Alex Griffing
Wed, February 18, 2026
Mediaite
President Trump has been briefed by top national security officials that the military is ready for potential strikes on Iran as soon as this weekend, but a final decision has not yet been made.
Jennifer Jacobs, CBS News’s senior White House reporter, dropped an exclusive report on Wednesday night detailing when President Donald Trump will be fully positioned for an all-out assault on Iran.
The U.S. has been moving a vast amount of military assets into the Middle East as talks between Iran and the U.S. continue – under the explicit threat of military action if no agreement on dismantling Iran’s nuclear program is reached.
“Top national security officials have told Trump the military is ready for potential strikes on Iran as soon as this weekend, but the timeline for any action is likely to extend beyond Saturday or Sunday, sources say,” Jacobs wrote on social media, detailing some of the key points in her scoop. She added:
Trump has not yet made a final decision. Over the next 3 days, Pentagon is moving some personnel out of the Middle East region — primarily to Europe or back to US — ahead of potential action or counterattacks by Iran. It’s standard practice for the Pentagon to shift assets and troops ahead of a potential military activity and doesn’t necessarily signal an attack on Iran is imminent, one of the sources said.
Axios’s Barak Ravid reported earlier on Wednesday that “a U.S. military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month’s pinpoint operation in Venezuela, sources say.”
Ravid added that his sources believe the campaign would be a joint U.S.-Israeli effort and would be “more existential for the regime — than the Israeli-led 12-day war last June, which the U.S. eventually joined to take out Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.” Ravid also detailed more of the military assets Trump has moved into the region as he ratchets up the threat of all-out war:
Trump’s armada has grown to include two aircraft carriers, a dozen warships, hundreds of fighter jets and multiple air defense systems. Some of that firepower is still on its way.
More than 150 U.S. military cargo flights have moved weapons systems and ammunition to the Middle East.
Just in the past 24 hours, another 50 fighter jets — F-35s, F-22s and F-16s — headed to the region.
Trump, according to Ravid, was very close to attacking Iran in January over the mass slaughter of pro-democracy protestors in the country, but wrote “when the window of opportunity passed, the administration shifted to a two-track approach: nuclear talks paired with a massive military build-up.”
Is Trump about to go to war with Iran?
Wed, February 18, 2026
Mediaite
President Trump has been briefed by top national security officials that the military is ready for potential strikes on Iran as soon as this weekend, but a final decision has not yet been made.
Jennifer Jacobs, CBS News’s senior White House reporter, dropped an exclusive report on Wednesday night detailing when President Donald Trump will be fully positioned for an all-out assault on Iran.
The U.S. has been moving a vast amount of military assets into the Middle East as talks between Iran and the U.S. continue – under the explicit threat of military action if no agreement on dismantling Iran’s nuclear program is reached.
“Top national security officials have told Trump the military is ready for potential strikes on Iran as soon as this weekend, but the timeline for any action is likely to extend beyond Saturday or Sunday, sources say,” Jacobs wrote on social media, detailing some of the key points in her scoop. She added:
Trump has not yet made a final decision. Over the next 3 days, Pentagon is moving some personnel out of the Middle East region — primarily to Europe or back to US — ahead of potential action or counterattacks by Iran. It’s standard practice for the Pentagon to shift assets and troops ahead of a potential military activity and doesn’t necessarily signal an attack on Iran is imminent, one of the sources said.
Axios’s Barak Ravid reported earlier on Wednesday that “a U.S. military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month’s pinpoint operation in Venezuela, sources say.”
Ravid added that his sources believe the campaign would be a joint U.S.-Israeli effort and would be “more existential for the regime — than the Israeli-led 12-day war last June, which the U.S. eventually joined to take out Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.” Ravid also detailed more of the military assets Trump has moved into the region as he ratchets up the threat of all-out war:
Trump’s armada has grown to include two aircraft carriers, a dozen warships, hundreds of fighter jets and multiple air defense systems. Some of that firepower is still on its way.
More than 150 U.S. military cargo flights have moved weapons systems and ammunition to the Middle East.
Just in the past 24 hours, another 50 fighter jets — F-35s, F-22s and F-16s — headed to the region.
Trump, according to Ravid, was very close to attacking Iran in January over the mass slaughter of pro-democracy protestors in the country, but wrote “when the window of opportunity passed, the administration shifted to a two-track approach: nuclear talks paired with a massive military build-up.”
Is Trump about to go to war with Iran?
"You're gonna be finding out over the next, probably, 10 days," the president said on Thursday.
