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.”
Well if you’re really claiming that their attacks were concentrated on civilians instead of military targets last year, hard proof to back that up is welcome.
idk man it seems pretty bad to me and not concentrated. also why are you pretending that the us cares about iranians? you know whats gonna happen right? its gonna be another iraq and another afghanistan, the us will lose this like it did with almost every other country and it will make iranians lives worse. the us is the plague of the world. why doesnt the us attack north korea if they truly care about others? oh right because they have nukes, so if iran doesnt have nukes the us can just attack it, bomb it, destroy it, rape it, do anything it wants with it. you have fallen for the epstein class’s propaganda, idk what to tell you. also like usa has been sponsoring and arming israel since its foundation, why is that i wonder? what did joe biden say about that in 1986 and again in 2022?
Well how many of those people were military?
What would the number have to be for your to consider it ‘concentrated (on military targets)’??
well, it was half military, half civilians, so 50% accuracy. ideal percentage would be 99% military. but hey even if they successfully do 99% military strikes and somehow change their government, i dont really agree with that as a whole, like why is a foreign nation that is located thousands of miles away, separated by a ocean, getting involved in someone else’s business? amerikkka has no business being in asia, europe, africa and oceania. if they do successfully remove this government and install a puppet, it will be worse for iranians like it was worse for chileans who got batista after allende, even if you criticize iranian government, which you should do, you should realise that even this is the usa’s fault, they overthrew a democratically elected president mossadegh in 1953. look if iranians in iran want a new government, then they should overthrow them and i will support that, but i wont support a country which is famous for its ill intent getting in that said revolution.
The 50/50 count also includes the Israeli bombs of course, that also went after regime guys in their bedrooms and sometimes in appartment buildings. (I sure agree they were coordinated with the US strikes though.)
Would you consider a bomb taking out Netanyahu to be aimed at civilians if he was in a building with 20 innocent people?
In this case I don’t think a puppet (if they could even install one without occupation) could be worse than what they have now. Something all Iranian refugees I hear on the matter seem to agree on, by the way. You have to understand that we’re not talking about Allende in this matter…
It’s astonishing that you think, after the last 2-3 years of the Gazan genocide, that the US and Israel are going to target military sites only.
What motive do you think the US have to throw their bombs on Iranian civilians instead of the regime?
There’s no fucking way you’re this stupid, so drop the bait.
Engage in good faith, fuckhead. The country that is funding a genocide in Palestine, killed 1.5M Iraqis and almost 1M Afghanis in recent history targets fucking civilians more than they do military targets.
You could do with more swearing lol
can you define the regime? israel has been claiming that the citizens and children they murder are part of hamas, the usa could easily say that the civilians they kill were the members of “the regime”. now why would they do that? idk you ask them why they killed millions of citizens of afghanistan and iraq and get back to me.
‘The regime’ = the Iranian government including their religious leadership
You seem more focused on Palestine than what’s going on in Iran tbh
Gestures to all of US history.
But real talk you can’t overthrow a government with planes. So they’ll target civilians as “part of the government” in order to try to start an uprising against Iran. It’s the same logic as sanctions.
They’ll ‘start an uprising by bombing civilians’? Can you explain how this works?
It doesn’t? Ever?
They will think the population will blame their own government for the bombs.
Yeah I think that’s a pretty insane theory. Sorry for not holding my breath for it to come true
It is, in fact, insane. You don’t have to hold your breath. Israel and the US are doing it right now.