, the influential adviser to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, suggest that this time the response would be much more severe than the largely symbolic strike on Al Udeid.

This threat is not hypothetical; Saudi oil facilities were crippled by an Iranian strike in 2019. The lesson was clear: Iran has the capability to strike the Gulf countries' infrastructure. With nothing to lose in a war that would be seen as existential for the Iranian government, the motivation to strike at countries that host U.S. military bases would increase.

Even if the Gulf states were to be spared Iranian strikes on their territory, there would be other devastating consequences. These states are trying to diversify their economies and attract foreign investment and talent; a threat of regional war would send capital and people fleeing.

A potential refugee crisis is another major fear. The Iranian port of Bandar Abbas is a short boat ride from Dubai. A conflict that devastates Iran's economy or triggers internal collapse could send thousands of displaced people across the water to the UAE.

Then there is a risk of an economic nightmare. As Iranian officials have explicitly warned, all options are on the table in the case of war, including blocking or mining the Strait of Hormuz. While a full closure is unlikely as it would severely harm Iran’s own oil exports to China, the IRGC Navy is now preparing a "smart" closure — selective interdiction that targets Western-linked tankers while allowing Chinese oil purchases to pass, Yemeni Houthi rebel style.

One-fifth of the world's oil passes through that strait. As happened with the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea in response to the Israeli attacks in Gaza, the threat of closure will send insurance premiums skyrocketing and raise global oil prices.

That will raise the specter of inflation. Strikes on civilian oil infrastructure designed to spike global prices and raise interest rates would be a direct attack on Trump's economic promise to Americans, in the year of the mid-terms.

Ultimately, there’s a heightened risk of a U.S. military attack ensuring Iran discards its official nuclear doctrine for civilian purposes only and opts for weaponization — ironically, the very outcome the war is ostensibly designed to prevent. Short of a full occupation of the country by the U.S. and Israel — an unrealistic prospect — there are no material obstacles for a dash for a bomb given Iran’s know-how, should such a political decision be taken in case the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is incapacitated.

That would leave the GCC countries in a worst possible situation – living next to a revanchist, revisionist and potentially nuclear-armed Iran down the road. It would oblige them — certainly, Saudi Arabia and UAE — to seek their own nuclear deterrent plunging the region into a perilous, destabilizing arms race.

This broader fear of destabilization is the key reason why the Saudi Crown Prince and de-facto ruler Mohammad Bin Salman publicly ruled out the use of the Saudi air space for an attack on Iran. The UAE is on the same position, with Anwar Gargash, a key adviser to the president, calling for a “long-term diplomatic solution between Washington and Tehran”.

Despite the obvious risks, the Trump administration's approach has been perplexing. Even as Iran has offered serious concessions on the nuclear issue, such as suspending enrichment, and economic incentives to the U.S. during the last round of talks in Geneva, Trump appears to be seeking Tehran’s capitulation across the board – not only on the nuclear file, but also regarding the ballistic missiles – an absolute red line for Iran.

Meanwhile, the military buildup accelerates causing profound anxiety in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Muscat, Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East. America's Gulf allies are not cheering for war; they are desperately trying to prevent it. Trump would be wise to heed their advice – for his own, and America’s, own good.

“The repercussions of a state collapse would far exceed what the Middle East has experienced as a result of conflict in Iraq, Syria, or Yemen, whether in the form of instability, migration, radicalism, the proliferation of armed groups, or regional spillover,” wrote Dalay. “Regional leaders believe the U.S. must give regional diplomacy a real chance. The alternative is a devastating war and another catastrophic cycle of conflict.”

No, even a 'small attack' on Iran will lead to war

The deal Trump wants is a no-go for Tehran, which is resigned to retaliating if bombed again, limited or otherwise

Trita Parsi

Feb 20, 2026

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-iran-small-attack/

The Wall Street Journal reports that President Donald Trump is considering a small attack to force Iran to agree to his nuclear deal, and if Tehran refuses, escalate the attacks until Iran either agrees or the regime falls.

Here’s why this won’t work.

First of all, the “deal” Trump has put forward entails Tehran completely giving up its nuclear program in return for no new sanctions, but no actual sanctions relief. This is, of course, a non-starter for Iran.

There are hardly any more sanctions the U.S. could impose on Iran. And the current level of sanctions is suffocating the economy. Accepting this deal would not enable Iran to escape its economic dead end, but would only prolong the economic decay while depriving it of the nuclear leverage it believes it needs to free itself from existing sanctions.

Second, according to my sources, Trump recently also floated the idea of a smaller attack, with the Iranians responding symbolically by striking an empty U.S. base. But Tehran refused and made clear that any attack would be responded to forcefully. Trump may hope that with a much larger strike force in the region, Tehran will reconsider its response.

But it is difficult to see why Tehran would, since caving to this military threat likely will only invite further coercive demands, beginning with conventional military options such as its missile capabilities. That is Iran’s last remaining deterrent against Israel. Without it, Israel would be more inclined to attack and cement its subjugation of Iran, or alternatively move to collapse the theocratic regime altogether, Tehran fears.

Thus, capitulating to Trump’s “deal” would not end the confrontation, but only make Tehran more vulnerable to further attacks by Israel or the U.S.

Third, since the U.S. strategy, according to the WSJ, is to escalate until Tehran caves, and since capitulation is a non-option for Iran, the Iranians are incentivized to strike back right away at the U.S. The only exit Tehran sees is to fight back, inflict as much pain as possible on the U.S., and hope that this causes Trump to back off or accept a more equitable deal.