Andrew Romano, Reporter
Updated Fri, February 20, 2026
In recent weeks, President Trump has amassed what he’s described as an “armada” of destroyers, aircraft carriers, warships, submarines and attack planes within striking distance of Iran — a build-up that has “progressed to the point [where he] has the option to take military action … as soon as this weekend,” the New York Times reported on Wednesday.
At the same time, the president has said that regime change “would be the best thing that could happen” to Iran, which has been ruled by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since 1989.
“We have to make a meaningful deal, otherwise bad things happen,” Trump told his Board of Peace in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. “They can't have a nuclear weapon and they've been told that very strongly."
So is Trump about to launch a major war with Iran? Here’s what we know.
How we got here
If a possible U.S. attack on Iran sounds familiar, that’s because Trump already launched one in June 2025, striking the regime’s Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites in concert with Israel.
The president claimed at the time that Iran’s facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated,” putting a “stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror.”
Yet other reports suggested that the Iranians might have moved their stash of enriched uranium before the strikes — and that the U.S. bombings left at least some of Tehran’s nuclear program intact.
During his first term, Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal that had "dismantled much of [Iran’s] nuclear program and opened its facilities to more extensive international inspections in exchange for billions of dollars’ worth of sanctions relief,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations — at which point Iran “resumed its nuclear activities.”
When protests broke out in Iran late last year — and when the regime launched a violent crackdown that reportedly killed thousands — Trump started weighing another round of strikes, repeatedly declaring that the U.S. military was “locked and loaded” and ready to attack. Then, in mid-January, Trump abruptly backed down at the urging of Israel and several Arab nations after Iranian authorities said they had canceled hundreds of scheduled executions.
So why is Trump saber-rattling again — and beefing up America’s firepower in the region?
According to Vice President JD Vance, “our primary interest here is we don’t want Iran to get a nuclear weapon.”
To that end, American and Iranian officials held three hours of indirect talks in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday that ended with a “set of guiding principles,” according to Iran’s foreign minister, as well as an agreement to exchange drafts of a potential deal within two weeks.
But Trump allies have also been pushing for regime change rather than diplomacy.
“I talked to the president the day before yesterday and we talked about Iran,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told Fox News on Wednesday. “I said the regime is teetering, the ayatollah is in his last days — and I said do not let this opportunity pass.”
Where things stand right now
Trump seems to be moving forward on two tracks at once. Yes, he’s pursuing a diplomatic deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program. But he’s also pressuring Tehran to meet his terms by surging U.S. military forces to the region — forces he says he’s prepared to deploy if diplomacy falls short.
“So now we may have to take it a step further, or we may not,” Trump said on Thursday. “You’re gonna be finding out over the next, probably, 10 days.”
The question now is whether a deal on Trump’s terms is really attainable.
According to the Times, “three Iranian officials familiar with [Tuesday’s] talks said that Iran had indicated a willingness to suspend nuclear enrichment for three to five years — which would cover the duration of Mr. Trump’s presidency — and then join a regional consortium for civilian grade enrichment.” The Times also reported that Iran had offered to “dilute its stockpile of uranium on its own soil in the presence of international inspectors.” In exchange, the U.S. would have to “lift financial and banking sanctions and the embargo on [Iran’s] oil sales.”
The problem is that Iran has insisted that the talks be strictly limited to its nuclear program — but the Trump administration is also demanding that Tehran curb the range of its ballistic missiles and stop supporting militias across the region.
In a speech on Tuesday, the ayatollah accused the Trump administration of an “illogical” attempt to interfere with Iran’s self-defense. “Any country without deterrent weapons will be crushed under the feet of its enemies,” he said.
A day later, Vance told Fox News “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.”
As a result, “senior U.S. officials remain skeptical that the Iranians will agree to a deal that satisfies Mr. Trump, who has shown a growing impatience with the negotiations,” according to the Times.
Other outlets have been blunter. “The Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize,” Axios reported on Wednesday. “There's no evidence a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran is on the horizon. But there's more and more evidence that a war is imminent.”
What’s next
Last June, Trump also indicated that he would take the next two weeks to decide between continued talks and military action. Following Israel’s lead, U.S. forces attacked three days later.
Citing two Israeli officials, Axios reported on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “pushing for a maximalist scenario targeting regime change as well as Iran's nuclear and missile programs” — and “preparing for a scenario of war within days.”
According to CBS News, Trump has “not yet made a final decision about whether to strike,” but top national security officials have told him that “the military is ready” to attack Iran “as soon as Saturday.”
“The boss is getting fed up,” one Trump adviser told Axios. “Some people around him warn him against going to war with Iran, but I think there is a 90% chance we see kinetic action in the next few weeks.”
