THE BLACK PRINCE

CPAC gets sobering warning of 'burning American warships' in Iran from Blackwater founder

David Edwards
March 27, 2026 

RAW STORY


Erik Prince, CPAC board member, and Jason Redman, retired Navy SEAL, attend the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) USA 2026 at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center, in Grapevine, Texas, U.S. March 27, 2026. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare

Blackwater founder Erik Prince revealed that he warned President Donald Trump against going to war in Iran.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in Texas on Friday, Prince had a sobering message about Operation Epic Fury.

"I counseled as loud as possible against doing this in the first place," he explained. "We face an extremely difficult challenge. The Iranians learned their lesson from what happened to Iraq. Decapitation of the leadership structure of the Iraqi army. The Iranians have done the exact same thing. There's 31 different military districts. All clear direction given to those 31 commanders is to continue to wage war against whoever they can with whatever they can."

"The only person that can countermand that order is the supreme leader," he continued. "And we've killed the supreme leader now, his father, his wife, his sister, other family members in an ancient society — in an ancient society that understands blood oath."

"I don't share the optimism of the administration that there's going to be a peaceful stop to this."

Prince noted that Iran would "burn it down" if the U.S. tried to deploy troops in the country.

"If they try to put boots on the ground, force the Strait of Hormuz, you will see imagery of burning American warships in the next couple of weeks," he advised. "And I don't think people are really prepared for that."

"So I would, look, Iran doesn't have an independence day because they've not really been conquered since Alexander the Great," Prince added. "For all the talk of regime change, there's never been a real preparation of an armed opposition inside the country. And a lot of ways to do that from the periphery that doesn't require U.S. boots."

THE ORIGIN OF THE STATE

Life After Mencho: A Shifting Landscape Of Organized Crime In Mexico – Analysis

Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (aka “el Mencho”). Image: Grok

March 4, 2026 
Geopolitical Monitor
By Jose Miguel Alonso-Trabanco

As a phenomenon whose behavior is driven by long-range impersonal forces rather than whimsical vicissitudes, the evolution of organized crime in Mexico has proved to be quite dynamic and ductile. The latest progression of this fast-paced trajectory is the Mexican military operation in which Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (aka “el Mencho”), nominal leader of the New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG), was killed. As retaliation, his henchmen targeted private businesses, state-owned banks and security personnel. Cartel hitmen also disrupted transit through roadblocks in various highways, urban centers, rural communities and tourist spots across Mexico. Everyday economic cycles and recreational activities came to a halt in nearly half of the country, even in regions far away from the epicenter of these events.

This episode and its immediate aftermath have gone viral on a global scale through both mainstream channels and social media. As the dust is settling after the initial backlash wave, an atmosphere of tense calm prevails, at least for the time being, but the ghost of “el Mencho” is now haunting Mexico. To keep things in perspective, this man was no ordinary street thug. While his centrality had diminished due to ailing health, he had become Mexico’s most powerful and ruthless criminal warlord. Under his leadership, the New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG) had risen —especially after the recent partition of the Sinaloa Cartel— as one of the world’s largest criminal empires. For the Mexican state, this operation represents a Zeitenwende which, after a hiatus of suspicious unresponsiveness, highlights both the material ability and the political will to engage nonstate antagonists, even if this confrontation comes with meaningful risks and costs. Once again, the gloves are off.
Profile of the New Generation Jalisco Cartel

The New Generation Jalisco Cartel was born as an offshoot of cells once tied to the Sinaloa Cartel, which later absorbed both minor regional groups from Western Mexico and paramilitary squads established to exterminate the so-called “Knights Templar.” These remnants joined forces to transform a second-rate subnational nonstate actor into a major criminal multinational empire with branches in most of Mexico, the US, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and even Africa.

The cartel’s governance model is a hybrid that integrates corporate and paramilitary components. Not unlike the diversification of the Japanese keiretsu, the CJNG was involved in various profitable operations, including drug trafficking (especially fentanyl), clandestine mining of industrial and precious metals, extortion rackets, cybercrime, fuel contraband, human trafficking, the control of cash crops, and the systematic predation of all sorts of businesses, as well as money laundering schemes. This spatial and economic expansion was facilitated by a strategy which enabled the integration of smaller surrogates. Therefore, rather than a vertical hierarchical pyramid, the CJNG is semi-decentralized network or constellation of criminal satrapies. This confederation has been strengthened through mergers, contractual partnerships and franchises. On the other hand, the CJNG has achieved substantive firepower, underpinned by the acquisition of assault rifles, RPGs, landmines, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), anti-aircraft guns, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). In the hands of assassins trained by military defectors and foreign mercenaries with experience in overseas warzones such as Colombia and Ukraine, these weapons have been wielded to orchestrate attacks against the Mexican armed forces, law enforcement, rival groups, and even unarmed civilians. The cartel is also notorious for embracing technological innovations such as AI, cryptocurrencies, and social media platforms.


Although it exists primarily as a money-making machine, this organization has followed an operational playbook that borrows the asymmetric tactics of nonstate militias such as terrorists, separatists, and insurgents. In this particular arena, the CJNG shares more common denominators with the Colombian FARC, Hezbollah, Blackwater, the Wagner Group and African nonstate militias than with old-school Italian mafias, Chinese triads or the Japanese Yakuza. Through the proliferation of armed violence and psychological warfare, the growth of this group has weakened the ability of the Mexican state to ensure the monopoly of force and the full-fledged control of the country’s territorial hinterland. Based on a zero-sum logic, such development represents a threat for both national security and the Westphalian sovereignty of Mexico. Finally, the hitherto unchecked metastasis of this problem would not have been possible without the organic complicity of elite political and economic enablers. As is known, the growth of organized crime necessarily requires the secretive collaboration of “friends in high places.”
Domestic Fallout from El Mencho’s Death

The fate of the New Generation Jalisco Cartel is unclear because the governance structure of organized crime is a fertile ground for a chronic backstabbing disorder. Considering existing precedents, strategic foresight suggests that four scenarios can be envisaged: 1) a smooth consensual succession, 2) a hostile takeover, 3) a bitter power struggle followed by violent balkanization or 4) a gradual disintegration.


What is certain is that the beheading of a large-scale criminal syndicate does not mean that the metaphorical hydra has been dismantled. After all, the removal of a CEO does not mean that the company he used to run has been extinguished. In the short term, the so-called “kingpin strategy” is useful to destabilize criminal networks and to restore deterrence through the demarcation of red lines. However, the Mexican state can leverage this turning point to undermine the cartel’s hidden financial infrastructure, introduce stricter customs enforcement mechanisms and go after the group’s “fellow travelers.”

In the long run, these measures could further the decline and fall of this particular criminal enterprise. Nonetheless, as serious security professionals know, the complete structural eradication of organized crime is unlikely because there are powerful incentives that guarantee the survival of this underworld ecosystem. In the case of Mexico, these include the gravitational pull of market forces, a dispersed geographical configuration, and a flourishing cultural industry that promotes the aspirational attractiveness of the narco lifestyle for young men and women through narratives, songs, fashion, Netflix productions, Instagram influencers, and even semi-religious rituals.

