Link: https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/iran-us-nuclear-military-buildup-trump-khamenei

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.”

Trump is finally about to become presidential.

Also getting his Nobel peace prize aaaany minute now.

Bets may reveal when they plan to do what.

Iran is such a beautiful country. I've watched people motorcycle and bicycle through it on YouTube and the people are so kind and warm. It's really upsetting the way America wields it's might.

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

The American invaders versus the Persian defenders. A full scale bombardment.

They just need to channel the power of ahura mazda and send in the Immortal regiment.

what's new after iraq?

pizza index is really quiet right now, but the AFB i live by is tense. my money says next week.

lol didn't Machado already give him hers in hopes of being crowned queen of Venezuela

Wdym, he's already doing the civilian bombing and random country attacks.

Does he really need a war to get full presidential when already the embodiment of what's wrong with America?

Idk what else she expected. For Trump it's immediate or nothing. She didn't say it on podium so anything else doesn't matter

A full-scale, unprovoked invasion of Iran is the only thing that will make Trump a real president in the eyes of the Democrats.

🤣

Idk, I think that hinges on him letting them vote to allow it first. If he doesn't let them vote yes they'll be upset. Just like trumps other attacks that didn't tell them beforehand

That's true, they are sticklers for procedure.

And so many are excited at the thought of getting to approve attacking or bombing Iran 😭

I hope that Iran sinks a carrier. The Trump Regime should have egg on their face, and be forced to keep their grasping hands from touching people.

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.

That would mean an actual declared war, which would bring Russia and China in.

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?

I was just gonna say to look out for those suspicious anonymous 300k+ bets from high rollers

Can’t have elections during a war. Or some bullshit according to diddlin Donnie.

that's just a ukranian thing. lol

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.

russia's tied up with ukraine and venezuela proves that china won't do anything.

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. 😔

I heard the US's new legion of peace settled on a headquarters

both the epstein files and gaza shows how cartoonishly evil the ruling class is; so this tracks. lol

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.

Its not a legion but a "Bored of Peace"

Endangering US soldiers and murdering people to distract the public from the Epstein Files. The pedo loser will give himself the Medal of Honor after the bombing campaign,

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).

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.

Maybe, but they're also aware of that now.

It would cost the CIA couch change to bet 300-400k every weekend that Trump is going to attack just to get the Iranians in a panicked frenzy only for it to not happen. If it prevents even a single US fighter from being shot down by wearing them down with false alarms it would be worth it to place and lose bets like that every weekend for a year on end.

So maybe, but also the US could rig that for nothing, they wouldn't notice it or need to pass a bill to afford it.

That would be the usa responsability for starting the war

That's a "active hostile invasion on our soil makes organised civil processes impossible" thing, if anything. How the hell are the people in occupied territory gonna queue up to vote? How would you validate and count the ballots? How would the displaced refugees receive and submit their ballots?

The whole thing would be so ripe with opportunities for interference that you couldn't trust the results. Why hold it?

But also, Parliament votes every 90 days to confirm that martial law still applies, so it's not like President Zelenskyy is just doing so on his own whims.

Welp this is going to be Afghanistan on steroids and cocaine.