How that action unfolds — and what it involves — remains to be seen. Experts say Trump might be tempted to attack because the ayatollah has been weakened by age, sanctions, economic upheaval and protests. But dislodging him would not be as simple as, say, toppling Nicolás Maduro.
In fact, “a U.S. military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month's pinpoint operation in Venezuela,” according to Axios’s sources — with surefire retaliation against U.S. and Israeli targets.
“An aircraft carrier is certainly a dangerous piece of equipment,” the ayatollah said on Tuesday, shortly after Trump ordered a second one to the region. “But more dangerous than the carrier is the weapon that can send it to the bottom of the sea.”
Britain blocking use of air bases Trump says would be needed for strikes on Iran, UK media reports
Brad Lendon, CNN
Fri, February 20, 2026
Flight crew from US Air Force 501st Combat Support Wing and 307th Bomb Wing walk towards a B-52 Stratofortress bomber aircraft at RAF Fairford on September 19, 2025. - HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP/AFP via Getty Images
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has blocked a request from US President Donald Trump to allow US forces to use UK air bases during any preemptive attack on Iran, saying it could break international law, according to multiple reports in British media citing government sources.
According to The Times of London, which first reported the split over airbase access, Starmer has denied the use of RAF Fairford in England and Diego Garcia – the British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean – for any strike on Iran.
The two bases have long served as crucial overseas US military staging posts for operations far from home, with Diego Garcia a key airfield for the US’ heavy bomber fleet.
The Times reports Britain is concerned that allowing the US to use the bases “would be a breach of international law, which makes no distinction between a state carrying out the attack and those in support if the latter have ‘knowledge of the circumstances of the internationally wrongful act.’”
The Times cited UK government sources. The BBC, The Guardian and The Telegraph also subsequently published their own reports on the UK blocking access to the bases, citing sources.
The UK Ministry of Defence declined to comment on what it called operational matters. “There is a political process ongoing between the US and Iran, which the UK supports. Iran must never be able to develop a nuclear weapon, and our priority is security in the region,” a government spokesperson said.
American requests to use UK bases for operational purposes historically have been considered on a case-by-case basis, with precise criteria withheld for security reasons under long-standing agreements.
“All decisions on whether to approve foreign nations’ use of military bases in the UK for operational purposes considers the legal basis and policy rationale for any proposed activity,” Veterans Minister Al Carns wrote in response to questions from independent British member of parliament Jeremy Corbyn, according to a January report from the UK Defence Journal.
Starmer and Trump held a phone call on Tuesday evening, with readouts saying the two discussed peace in the Middle East and Europe.
The following day Trump took to his Truth Social platform to withdraw support for a deal that would see sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, the Indian Ocean chain that is home to the joint US-UK Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, handed to Mauritius in return for a 99-year lease on the military base.
CNN has approached the White House for comment.
Britain had split the Chagos Islands from Mauritius before that colony gained independence, something that has been a source of diplomatic friction as well as multiple legal battles with locals who were evicted. In 2019, the International Court of Justice ruled Britain should return the islands “as rapidly as possible,” so that they could be decolonized.
A deal to return them has been making its way through British government channels since, with London arguing a lease compromise would ward off further expensive and likely futile legal battles while maintaining military access in the Indian Ocean.
After initially opposing the UK-Mauritius deal, Trump in early February said it was the “best” Britain could get under the circumstances.
But as the US has been surging forces into the region for a possible attack on Iran, Trump reversed course, saying in a Truth Social post that Starmer is “making a big mistake” in agreeing to the lease deal with Mauritius.
“Prime Minister Starmer is losing control of this important Island by claims of entities never known of before. In our opinion, they are fictitious in nature,” Trump’s post said.
But just a day earlier, the US State Department issued a statement saying in part that Washington “supports the decision of the United Kingdom to proceed with its agreement with Mauritius.”
Asked about the discrepancy between the Truth Social post and the State Department statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president’s post should be taken as the “policy” of the Trump administration.
In his social media post, Trump directly referenced the two UK airbases, cited by British media, as important in a possible strike on Iran.
“It may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia, and the Airfield located in Fairford, in order to eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous Regime,” Trump wrote.
Neither Diego Garcia nor Fairford, the key forward operating base for US strategic bombers in Europe, was used in last June’s one-time B-2 bomber strike on Iranian nuclear sites. In that case, the stealth bombers flew a round trip of about 37 hours from their home base in Missouri.
But analysts are expecting that any new US attack on Iran might be a much longer campaign, possibly of weeks or more.