Yet the dismemberment of large organizations could de facto reshuffle the balance of power in a manner that favors the authority of the Mexican government. In the long run, the degradation and fragmentation of large criminal consortiums would make the problem more manageable through state-sanctioned coercion, containment strategies, backchannel negotiations, and informal agreements for the ordered redistribution of spheres of influence. The point is that the state can turn the tables with the ability to permanently keep in check these partially de-fanged criminal rings. Although kosher solutions (i.e. the rule of law, better policing, community crime prevention) are preferable in principle, the testament of history and Machiavellian wisdom teach that an expedient and effective pacification requires unsavory decisions. Bad must begin so that worse remains behind.

For the Mexican government, the elimination of “el Mencho” is a game-changing political triumph. This milestone represents a “clean break” from the puzzling policy of “hugs, not bullets,” followed by President Sheinbaum’s predecessor. Although the precise details remain obscure, the rationale behind the previous approach has been attributed to neglect, détente, and even transactional Faustian pacts. The liquidation of this “high-value target” is also helpful to restore the socio-political legitimacy and professional reputation of the country’s military and civilian security services.


Nevertheless, meaningful risks persist, including the prospect of asymmetric retaliatory attacks calculated to sabotage governance, public order, political stability, and economic exchanges. Military headquarters, senior policymakers, governmental facilities, foreign interests, corporate nerve centers, tourist attractions, symbolic sites, power plants, crowded entertainment venues and infrastructure projects could be targeted. The upcoming organization of three matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Mexican cities opens windows of opportunity for such malicious purposes. The materialization of these hypothetical threats would lead to the loss of political capital, diplomatic credibility, economic benefits and “soft power.”

For an organization like the CJNG, the narco-terrorist attacks launched by Pablo Escobar against Colombian government officials and civilians are perhaps precedents worth replicating, especially considering its state-of-the-art expertise in kamikaze drones and targeted assassinations. In addition, the high-profile political associates of this cartel, who are being gradually sidelined by the current Mexican government, also have incentives to seek revenge. Readiness is therefore a major challenge for Mexican intelligence services, armed forces and law enforcement. On the other hand, the removal of a senior drug lord is expected to facilitate the progress of trade negotiations and the renewal of the North American geoeconomic bloc as a strong trilateral partnership conditionally undergirded by the securitization of strategic industries, supply chains, and critical minerals. For Mexican economic statecraft, access to the US consumer market as an engine of dynamism, manufacturing productiveness, industrial policies, technology transfers, and strategic-grade “nearshoring” investments remains an imperative.
International Dimension

Based on the new prescriptive strategic guidelines for national security and defense presented by the second Trump administration, the US geopolitical perimeter in the American hemisphere is now regarded in DC as a major priority. This redefinition is not just simply a new theoretical innovation masterminded by the US strategic community. Such perception is reflected in the recent capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, the attempt to control Greenland and a hawkish foreign policy approach towards pivotal regional states with varying profiles, such as Panama, Colombia, Cuba and even Canada.

This strategic conception diagnoses that, in contemporary security environments (shaped by complex interdependence), resurgent interstate geopolitical tensions and emerging vectors of nonstate threats are increasingly entwined. In this view, Mexico is well positioned as a scalable bridge of interconnectedness through which problematic flows —synthetic opioids, illegal immigrants, triangulated Chinese goods, agents of foreign powers or nonstate actors— are infiltrating the US for hostile purposes. As US thinkers like Samuel Huntington and George Friedman have argued, the US and Mexico will likely collide due to diverging demographic and territorial interests. From this perspective, although a bit of chaos in Mexico is tolerable, a black hole of anarchy in a neighboring state with so many overlapping ties to the US is unacceptable. Washington cannot afford to let Mexico become a failed state because it fears the effects of potentially contagious spillovers, power voids and harmful externalities.

This is the context in which the official reclassification of fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction” and of Mexican criminal syndicates as “foreign terrorist organizations” must be understood. Under intermittent US diplomatic pressure and threats of both unilateral military interventions and coercive tariffs, the Mexican government has set aside ideological preferences and embraced a policy that blends strategic acquiescence, bilateral security collaboration, and appeasement. Out of pragmatism, the days in which there was little cooperation in the fields of defense, security, and intelligence are behind. Symbolically, the CJNG leader’s head on a silver platter is a better “sacrificial offering” than the meta-legal rendition of second-rate drug lords and has-beens. This accomplishment of this operation performatively telegraphs the US security establishment that Mexico is willing to do what is needed to restore its bona fide credentials as a reliable security partner. Furthermore, as an operational success comparable to the targeted assassinations of both Osama bin Laden or IRGC General Qassem Soleimani, the neutralization of the most wanted Mexican drug lord is a boost for the political ambitions of President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. As the architects of the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, these senior GOP figures can leverage the incremental success of this new hemispheric security agenda to further their political projects.


Nevertheless, triumphalism on both sides of the border may be premature because things can get worse before they get any better. Mexican criminal organizations have proved to be exceedingly resilient. The downfall of major syndicates is usually followed by the rise of direct or indirect heirs, especially in faraway peripheral regions with a prohibitive topology. Moreover, as great powers scramble to advance their preferred versions of world order, the resulting security competition brings yet another layer of volatility and even encourages the emergence of wild cards. For example, if a regime change in Cuba occurs via a messy collapse rather than through a controlled demolition or a Richelovian deal, former regime personnel —including military and intelligence officers— may be recruited by Mexican criminal groups. Their experience with grey-zone tactics and irregular conflict in the operational theatres of contested flashpoints across the Global South (hardly transferable to legitimate business) makes them highly attractive. Aside from the self-evident economic benefits of choosing a lucrative workstream that handsomely rewards their tradecraft, there is also an incentive to join forces against the US as a common enemy.

In the worst-case scenario, such shadow symbiosis has the potential to generate a FARC-like hybrid threat in which the distinction between organized crime businesses and militant “anti-imperialist” struggle is blurred. With the firepower and cash of Mexican criminal syndicates and the Cubans’ expertise in all sorts of covert shenanigans, involvement in shady businesses and clandestine international connections, this nonstate “red menace” would be a force to be reckoned with.

For the most hardline and ideologically charged factions of the ruling coalition, increasingly alienated by the “impure” pragmatism of the Mexican head of state and the alignment of her administration to Washington’s orbit, the rise of this golem would be a good opportunity for revanchism. For extra-regional great powers interested in challenging the Americans, this revolutionary joint venture would mean a chance to fuel agitation in the most relevant state for US homeland security. This criminal mutation, under the theatrical facade of “popular resistance”, would deepen Mexico’s security crisis with a counterinsurgency nightmare. It is in Mexico’s best interest that the State Department and the upper echelons of the Cuban military apparatus manage to achieve a deal that ensures hemispheric security and regional stability.

This article was published by the Geopolitical Monitor.com

Geopoliticalmonitor.com is an open-source intelligence collection and forecasting service, providing research, analysis and up to date coverage on situations and events that have a substantive impact on political, military and economic affairs.

