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.”
That would mean an actual declared war, which would bring Russia and China in.
That would be the usa responsability for starting the war
That would mean likely the US nuking Iran in a fit of rage while the TV propaganda plays images of the sinking ship and wails and gnashes its teeth and demands action then applauds or falls solemnly silent when it happens. The media will simply say “well maybe it wasn’t right BUT they did sink our carrier, they shouldn’t have done that and we wouldn’t have done this, you know how we are”. And that will be that.
Russia is as someone else noted tied up in Ukraine and doesn’t want to escalate with the guy (Trump) who can force Ukraine to sign a treaty or agreement with them. Getting into a hot war with the US would be a nightmarish strain on their military and bring them and US very close to nuclear war. Russia will resent losing its Iranian partners to the US but it won’t end the world or Russia in order to attempt to stop it. China is uninterested in getting drawn into a war at all, much less that far from its shores where they don’t have the advantage in logistics compared to the US and would be at an awful disadvantage. China’s navy is not a deep blue water fleet like the US, their navy is structured around coastal defense in the South China Sea and it and their air force lack the range to engage in anything protracted with the US.
Iran already got bombed to hell and back some months ago, maybe this is the time for action? The question is: would the rest of the West go along, once more, with the Burgers or will they abstain?
it sounds like you didn’t hear about the standing ovation european leaders gave to marco rubio’s call to re-invigorate colonialism in munick the day before last
I didn’t, thanks for the info. 😔
the way he describes the global leftist moves as “godless communists” makes it worth watching the speech yourself. lol
I can’t believe that’s still a relevant and convincing thing to say, wtf. Maybe for American audiences (and that might be all they’re aiming at, just local support/spin, TBF), cause atheism in Europe is not shunned (and they still have more moral grounding than many “God-fearing” Americans who actually just worship either money or power 🤷).
the entire speech is filled with really old things like that and i wish more people would see the standing ovation to understand that all of the western ruling classes want epstein illuminati levels of control.
russia’s tied up with ukraine and venezuela proves that china won’t do anything.