In such a campaign, having the B-2s, as well as B-1 and B-52 bombers, using bases thousands of miles closer to Iran would enable quicker turnarounds to rearm and refuel for more strikes.
While the US may have access to other bases in friendly countries closer to Iran, using them could put its prized heavy bomber fleet in reach of retaliatory Iranian missile strikes.
CNN’s Christian Edwards contributed reporting.
Fri, February 20, 2026
Flight crew from US Air Force 501st Combat Support Wing and 307th Bomb Wing walk towards a B-52 Stratofortress bomber aircraft at RAF Fairford on September 19, 2025. - HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP/AFP via Getty Images
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has blocked a request from US President Donald Trump to allow US forces to use UK air bases during any preemptive attack on Iran, saying it could break international law, according to multiple reports in British media citing government sources.
According to The Times of London, which first reported the split over airbase access, Starmer has denied the use of RAF Fairford in England and Diego Garcia – the British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean – for any strike on Iran.
The two bases have long served as crucial overseas US military staging posts for operations far from home, with Diego Garcia a key airfield for the US’ heavy bomber fleet.
The Times reports Britain is concerned that allowing the US to use the bases “would be a breach of international law, which makes no distinction between a state carrying out the attack and those in support if the latter have ‘knowledge of the circumstances of the internationally wrongful act.’”
The Times cited UK government sources. The BBC, The Guardian and The Telegraph also subsequently published their own reports on the UK blocking access to the bases, citing sources.
The UK Ministry of Defence declined to comment on what it called operational matters. “There is a political process ongoing between the US and Iran, which the UK supports. Iran must never be able to develop a nuclear weapon, and our priority is security in the region,” a government spokesperson said.
American requests to use UK bases for operational purposes historically have been considered on a case-by-case basis, with precise criteria withheld for security reasons under long-standing agreements.
“All decisions on whether to approve foreign nations’ use of military bases in the UK for operational purposes considers the legal basis and policy rationale for any proposed activity,” Veterans Minister Al Carns wrote in response to questions from independent British member of parliament Jeremy Corbyn, according to a January report from the UK Defence Journal.
Starmer and Trump held a phone call on Tuesday evening, with readouts saying the two discussed peace in the Middle East and Europe.
The following day Trump took to his Truth Social platform to withdraw support for a deal that would see sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, the Indian Ocean chain that is home to the joint US-UK Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, handed to Mauritius in return for a 99-year lease on the military base.
CNN has approached the White House for comment.
Britain had split the Chagos Islands from Mauritius before that colony gained independence, something that has been a source of diplomatic friction as well as multiple legal battles with locals who were evicted. In 2019, the International Court of Justice ruled Britain should return the islands “as rapidly as possible,” so that they could be decolonized.
A deal to return them has been making its way through British government channels since, with London arguing a lease compromise would ward off further expensive and likely futile legal battles while maintaining military access in the Indian Ocean.
After initially opposing the UK-Mauritius deal, Trump in early February said it was the “best” Britain could get under the circumstances.
But as the US has been surging forces into the region for a possible attack on Iran, Trump reversed course, saying in a Truth Social post that Starmer is “making a big mistake” in agreeing to the lease deal with Mauritius.
“Prime Minister Starmer is losing control of this important Island by claims of entities never known of before. In our opinion, they are fictitious in nature,” Trump’s post said.
But just a day earlier, the US State Department issued a statement saying in part that Washington “supports the decision of the United Kingdom to proceed with its agreement with Mauritius.”
Asked about the discrepancy between the Truth Social post and the State Department statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president’s post should be taken as the “policy” of the Trump administration.
In his social media post, Trump directly referenced the two UK airbases, cited by British media, as important in a possible strike on Iran.
“It may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia, and the Airfield located in Fairford, in order to eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous Regime,” Trump wrote.
Neither Diego Garcia nor Fairford, the key forward operating base for US strategic bombers in Europe, was used in last June’s one-time B-2 bomber strike on Iranian nuclear sites. In that case, the stealth bombers flew a round trip of about 37 hours from their home base in Missouri.
But analysts are expecting that any new US attack on Iran might be a much longer campaign, possibly of weeks or more.
In such a campaign, having the B-2s, as well as B-1 and B-52 bombers, using bases thousands of miles closer to Iran would enable quicker turnarounds to rearm and refuel for more strikes.
While the US may have access to other bases in friendly countries closer to Iran, using them could put its prized heavy bomber fleet in reach of retaliatory Iranian missile strikes.
CNN’s Christian Edwards contributed reporting.
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