'Disgusting and evil.' Trump faces MAGA backlash on Iran.

Zac Anderson, USA TODAY
Sun, March 1, 2026 at 4:41 PM MST

After unleashing operation "Epic Fury" in Iran, President Donald Trump is facing MAGA skepticism at home as the military campaign threatens to strain his political coalition heading into the midterm election.

Trump campaigned as a staunch critic of U.S. wars in the Middle East, and his aggressive foreign policy moves since returning to office have sparked backlash within the MAGA movement, including accusations he has betrayed those who subscribed to his anti-interventionist, “America First” pledges.

Polling indicates many Republicans are wary of military involvement in Iran, presenting a challenge as the president works to keep them motivated in a crucial election year. That skepticism has been aired publicly by prominent voices on the right since the U.S. and Israel launched a military campaign targeting Iran’s leadership, missile sites and nuclear program.


More: Do Americans support Iran strikes? Here's what new poll says


U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks to Cabinet Secretaries during military operations in Iran, in the Situation Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. February 28, 2026. The United States launched military strikes and "major combat operations" against Iran on Saturday, President Donald Trump said, targeting the country's missile capabilities.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the joint strikes with Israel on Iran, an Israeli source confirmed to USA TODAY.

This image was provided by The White House.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, accompanied by White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during military operations in Iran, at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. February 28, 2026. This image was provided by The White House.

A satellite image shows black smoke rising and heavy damage at Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's compound, following strikes by the United States and Israel against Iran, in Tehran, Iran February 28, 2026.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks to Cabinet Secretaries during military operations in Iran, in the Situation Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. February 28, 2026. The United States launched military strikes and "major combat operations" against Iran on Saturday, President Donald Trump said, targeting the country's missile capabilities.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the joint strikes with Israel on Iran, an Israeli source confirmed to USA TODAY.

This image was provided by The White House.More

Tucker Carlson, a long-time Trump backer and former FOX News host who recently attended a White House event, was scathing in an ABC News interview, describing the Iran operation that was launch on Feb. 28 as "absolutely disgusting and evil."

Others in the MAGA sphere questioned how the operation squares with the spirit of the president’s political movement, which over three White House campaigns centered around a more populist approach that eschewed years of GOP foreign policy orthodoxy on utilizing American military might.

“I don’t see how this is in keeping with the president’s MAGA commitment. I’m disappointed,” Trump ally Erik Prince, a private military contractor, said March. 1 on a podcast hosted by Steven Bannon, who served as White House chief strategist during Trump’s first term.

Former GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has become a fervent Trump critic after years as one of his top supporters in Congress, accused the president and his team in a flurry of social media posts after the initial attack on Iran of betraying their promises.

Greene called the Trump administration “sick (expletive) liars” in a Feb. 27 post declaring, “We voted for America First and ZERO wars.”
Regime change war

The Trump administration’s focus on regime change in Iran is adding to the backlash. The president announced that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed along with other top leaders, and has called on the Iranian people to rise up and replace the regime, even as he has warned against regime change efforts in the past.

“We must abandon the failed policies of nation building and regime change,” Trump said at the 2016 Republican National Convention.

The deaths of three U.S. troops in the operation also has heightened tensions.

Former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican from Georgia, speaks to reporters as she arrives for a closed-door meeting with House Republicans, at the Republican National Committee office on Capitol Hill on March 25, 2025, in Washington, DC.More

“This was absolutely unnecessary and is unacceptable,” Greene said in a March 1 social media post. “Trump, Vance, Tulsi (Gabbard), and all of us campaigned on no more foreign wars and regime change. Now, America soldiers are dead.”

Many GOP lawmakers and other conservatives are rallying around Trump as the military operation unfolds, with some dismissing the idea that the president is out of synch with MAGA.

Let Trump 'cook'

Longtime Trump adviser Jason Miller said MAGA’s priorities are the same as the president’s, “Full stop.”

“We voted for President Trump because we believe in HIS decision-making & HIS judgment to keep us safe,” Miller said Feb. 28 on social media.

Plumes of smoke rise following reported explosions in Tehran on March 1, 2026, after Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed a day earlier in a large U.S. and Israeli attack, prompting a new wave of retaliatory missile strikes from Iran.More

FOX News host Laura Ingraham asked conservative podcaster and former Trump FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino what his message is to “some of our friends on the right” who point out that Trump campaigned against regime change and is now pursuing that goal.

Pete Hegseth Finally Comments on Iranian Strikes After Being MIA on Social Media

Blackwater Founder Fumes to Steve Bannon About Iran Strikes: ‘I Don’t Think This Was in America’s Interests’

“Can you give the man a chance to cook a little bit?” Bongino responded Feb. 28, adding: “Maybe give the guy five minutes before you’re already crapping on everything he did.”

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-South Carolina, said on NBC’s Meet the Press that the Iran military operation is fully aligned with Trump’s America First agenda.

“America First is not isolationism, America First is not head in the sand,” said Graham, one of the most outspoken GOP hawks. “America First is not to get entangled. We’re not going to have any boots on the ground in Iran.”
Election questions

Trump also faced MAGA criticism after his decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites last year. It quickly quieted down, though. That attack was a single event that didn’t spiral into a broader conflict and there were no U.S. deaths. Polls since then have shown overwhelming support for the president among Republicans.

The latest conflict already has resulted in American casualties, though, and is more open ended, with the U.S. and Israel already launching multiple strikes and the president offering an uncertain timeline for how long it could last.

U.S. Navy sailors prepare to stage ordnance on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during the U.S. attack on Iran at an undisclosed location, Feb. 28, 2026.

A University of Maryland survey conducted two weeks before Trump struck Iran again found that just 21% of U.S. adults favored launching an attack, including just 40% of Republicans. After the operation began, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found 27% of Americans approved, including 55% of Republicans.


With a sizeable portion of his party opposed or unsure of his use of force in Iran, Trump could be treading into politically perilous ground as he seeks to rally the GOP ahead of the midterms and maintain enthusiasm.

Mercedes Schlapp, a Trump ally who served in his first administration and in the administration of former Republican President George W. Bush, said in a CSPAN interview shortly before Trump struck Iran that it’s not something his MAGA base wants and that the midterms will be fought on the economy.

“I think that if the administration moves towards… more military tactics, a more aggressive posture into Iran, I think that that could be detrimental for Republicans going into the midterm elections,” Schlapp said, noting she worked for Bush during the Iraq War and “it became a very unpopular war quickly.”

This sweeping Trump assault has us headed for a hellscape of unimaginable dimensions

John Casey
March 1, 2026 
RAW STORY


A banner depicting Donald Trump hangs outside the Department of Justice. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper

The first days of a bombing campaign almost always look successful. Targets are hit. Explosions dominate headlines. Leaders declare strength. But wars are judged by what follows: retaliation, escalation, unintended consequences that unfold in days, weeks, months, and years.

