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.”

  • HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    Every American who called Russians orcs better be getting ready to fully embrace that label.

  • P1d40n3 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    Trump will unleash a whole new level of hell upon this world. Just to feed his ego.

    The moment Iran sinks an aircraft carrier, Donald will respond with nukes. Assuming that the madman doesn’t start with a nuke.

  • Evilsandwichman [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    So just clarify, Russia, which we were all promised would drop a nuke on Ukraine, still hasn’t (and won’t, let’s be real; this is Russia, not America), while America is most likely about to conduct their second (third if you count Hiroshima and Nagasaki as separate incidents) nuclear attack?

    And you just know the news is gonna whitewash this

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

  • SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      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.

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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,

    • Majestic@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      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).