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.

Iran formally warns UN that 'all US bases, assets' will become legitimate targets if attacked

Western media has said Washington could begin attacking Iran ‘as soon as the weekend’ if Tehran fails to surrender to US and Israeli demands

News Desk

FEB 20, 2026

https://thecradle.co/articles/iran-formally-warns-un-that-all-us-bases-assets-will-become-legitimate-targets-if-attacked

Iran officially warned in a letter to the UN on 19 February that US military bases across West Asia will become “legitimate targets” if the Islamic Republic comes under attack by Washington. 

“Iran has repeatedly stated at the highest level that it neither seeks tension nor war and will not initiate any war. However, in the event that it is subjected to military aggression, Iran will respond decisively and proportionately in the exercise of its inherent right of self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter of the UN,” said Iranian representative Saeed Iravani.

“In such circumstances, all bases, facilities, and assets of the hostile force in the region would constitute legitimate targets in the context of Iran's defensive response. The US would bear full and direct responsibility for any unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences,” he added, addressing UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and President of the UN Security Council James Kariuki.

Iravani also condemned “the repeated and explicit US threats of the use of force, including references to potential military operations launched from Diego Garcia and other regional bases.”

US President Donald Trump said this week that Washington may need to use the Diego Garcia base, a joint US–UK facility, to attack Iran. According to reports in western media, the UK has not signed off on the use of its bases for strikes against the Islamic Republic. 

Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran since the start of the year. 

Two rounds of indirect negotiations have been held so far, coinciding with a massive US military buildup in the region.

Washington and Tel Aviv are not only demanding the dismantlement of the Iranian nuclear program, but also a severe cap on the missile program and an end to support for the resistance movements across West Asia.

Tehran rejects this and has only signaled willingness to limit or temporarily halt enrichment.

The US president said on Thursday that he would decide on a course of action regarding Iran within the next 10 days.

Later, he told reporters he set a two-week deadline for a deal to be reached.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 19 February that Trump is considering launching an “initial limited military strike” on Iran “within days,” in an effort to force the Islamic Republic into either agreeing to Washington’s terms or facing an expanded campaign. 

“The opening assault, which if authorized could come within days, would target a few military or government sites. If Iran still refused to comply with Trump’s directive to end its nuclear enrichment, the US would respond with a broad campaign … potentially aimed at toppling [the government],” sources said.

After Washington officially joined Israel’s 12-day war on the Islamic Republic last year, striking key nuclear sites, Tehran responded with a ballistic missile attack on the US's Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. 

Iranian officials have said a new war would prompt heavier responses against both Israel and US military assets in the region.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic has weapons that can sink US aircraft carriers “to the bottom of the sea.”

The Hawks Are Lying Us into Yet Another Middle Eastern War

Like the Iraq War, the planned war with Iran is built on false premises. Unlike the Iraq War, there hasn’t even been a real public debate.

Matthew Petti | 2.18.2026

https://reason.com/2026/02/18/the-hawks-are-lying-us-into-yet-another-middle-eastern-war/

The United States is entering a self-inflicted crisis in the Middle East. President Donald Trump has ordered a "beautiful armada" into the region while demanding Iran make a "deal" to avoid war. The crisis began when Trump promised to help Iranian protesters during a two-day uprising that was violently crushed, but since then, his administration has issued demands on completely different issues.

Vice President J.D. Vance has focused on the remnants of the Iranian nuclear program, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio is demanding concessions on Iran's conventional military power, regional policies, and domestic political system. On Tuesday, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Iranians in Switzerland to discuss some kind of deal.

"It was very clear that the president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through," Vance told Fox News afterwards, without explaining what those red lines actually are. U.S. negotiations have reportedly given Iran two weeks to come up with a satisfactory offer.

Rubio, meanwhile, is publicly expecting his own negotiators to fail. "We're dealing with radical Shiite clerics and people who make geopolitical decisions on the basis of pure theology," he said at the Munich Security Conference on Monday. "No one's ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran."

It's almost like the administration wants to use force in the Middle East—and is just searching for a reason. An adviser to the president told Axios that there is a "90% chance we see kinetic action in the next few weeks." Of course, a war could come much sooner. Trump said in June 2025 that he would decide in "two weeks" whether to attack Iran, a couple of days before attacking Iran.

Twenty-three years ago, the U.S. launched a war against Iraq based on lies about the Iraqi nuclear program and other "weapons of mass destruction." The imminent war with Iran rhymes with that project, with two important differences. Rather than a grand narrative about mushroom clouds, hawks have told a long series of small lies, constantly shifting the goalposts while hiding their own aims. And rather than actually trying to gin up a public mandate, the administration is barreling forward towards war without asking Congress.

A decade ago, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) was mortally offended at the suggestion that he was pushing war with Iran, because he only wanted to negotiate a "better agreement." Now he is one of the loudest voices against negotiations, period, and for war. After the June 2025 bombings, the White House declared that "Iran's Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated—and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News." Now the administration is waving around the threat of an Iranian nuke.