For example, Israeli sources said on Saturday that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the initial bombings. But if he is dead, who comes next? His death after 35 years in power would likely trigger a prolonged, ugly and tumultuous struggle.

Further back, remember George W. Bush and his rush to declare “Mission Accomplished," shortly after the attack on Iraq in 2003?

That pattern of not thinking and planning ahead for what comes next mirrors Donald Trump’s life of losing. His deals and grand ideas often look triumphant at the start. Later, collapse, chaos, and damage become clear.

Trump’s decision to join Israel in bombing Iran is shocking the world. It feels reckless and ego-driven — both for Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu — undertaken without fully reckoning with the grave consequences such action could unleash.

Yes, Iran is dangerous. Yes, it should never have nuclear weapons. Yes, the regime’s mass killing of protesters is abominable. But behind the curtain of cruelty is an entrenched military and ruthless theocratic leadership capable of spreading unimaginable horror throughout the Middle East.

It’s already begun.

But let’s start in the U.S., with a president who campaigned in 2024 on ending wars through dealmaking.

Trump has ended nothing. He has built nothing. He has stabilized nothing. That assessment isn’t limited to what’s happening now. It reflects how he has carried himself throughout his life. He is not a winner. He is a loser. He does not create peace. He creates chaos.


Now he has detonated that chaos in the most volatile region on Earth. Why now? For what purpose? For how long?

Trump repeatedly claimed that last year’s U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities “obliterated” them. Obliterated. He has insisted on that word, dismissing experts who said otherwise.

So why are American bombs once again falling on Iranian soil? You don’t obliterate something and then have to obliterate it again.


There has been no publicly presented evidence that bombing Iran is in America’s best interest. None. No imminent attack disclosed. No ticking-clock intelligence, laid before Congress.

And what of Congress? Article I of the Constitution is clear: Congress has the power to declare war. Trump didn’t seek it. He didn’t secure it. He didn’t build bipartisan consensus. He simply acted. Congress represents the voice of the American people. We, and our elected officials, should decide whether to put American troops in harm’s way.

Trump failed to rally NATO. After years of threatening to weaken the alliance, flirting with abandoning European partners, even floating the absurd notion of invading Greenland, he has left the United States diplomatically diminished.


Rather than assembling a coalition, he has tethered America’s fate to another leader who thrives on confrontation: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu has long viewed Iran as Israel’s existential enemy. Iran harbors deep hostility toward Israel and Netanyahu. Netanyahu is polarizing in the Middle East, controversial at home. Trump is viewed globally as erratic, incapable of restraint.

Two unpredictable leaders do not create stability. They do not project peace. And if these two have rid Iran of the equally unpredictable Khamenei, God knows what lies ahead.


This is a sweeping assault with no clearly articulated endgame against an adversary as hardened as it is brutal. If Khamenei is dead, his revolutionary forces will surely retaliate to an extreme.

There has been no serious explanation of what victory looks like, only assurances that bombing will continue. Escalation feels inevitable. Regional war is plausible.

Experts have warned for weeks that a full-scale attack on Iran could ignite the Middle East.


Iran is not isolated. It has a network of proxies: Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen. They are all capable of striking American assets and allies. Retaliation could be relentless, U.S. troops potential targets.

Shipping lanes could be disrupted. The Strait of Hormuz, through which flows a significant share of the world’s oil, could become a choke point. Energy markets would convulse. Inflation would spike. A fragile global economy, rattled by Trump’s erratic tariff obsession, could tip toward crisis.

And then there’s Russia, which was blunt in response to the bombing, saying it was an “unprovoked act of armed aggression.”

Moscow has deepened ties with Tehran. Iran has supplied Russia with drones. Russia has offered diplomatic cover. By attacking Iran in a sustained way, Trump risks entangling the U.S. in a broader dynamic that could spiral beyond control.


When military powers circle the same battlefield, miscalculation is a real probability.

Even within U.S. military leadership, alarm bells have been ringing. Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine has warned that a full-scale confrontation with Iran would come with “acute risks,” along with being extraordinarily costly and unpredictable.

This is not Venezuela. Iran is no pushover. It is one of the most volatile regimes in the world, rivaling North Korea.


And now we have added another unpredictable actor — the habitual liar that is the President of the United States.

This is the man who has failed at virtually every major endeavor he has led, too many to list. He is not a steady leader. He is a coddled billionaire who has never faced meaningful consequences for his mistakes.

Trump, who thrives on confusion, lies, and chaos, has not clearly articulated objectives, sought congressional authorization, or built a multinational framework. And we are supposed to trust him?

We are headed for a hellscape of unimaginable dimensions.

What unfolds next could reshape the global order: regional war, confrontation with major powers, economic shockwaves hitting American families, gas stations and grocery stores, terror retaliation, cyberattacks … the “acute risks” falling like dominos.

Trump falsely bills himself as the man who would keep America out of endless wars. He foams at the mouth for a Nobel. He launched a farcical “Board of Peace.” Yet he has now lit the fuse in one of the world’s most combustible regions.

Unlike his past failures, his latest bomb is far worse than a bankruptcy. Far, far worse.

John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”

Trump Guns for Peace Prize

It’s obvious that Trump loves the feel of power. It no doubt gives him a rush more intoxicating than any drug.


Demonstrators burn a poster of US President Donald Trump during an anti-US and Israel protest in Peshawar on March 2, 2026 after the death of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei amid US-Israel strikes.
(Photo by Abdul Majeed / AFP via Getty Images)

Les Leopold
Mar 02, 2026

Common Dreams

Since resuming power 13 months ago, President Trump has declared he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. At the same time, he has attacked civilian boats in the Caribbean, abducted the head of Venezuela, blockaded Cuba, conducted air strikes in Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, and even threatened to invade Greenland. He bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities last June, and now is waging war to achieve regime change, not an easy task in a country of 90 million people.

What is common to all these strikes is that the target was weak. Note that Trump is not trying to topple North Korea, or force Russia out of Ukraine, or threaten China’s economic domination. His targets can’t do much harm to the US, at least in the short run, which makes it easy to score what he calls “victories.”

It’s obvious that Trump loves the feel of power. It no doubt gives him a rush more intoxicating than any drug. He is the ruler of the strongest nation in the history of the world, but he doesn’t have the freedom to unilaterally act on domestic affairs, although he constantly tries. The courts are in the way, as is popular dissent. Judges and citizens are preventing him from exerting his will, even making him change course by removing troops and immigration forces. And it will, he surely knows, get even worse if the Democrats gain control of either house of Congress.

But he has a free hand in foreign affairs. The Supreme Court won’t stop him and there is no international court that the US recognizes, nor does he believe he is morally bound by international law. He couldn’t care less about the United Nations, and he hopes that military engagement against the weak makes him look strong to the American public. Also, in Iran’s case, a war with a quick victory has the added benefit of possibly improving his paltry approval ratings by diverting public attention away from “affordability” and the Epstein files. Already the joke is that they should have called the Iran adventure, “Operation Epic Epstein.”