In this calculation, Iran would not need to win the war (militarily, it can’t); it would only have to get close to destroying Trump’s presidency before it loses the war by: 1) closing the Strait of Hormuz and strike oil installations in the region in the hope of driving oil prices to record levels and by that inflation in the U.S.; and 2) strike at U.S. bases, ships, or other regional assets and make Trump choose between compromise or a forever war in the region, rather than the quick glorious victory he is looking for.

This is an extremely risky option for Iran, but one that Tehran sees as less risky than the capitulation “deal” Trump is seeking to force on Iran.

None of this, of course, serves U.S. interest, has been authorized by Congress, enjoys the support of the American people or the support of regional allies (save Israel), is compatible with international law, or answers the crucial question: How does this end?

The cost of genocide: Israel’s war on Gaza by the numbers

Billions of dollars have been spent, directly and indirectly, by Israel since it started its war on Gaza in October 2023

By Simon Speakman Cordall

Published On 19 Feb 2026

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/19/the-cost-of-genocide-israels-war-on-gaza-by-the-numbers

Since its genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, Israel has expended vast amounts of money and manpower on levelling the Palestinian territory and destroying its institutions.

It has killed more than 72,000 people in achieving this end, including tens of thousands of children and women — with some independent researchers suggesting that the death toll is higher than 75,000.

Of those who are still alive, many have suffered the effects of deliberately imposed starvation: first during Israel’s siege of northern Gaza in late 2024, which United Nations officials described as “apocalyptic”, and later during the man-made famine Israeli policies created in August 2025, when images of malnourished and starving children became commonplace on news bulletins around the world.

None of this has come cheaply. Israel – backed by its principal ally, the United States – has poured billions of dollars into waging its war on Gaza. So, how much does the killing of more than 72,000 Palestinians cost? How much do you need to spend on munitions to commit a genocide? And what is the impact of industrialised mass killing on an economy?

Here’s what we know.

How much money has Israel spent on the Gaza war?

The Bank of Israel put the overall economic toll of the war at about 352 billion shekels ($112bn). That total includes roughly 243 billion shekels ($77bn) in direct defence costs, 33 billion shekels ($10.5bn) for the property tax compensation fund, civilian outlays of 57 billion shekels ($18bn) and interest payments of 19 billion shekels ($6bn).

In early 2025, taking the Gaza war in isolation, Israel’s former chief military economic adviser, Gil Pinchas, estimated that the cost to Israel had been 150 billion shekels ($48bn), running at an average cost of 300 million shekels ($96m) per day. On average, 100 Palestinians were killed in Gaza every day, according to Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

“Every item the [Israeli army] uses in combat has a price tag in shekels, detailed in a special, highly specific price book,” Pinchas told journalists, referring to the price paid by the Israeli army, and not Palestinians, for every combat ration, litre of fuel, vehicle, bullet and missile launched against Gaza. “The book is updated constantly, including during the war … We keep our finger on the pulse.”

How much of the war’s expenditure was spent on munitions?

We don’t know for sure.

Pinchas did say that Israel had spent 340 billion shekels ($108bn) on munitions since the war began, but nowhere near all of that has been used. A significant proportion of that money has also been spent on purchasing arms from Israeli manufacturers, which has helped to offset the wider impact of the war on the Israeli economy.

Line-by-line details for most military budgets are rarely available. But some insights can be gleaned from Israel’s other wars in the region.

According to an estimate midway through the war by The Wall Street Journal, Israel’s war on Iran was costing it $200m per day, with the missiles used to intercept Iranian rockets, sometimes reaching 400 a day, estimated at anywhere between $700,000 and $4m each.

In addition, Israel’s September 2024 attack on the Lebanese group Hezbollah’s communication devices, which relied on a plan that had been set into motion years earlier, is reported to have set the Israeli treasury back some one billion shekels ($318m).

What has been the overall cost to the wider Israeli economy?

Considerable, and much of that is down to manpower.

Of Israel’s 465,000 military reservists, upwards of 300,000 were deployed to Gaza during the first year of the war. This is in addition to 170,000 active-duty personnel. The cost of maintaining that number of active soldiers, as well as the impact on the wider economy due to the loss of workers called up as reservists, is astronomical.

According to Israel’s treasury, some 70 billion shekels ($22.3bn) has been spent on its reserve forces alone during the course of the war, while the cost of maintaining its standing army in 2025 was estimated to be 15.37 billion shekels ($4.9bn).

The Bank of Israel estimates that the cost of one month of service for a military reservist is about 38,000 shekels ($12,100) in lost production.

With military budgets unlikely to recede in the wake of the genocide and other wars that Israel has engaged in over the past two years, a column in the Israeli liberal daily Haaretz suggested that over the next decade, the cost of the war could run to, at a minimum, 500 billion shekels ($159bn).

How much has Israel’s genocide cost the US?

More than many US voters might suppose.

According to Brown University’s 2025 Costs of War report, since October 7, 2023, the US has provided Israel with some $21.7bn in military aid.

In addition to that, the American taxpayer has funded US operations in support of Israel in Yemen, Iran and the wider Middle East at a cost of $9.65bn to $12.07bn, meaning a total US investment of somewhere between $31.35bn and $33.77bn on Israel’s wars since 2023.

How much will it cost to rebuild Gaza?

According to the United Nations, rebuilding Gaza – where Israel has destroyed the majority of buildings – would take decades and cost somewhere in the region of $70bn.

In a report, the UN noted that Israel’s military operations had “significantly undermined every pillar of survival” within the enclave and that the entire population of 2.3 million people faced “extreme, multidimensional impoverishment” – the term for poverty extending beyond financial duress, in areas such as a lack of clean water, proper sanitation and education.