"We're not at war with Iran. We're at war with Iran's nuclear program," Vance told NBC News during the June 2025 war, adding that the goal was not "regime change" or "to prolong or expand this conflict any further."

Less than a year later, the administration is planning for "a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign that's much broader in scope—and more existential for the regime—than the Israeli-led 12-day war last June," reports Axios. The Israeli government, Iran's archnemesis, is "pushing for a maximalist scenario targeting regime change as well as Iran's nuclear and missile programs," the report states.

Arab states, which host U.S. forces and therefore could become an Iranian target, have been publicly pushing back on plans for war. But they may be talking out of both sides of their mouths. Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman privately told the Trump administration that failing to attack "will only embolden the regime," according to Axios.

While Middle Eastern and U.S. leaders debate their plans for war, the little people of America have not been consulted. A poll from January 2026 shows that 70 percent of Americans do not want a war with Iran and want the president to ask Congress before starting one.

But Congress itself does not seem keen to debate the issue. A war powers resolution introduced by Sens. Tim Kaine (D–Va.) and Rand Paul (R–Ky.) has been sitting in committee, and Kaine says it is unlikely to be voted on while negotiations are ongoing. The text of the Kaine-Paul resolution itself has an explicit carveout allowing the president to defend "Israel and other nations" against "retaliatory attacks by Iran," which would enable Israel to start a war and demand U.S. intervention, just like it did in June 2025.

In 2013, after the Obama administration asked Congress for permission to bomb Syria, sex predator Jeffrey Epstein wrote to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, "hopefully somone [sic] suggests getting authorization now for Iran. the congress woudl [sic] do it." How quaint that he thought Congress was a relevant actor.

Many people in Washington seem to be betting that war will unfold so quickly—and appear so costless—that any domestic opposition fades away. That bet paid off in June 2025, and in the January 2026 operation in Venezuela. Iranian leaders, however, have been signaling that they will not play along with a limited war this time.

And what American hawks want now is much bigger than the June 2025 and January 2026 campaigns. Two officials told Reuters that they are planning for weeks of large-scale warfare. Trump told reporters last week that regime change in Iran "would be the best thing that could happen." Kushner believes that the Middle East "is a liquid and the ability to reshape is unlimited," as he wrote in September 2024.

That rhetoric is exactly how the Bush administration and its supporters sounded on the eve of the Iraq War. Not to worry, though. The Trump administration knows that it's better than the last people who got struck down for their hubris.

"I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East," Vance told NBC News in his June 2025 interview. "I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives."

Report: Trump Close to a Major Attack on Iran That Will Be Bigger Than 12-Day War

A Trump advisor told Axios that there's a 90% chance the US launches an attack in the coming weeks, while Israeli sources say it could happen within days

by Dave DeCamp | February 18, 2026 

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/02/18/report-trump-close-to-a-major-attack-on-iran-that-will-be-bigger-than-12-day-war/

The Trump administration is close to launching a major attack on Iran as it continues a massive buildup of military forces in the Middle East, according to a report from Axios reporter Barak Ravid.

Sources told Ravid that the potential US attack on Iran would likely be a massive multi-week operation, much bigger than the US operation to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. They said it would also be much broader in scope than the 12-day US-Israeli war on Iran that was launched in June 2025. Reuters also recently reported that the US was preparing for a sustained, multi-week attack on Iran.

Israeli officials said that the Israeli government, which is pushing for the US to pursue regime change in Iran, is preparing for the possibility of the attack starting in the coming days, and CNN later reported that the US military is ready to start the war as soon as this weekend. Other sources put the timeline a little later, saying the war would likely start in a few weeks.

“The boss is getting fed up,” a Trump adviser told Ravid. “Some people around him warn him against going to war with Iran, but I think there is 90% chance we see kinetic action in the next few weeks.”

The Axios report noted that there has been little public debate about the potential war amid the major US military buildup and said that Americans will likely be surprised by the scale of the coming attack.

All signs indicate that if the US bombs Iran, Tehran will not hold back in its response and could target multiple US bases and warships in the region, leaving open the possibility that the war could result in hundreds or thousands of US casualties. The conflict could also have a major impact on the global economy, as Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 31% of seaborne crude oil shipments passed in 2025.

The US and Iran held talks on Tuesday, and while the Iranian side said there was a “clear path” toward a deal, US Vice President JD Vance said that Iran was not acknowledging President Trump’s “red lines.”

Vance claimed the main US demand was that Iran must not pursue a nuclear weapon, but for many months, the administration had insisted the June 2025 US strikes on Iran “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities, and there’s no sign Tehran can enrich uranium at the moment. Iran has also made clear it’s willing to enter a deal that would involve a commitment to low enrichment levels, and Iranian officials maintain they don’t seek a nuclear bomb.

The real goal of any US attack on Iran will likely be regime change or taking out Iran’s ability to fire missiles at Israel. President Trump said back in December, when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-lago resort in Florida, that he would support another Israeli attack on Iran if the Islamic Republic “continued” its missile program.