Just think what the total freedom to attack means for Trump. For starters he gets to deploy his toys—the trillion-dollar arsenal of US warships and fighter planes. It’s the ultimate video game for power-hungry adults. And no one can stop him abroad, and while the Republicans in Congress could, they certainly won’t.

Trump seems to believe that these military attacks will secure his place in history as the greatest president of all time. He and only he had the guts to get rid of the Iranian theocracy that has bedeviled the US since the 1979 hostage crisis. And only he will end communism in Cuba, that pesky island of resistance only 90 miles from shore. Most importantly, he is remaking the Middle East into a US-Israeli safe zone. He is showing the world that the US means business and that whatever it wants, it should get—of course in the name of protecting the US and securing world peace.

As Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Steven Miller, put it, “We live in a world , in the real world…that is governed by strength, this governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.”

Before claiming all this aggression demonstrates Trump truly is a Hitler-like dictator, we should recall that he is not the first Commander-in-Chief to follow these “iron laws of the world.” Truman sent troops to fight in Korea (1950), Eisenhower sent them to Lebanon (1958), Kennedy to the Bay of Pigs in Cuba (1961), Johnson to Vietnam (1964), Nixon bombed Cambodia (1969), Reagan invaded Grenada (1983), George H. Bush invaded Panama (1989), Clinton bombed Kosovo (1999), Obama bombed Libya (2011), Trump sent missiles to Syria (2017,2018), and Biden ordered airstrikes in Syria (2021), and Yemen (2024)—all without a declaration of war by Congress.

This is what US presidents do because they can. But no president has been quite as overtly aggressive as Trump. Even when he tries, he can’t hide his desire to dominate. He doesn’t spend time building alliances or forming a consensus at home. He just acts as if the weaker countries of the world are his playthings. He can push them around at will, first with tariffs then with bombs, and his sycophantic enablers will cheer him on. From Trump’s perspective, what’s not to like?

Nothing, unless it doesn’t end well. And there are dozens of ways his current path in Iran could lead to his own destruction. The American public is not likely to approve of these adventures, especially if prices rise because global trade is severely disrupted. More ominously, it’s possible that a war with Iran could spiral out of control, sucking the US in with ground troops and leading to yet another forever war and American casualties. That’s why MAGA isolationists also are having trouble with Trump’s foreign interventions.

And there is a question of whether the Iranians who want regime change will trust the Americans. They are certainly aware that the Afghans who assisted US forces and the CIA in their (failed) war of liberation were awkwardly abandoned during our troop withdrawal, and those who were given safe haven have in many cases been unceremoniously kicked back to their dangerous homeland by Trump.

The upshot of all this adventurism is that we may again witness a moment in history when the universe actually bends towards justice. Debilitating hubris has a way of striking down the mighty: LBJ was driven from office by his Vietnam debacle and Nixon had to resign because of his secret dictatorial actions. Will Trump blow himself up as well?

Maybe, but let’s pray, with the nuclear button close at hand, he doesn’t take all the rest of us with him.

 

Peatland lakes in the Congo Basin release carbon that is thousands of years old

ETH Zurich

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image: 

At the confluence of the Fimi and Kasai rivers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, dark water from forest landscapes meets water from the savannahs, colored red by iron oxides.  

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Credit: (Image: Matti Barthel / ETH Zurich)

The vast swamps and peatlands of the tropics play an important role in the global carbon cycle and consequently in the global climate. The Amazon basin, the Congo basin, and the tropical wetlands of Southeast Asia accumulate carbon in the form of dead, undecomposed plant material, storing around 100 gigatonnes of carbon in the process.  

One of the largest and most important of these tropical carbon stores is situated in the Congo Basin in the heart of Africa, home to the mighty Congo River and its numerous tributaries. Although the swamps and peatlands of the Congo Basin cover only 0.3 per cent of the Earth's land surface, they hold one third of the carbon stored in tropical peatlands. 

Just how great the impact of these peat ecosystems is on the global carbon cycle and climate has hardly been researched, partly because the central Congo Basin remains difficult to access. Boats and pirogues are often the only means of transport for reaching the remote swamps and lakes. 

Research uncovers surprises 

A research team headed by ETH Zurich has taken a closer look at the Congo Basin in the last decade. In the process, the researchers uncovered several surprises, such as one of the darkest blackwater rivers in the world, the Ruki River (ETH News reported).  

In the latest study, which has just been published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers once again focused on water that has been darkened by the leaching of plant debris: Africa's largest blackwater lake, Lac Mai Ndombe, and its smaller neighbour, Lac Tumba – and they once again met with a surprise.  

More than four times the size of Lake Constance, the water of Lake Mai Ndombe resembles black tea. The lake is surrounded by extensive swamp forests and virtually untouched lowland rainforest growing on thick peat. Organic matter washed out of decaying plant and soil material from the surrounding swamp and lowland rainforests colours the lake water dark brown.  

Ancient carbon released 

Now, researchers have shown that large amounts of carbon in the form of CO₂ are emitted into the atmosphere by way of the two lakes. 

Contrary to the researchers' expectations, however, only some of the carbon is from recently produced plant matter. Up to 40 per cent of the carbon stems from peat that has accumulated in the surrounding ecosystems over thousands of years. This is shown by age determinations (radiocarbon dating) of the CO₂ dissolved in the lake water.  

"We were surprised to find that ancient carbon is being released via the lake," explains lead author Travis Drake, a scientist in the Sustainable Agroecosystem (SAE) group led by ETH Professor Johan Six. "The carbon reservoir has a leak, so to speak, from which ancient carbon is escaping," adds co-author Matti Barthel, research technician in SAE. 

Just how is the carbon released? 

Until now, research assumed that carbon stored in the peat of the Congo Basin remained bound for a very long time and was only released under certain conditions, such as prolonged droughts.  

It remains unclear just how the carbon is mobilised from the undecomposed plant material. The pathways by which the carbon enters the lake water are also still unknown.  

Consequently, it is crucial for researchers to find out whether the release of old carbon indicates a destabilising turning point or a natural state of equilibrium that is balanced by new peat deposits. 

Is there a risk of the peatlands drying up? 

The release of old carbon could indicate a larger problem, namely that environmental changes triggered by climate change are leading to a chain reaction.  

If the climate becomes drier, for example, more carbon could be mobilised because the peat dries out more often and for longer periods of time, allowing oxygen to penetrate deeper the peat layers. This promotes the decomposition of once-stable organic matter by microorganisms, with consequences for the global climate as more CO₂ from this huge carbon store is released into the atmosphere.  

"Our results help to improve global climate models, because tropical lakes and wetlands have been underrepresented in these models so far," as Six stated. 

Water levels have a massive influence on degassing 

In addition to investigating the age and origin of the degassed CO₂, the researchers also examined emissions of two other important greenhouse gases from Lake Mai Ndombe, namely nitrous oxide and methane. 

In this parallel study, which was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, the researchers found that water levels, for example, have a strong influence on the volume of methane escaping into the atmosphere.  

The higher the water level of the lake, the more effectively microorganisms break down methane. If the water levels are low(er), as is usual during the dry season, methane is broken down less effectively and escapes from the lake in larger quantities.  

"Our fear is that climate change will also upset this balance. If droughts become longer and more intense, the blackwater lakes in this region could become significant sources of methane that impact on the global climate," says ETH Professor Jordon Hemingway. "At present we do not know when the tipping point will be reached." 

Changes in land use could prove to be serious 

But it is not only climate change that could affect the balance. Changes in land use could incur even more serious consequences. According to estimates, the population of the Democratic Republic of Congo is set to triple by 2050. In order to gain arable land, more forest land will be cleared in future.  

Deforestation, in turn, promotes drought, which could keep lake levels permanently low. "We all know the analogy whereby forests are the green lungs of the Earth," says Barthel. "They are not only responsible for gas exchange like our lungs, however, but they also evaporate water through their leaves, thereby enriching the atmosphere with water vapour. This promotes cloud formation and precipitation, which in turn feeds rivers and lakes." 

The results help to clarify the role of tropical peatlands and blackwater lakes in global climate change. The research is also vital for developing strategies to reduce greenhouse gases and protect wetlands in the Congo Basin and around the equator belt. 

These studies were conducted as part of the TropSEDs project led by ETH Zurich and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, in collaboration with scientists from the University of Louvain in Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  

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Journal

Nature Geoscience

DOI

10.1038/s41561-026-01924-3 

Article Title

Millennial-aged peat carbon outgassed by large humic lakes in the Congo Basin

Article Publication Date

23-Feb-2026

 

The US Appears Likely to Attack Iran, Again. We Must Stop This Illegal Act.

By Kevin Martin

February 20, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image by U.S. Air Force AFCENT by Staff Sgt. Gerald Willis/Wikimediacommons, in public domain

President Donald Trump seems to think he is King of the World, not just the United States. Even as he convenes his “Board of Peace” (“Board of Imperial Conquest” would be more apt) it looks like the US will soon illegally attack Iran, again, as it did last June. Congress needs to do its job representing the will of the American people, get a spine, step up to its Constitutional duty over matters of war and peace, and stop him.  

The US has attacked seven countries (eight if one includes the US of A, and most people in Minneapolis and many other cities surely think so) since Trump’s recrudescence. Ongoing talks with Iran do not appear to be promising, with unrealistic US demands, especially zero nuclear energy enrichment by Tehran and the dismantling of its missile program, which would leave it vulnerable to further Israeli attacks. Trump’s “beautiful armada” including two aircraft carrier battle groups with supporting attack aircraft is the largest US military buildup in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. 

This massive (and expensive) deployment of forces is exactly what one does in planning for a large-scale military offensive against Iran, just as the region begins the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. This would go far beyond the more limited strikes that have taken place in the past, including last June’s attack that killed 1,000 people. “It harkens back to what I saw ahead of the 2003 Iraq war,” said retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a senior fellow and military expert at Defense Priorities. “You don’t assemble this kind of power to send a message. In my view, this is what you do when you’re preparing to use it. What I see on the diplomatic front is just to try to keep things rolling until it’s time to actually launch the military operation.”

Lest anyone forget, this crisis is all of Trump’s making, as he abrogated the multilateral agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, negotiated under President Barack Obama, which effectively and verifiably capped Iran’s nuclear program well short of the ability to build The Bomb.

Trump should not have the last word on whether to attack Iran again. Next week, the House of Representatives will hold a vote on H. Con. Res. 38, the Iran War Powers Resolution, according to the measure’s co-sponsor US Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA). US Rep Thomas Massie (R-KY) is the other lead sponsor, and the only Republican on the resolution at present, but a vote could be close, if mostly partisan. Just a few Republican votes could make the difference. 

There is no news on a Senate vote at this time, though there is a companion resolution, S. J. Res 104, introduced by Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Rand Paul (R-KY). Should the House resolution pass, the Senate vote might ensue quickly, as time is of the essence. 

In a recent Quinnipiac poll, 70% of American voters said they oppose military action against Iran. It is time for Congress to fulfill its Constitutional authority and vote to require authorization of any military action against Iran. 

It is no surprise the majority of Americans oppose a war with Iran. Similarly, most Iranians oppose a military strike on their country. Now, it’s up to us to demand that Congress do its job and pull us back from the precipice of another disastrous war. Concerned individuals should call their US Representative via the Congressional switchboard at 202.224.3121, or 833-STOP-WAR.

Also, on Monday at 2:30pm ET/11:30am PT, peace and constitution-loving people can join a virtual Action Hour on Zoom, where we’ll mobilize together to demand Congress stop this unauthorized war before it starts.

The National Iranian American Council Action (NIAC) is organizing this event, co-sponsored by Peace Action & MPower Action, to equip you with immediate action you can take to urge lawmakers to oppose war and stand with the American and Iranian people. We will also be offering a brief “How to Advocate” 101 training to empower you to get face-to-face meetings with your lawmaker’s office.

Click here to sign up and join us! 

It’s getting late, but it’s not yet too late, to stop another illegal war of aggression.Email

Kevin Martin

Kevin Martin serves as the president of Peace Action, the country’s largest grassroots peace and disarmament organization with over 200,000 supporters nationwide. He also convenes the CeaseFire Now Grassroots Network.

Jeremy Scahill: Despite Ongoing Talks, Trump Admin Is “Obsessed” with Destroying Iran

By Jeremy Scahill, Amy Goodman

February 21, 2026

Source: Democracy Now!

Despite chairing the first meeting of his newly formed Board of Peace on Thursday, President Donald Trump continues to threaten war against Iran as the Pentagon positions a massive fighting force in the Middle East. Trump said he would give Tehran about two weeks to reach a deal on its nuclear program, but media reports indicate that he could launch an attack within days. Iran maintains its nuclear enrichment program is for peaceful civilian purposes.

Journalist Jeremy Scahill says Trump already “used the veneer” of negotiations to attack Iran last year, and that despite ongoing talks between the two countries, he has essentially already decided to launch a new war that could quickly spiral out of control.

“I’ve been told by military experts who spent decades working in the Pentagon that there’s a spirit of delusion that has just taken hold in the administration,” says Scahill. “You have elements here who are absolutely obsessed with Iran and destroying the Islamic Revolution.”

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Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

President Trump is continuing to threaten to attack Iran as the U.S. expands its massive military presence in the Middle East. On Thursday, Trump said he would give Iran 10 to 15 days to reach a new nuclear deal.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They cannot continue to threaten the stability of the entire region. And they must make a deal. Or if that doesn’t happen—I maybe can understand; If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. But bad things will happen if it doesn’t.

AMY GOODMAN: The Pentagon has amassed an immense strike force of aircraft and warships in the largest military buildup in the region since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Earlier this week, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, passed through the Strait of Gibraltar on its way to join the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Persian Gulf. The USS Gerald Ford had been stationed in the Caribbean when the U.S. attacked Venezuela and abducted its president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife.

Trump’s threats to attack Iran came during the inaugural meeting of the so-called Board of Peace, Trump’s new initiative to create an alternative to the U.N. On Tuesday, U.S. and Iranian negotiators held indirect talks in Geneva and left without a clear resolution. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes.

To talk about all of this and more, we are joined by Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News, his latest piece, ‘This is Not a Dress Rehearsal’: U.S. Engaged in Massive Military Buildup as Threat To Bomb Iran Grows. Jeremy, lay out your findings.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Amy, what I have been hearing from sources is that Donald Trump has been running around for some time saying that he wants to be known as the American president that forever ended the Islamic revolution in Iran. He has even, I am told by sources, been saying that he wants to complete this before the midterm elections.

And so part of what we have seen is that Trump, who ripped up the original nuclear agreement with Iran that was signed in 2015 under President Obama, is that he has used the veneer of engaging in negotiations with Iran as cover to launch more strikes. That was the case last June when the United States and Israel waged a 12-day massive bombing campaign that killed more than 1,000 Iranians.

Now we are in the process of Trump saying—I was told a couple of days ago that Trump had made clear to the Iranians that they had two weeks to come back with what amounted to a pretty sweeping capitulation to his demands. The Iranian foreign minister this morning said that the U.S. has not formally demanded zero enrichment. But what I understand is that the Iranians have been told that the issue of their ballistic missile supply and reducing it dramatically has to be on the table and also their support for regional resistance movements.

Remember, Iran is the only actual nation-state—with the exception of Ansarallah, the Houthis in Yemen—that has launched any sort of attacks against Israel in response to the genocide in Gaza. The Israelis have been empowered by both President Biden, when he was in office, and Donald Trump to wage these sweeping wars across the Middle East.

And so, what we are looking at right now is the Trump strategy is either we force them into capitulation and we make a deal that is entirely on Trump’s terms, or—and if they make that kind of a deal that would eliminate a large capacity of the ballistic missile system, the Iranians basically don’t have any deterrence anymore. So I am told that part of Trump’s calculation is, look, if we get them to do that, they don’t really have a state anyway anymore and their days are numbered, because it would make them much more susceptible to Israeli attack, not to mention American attack. But if the Iranians say that their red lines are essentially their self defense, which is their ballistic missile and drone program, then the United States is poised to attack.

There’s two potential scenarios here. One could be that we see some form of initial limited-scale attack that the United States may think would quote-unquote “soften the Iranians,” and if they don’t come back with capitulation then you wage a much wider war. I am told by sources who are in direct contact with military planners and others that in the bigger picture, the U.S. is looking at two possible scenarios. One would be the Libya scenario where you have U.S. airpower that is used to enact regime change and then you allow chaos and civil war to brew on the ground.

Or, you have something that they’re comparing to a Venezuela scenario. It doesn’t mean that they would try to kidnap Ayatollah Khomeini, the supreme leader, or senior Iranian officials. It means that they would try to decapitate the leadership and then make some sort of a deal with lower echelons within the Iranian state akin to what is happening now in Venezuela, where you have American oil companies coming in and the Venezuelan authorities doing essentially what Marco Rubio and Donald Trump order them to do.

At the same time, I have been told by military experts who spent decades working in the Pentagon that there is a spirit of delusion that has just taken hold in the administration. That a lot of the decisions being made now are not tactical decisions; They have to do with politics and Donald Trump’s ego and wanting to be known as the man who forever smashed the Islamic Revolution.

So, there’s no doubt about it, the U.S. is on the verge of some form of military action. It remains possible that the Iranians are going to try to thread the needle. The foreign minister and others say that they are working on a draft to come back with what the U.S. demanded in Geneva and in Oman before that. But it is a very dire situation.

And if the U.S. does launch a larger-scale attack, I am told that probably what they would try to do is a blitzkrieg to knock out as much of Iran’s offensive military capability as possible alongside its air defenses, hit command-and-control centers, try to blow up naval assets. Then the question becomes, what kind of response can the Iranians offer? In the past, they have calibrated their strikes. They have intentionally not tried to kill large numbers of American troops. They showed a capacity to defeat Iron Dome in Israel. Their hypersonic missile certainly are advanced and they’re very strong. They do have an ability at this moment to do significant damage to Israel if they want to and also to attack oil infrastructure, potentially close the Strait of Hormuz.

But all of that sort of assumes that the Iranian missile capability is not severely damaged in an opening massive U.S. strike, and that’s very big wild card here. The Iranians said they are not going to calibrate anymore. They’re not good to do backdoor choreography if the U.S. attacks. They view it as an existential war for the Islamic Revolution and the existence of the independence of Iran’s state.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, you talked about political reasons that could be why President Trump is ramping up against Iran right now. Could that have to do, interestingly enough, with Epstein? You have the former prince who has been arrested. Trump cannot, no matter how hard he tries, get this off the front pages of the newspapers in the United States even though co-conspirators and he himself are not being gone after by the Justice Department according to the Attorney General. But Britain is doing it. That no matter what he does, this is extremely threatening.

What we saw over New Year’s is President Trump moving that USS Gerald Ford, the largest aircraft carrier, next to Venezuela. This is when the headlines were dominated in December by Epstein, and he attacks and abducts the Venezuelan president. Now he brings the same aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, to join the USS Abraham Lincoln. The cost of maintaining this armada near Iran, are you scared that this is what is driving him?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Also, on that issue of the Gerald Ford, this is a crew that has been in a heavy rotation. Normally, there would need to be maintenance on that aircraft carrier. There would need to be troop rotation. To send them to the region is a very clear indication that the U.S. has on the table a very serious intent to strike Iran. When I saw that the Gerald Ford was getting moved from the Western Hemisphere to the Eastern Hemisphere and looked at some of the troop rotation and maintenance issues, that is a very ominous sign.

But to your broader point about Epstein, the Iranians have started referring to themselves as being at war with the “Epstein regime,” the kind of coalition of nations that are amassing alongside Trump right now in their posture in the world and with Donald Trump himself being one of the main suspects in this entire thing. Certainly, the “wag the dog” scenario is an element here. Donald Trump is at great exposure because of the Epstein files no matter how many lies he wants to tell or how often he tries to distract from it. That certainly is a factor here.

But I wouldn’t underestimate the degree to which you have elements of this administration right now—it is very different in several core ways from Trump 1. You have elements here who are absolutely obsessed with Iran and destroying the Islamic Revolution. That is not something to be understated. And Trump, I’m told, is walking around constantly bringing up that he wants to forever be the president that changed these regimes in the world. I mean, you can talk about Cuba in a different program, but that’s the vibe right now. It’s like the resurrection of the Dulles in the early stages of the CIA world view that the United States is just going to be toppling regimes around the world.

So, while I think the Epstein part of it is a convenient element for what Trump is doing, I think they are dead-set on trying to change the Iranian regime or force them into a capitulation that would forever weaken the existence of Iran as an independent state.

AMY GOODMAN: Didn’t President Obama work a nuclear deal with Iran that President Trump pulled out of?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah. [laughs] You know, Amy, what’s incredible too is that Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, War Secretary Hegseth all said after the June strikes that they had completely and totally obliterated Iran’s nuclear program. Let’s remember, though, that beginning in late 2003, according to even current U.S. intelligence assessments, Iran had ended its nuclear weapons program. There was a fatwa issued by the supreme leader decades ago that said that it was forbidden to use or possess weapons of mass destruction.

Now, you can say, oh, that’s just propaganda, that’s just lies. But the reality is, if you talk to Iranians—I recently met with a former senior Iranian diplomat who helped to negotiate that 2015 deal and he said that what the U.S. is doing right now is actually helping the camp within Iran that says it was a grave mistake that we ended that program. So, there’s that element to it.

But I think what we are looking at right now is that you have this kind of neocon ideology that despite all of Trump’s rhetoric about hating the neocons and saying the Iraq War was a catastrophic mistake, Trump seems dead-set on sort of legacy work here and regime change in Iran.

The question here, Amy, is if the United States does attack and if it’s true what the Iranians are saying—that they’re not going to calibrate strikes anymore—I was told by one well-connected Iranian that he has heard talk of wanting to kill at least 500 American service members in retaliatory strikes.
Donald Trump has never had to endure a mass-casualty incident as president, of American soldiers or American personnel. The question then becomes, what does Trump do if the Iranians are able to successfully strike military bases or other areas where there are large numbers of Americans? There are tens of thousands of Americans positioned in the Gulf right now. This is a very, very dangerous scenario that we are facing right now.Email

Jeremy Scahill

Jeremy Scahill has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere across the globe. Scahill has served as the national security correspondent for The Nation and Democracy Now!. Scahill's work has sparked several congressional investigations and won some of journalism’s highest honors. He was twice awarded the prestigious George Polk Award, in 1998 for foreign reporting and in 2008 for “Blackwater.” Scahill is a producer and writer of the award-winning film “Dirty Wars,” which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Iran Crisis Exposes the Impotence of

America’s Neoliberal War Machine

by Nicolas J.S. Davies / February 20th, 2026

After some delays, the United States is dispatching a second aircraft-carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, from the Caribbean to the Middle East to join the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and threaten Iran.

This is the third Atlantic crossing for the Ford’s crew since it set sail from Norfolk, Virginia, in June 2025, and the second time its deployment has been extended, first to redeploy from the Middle East to the Caribbean, and now to redeploy back to the Middle East.

There is a grave danger that the U.S. government is preparing to exploit the genuine sympathy of people all over the world for the Iranian civilians massacred during protests in December and January as a pretext for an illegal military assault on Iran.

A new US war on Iran would be a cynical and catastrophic escalation of the crisis already swallowing its people, piling the unimaginable death and suffering of a full-scale war on top of many years of economic strangulation under US “maximum pressure” sanctions and the repression of the recent protests.

The world must act to prevent war, and the voices of Americans calling for peace and humanity may have an impact on President Trump and US politicians, in an election year when Americans are already sickened by US complicity in genocide in Gaza and the murderous paramilitaries invading US cities.

In a succession of speeches and in its National Security and Defense Strategy documents, the Trump administration promised a major shift in U.S. foreign policy away from endless wars in the Middle East, to prioritize its ambitions to expand U.S. power and coercion in the Americas and the Pacific.

But Trump is already following in the footsteps of the five US presidents before him, quickly abandoning his formal strategy goals and diverting America’s overpriced but impotent war machine back to the Middle East, to threaten or even attack Iran.

The renewed US threats against Iran have made it clear to Iran’s leaders that their symbolic strikes on Al Udeid air base in Qatar in June 2025, in retaliation for US strikes on nuclear facilities in Iran, were an insufficient deterrent to future US and Israeli attacks.

So Iran has signaled that it will respond to any new Israeli or U.S. attacks with more deadly and destructive retaliation against US forces in the region. Foad Azadi at the University of Tehran reports that Iranian leaders now believe they would need to inflict at least 500 US casualties to successfully deter future attacks.

Iran’s leaders may well be right that Trump would have a low tolerance for US casualties and the political blowback he would suffer for them, if he should make the fateful choice to launch such an unnecessary and catastrophic war.

Iran has had many years to prepare for such a war. It has modern air defenses and an arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones with which to retaliate against US targets throughout the region, which include US bases in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE, and the flotilla of US warships loitering near, but not yet within range of, Iran’s shores.

The US is so far showing respect for Iran’s military capabilities, keeping the Abraham Lincoln at least a thousand miles from Iran’s coast, according to retired US Colonel Larry Wilkerson of the Eisenhower Media Network.

This cautious US naval deployment is a far cry from the six US carrier battle groups the US deployed to commit aggression against Iraq in 2003. The United States still has twelve “big-deck” aircraft carriers like the Lincoln and the Ford, but nine of them are in dock or unready for deployment. The USS George Washington, based in Japan, is now the only US carrier in East Asia, since the Abraham Lincoln left the Philippines in January to threaten Iran.

Standard deployments for these warships last only six or seven months, and their lack of readiness is the result of several years of overextended deployments, after which they need longer periods of maintenance and repair than the normal six to nine month turnaround time between deployments.

For example, since the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower completed a nine month combat deployment in the Middle East in January 2025, it has spent over a year in dock at Norfolk to repair the wear and tear it sustained in the failed US campaign against Yemen’s Ansar Allah (or Houthi) forces.

The United States and its allies bombed Yemen in successive campaigns under Biden and Trump, but failed to reopen the Red Sea and Suez Canal to Israeli or allied commercial shipping. As a result of the Yemeni blockade, most Western cargo shippers diverted their ships away from the Red Sea, forcing the Israeli port of Eilat into bankruptcy in July 2025.

Ansar Allah paused its blockade when Israel signed a ceasefire in Gaza in October 2025, but larger ships still avoid the Red Sea and insurance rates remain high, as Israel’s aggression and genocide continue to destabilize the region in unpredictable ways.

The US failure to defeat the much smaller Ansar Allah forces in Yemen is a small taste of what US forces would face in a prolonged war with Iran, which already inflicted significant damage on Israel during the twelve-day war in June 2025.

Iran used its older missiles and drones to deplete Israel’s air defenses. Then, once Israel began to exhaust its stocks of interceptors, Iran used newer, more sophisticated ballistic missiles to strike important military and intelligence headquarters in Tel Aviv and other military targets.

With Israel in trouble, the US entered the war directly, and bombed three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran, before agreeing to an Iranian ceasefire proposal on June 24, 2025. Israeli censorship has prevented a comprehensive public accounting of its losses in that war.

While overextended deployments have caused wear and tear to aircraft-carriers and other warships, US weapons transfers to its allies in Israel, Ukraine and NATO have depleted its own weapons stocks. This creates pressure on US leaders to hold off on launching a new war against a well-prepared enemy like Iran until it has replenished them, which could take a long time.

Meanwhile the war in Ukraine has exposed structural weaknesses in the US war machine. Russia has vastly out-produced the west in basic war supplies like artillery shells and drones, which has proven militarily decisive in Ukraine.

As Richard Connolly of the RUSI military think tank in London has pointed out, Russia did not privatize its weapons industry after the end of the Cold War, as the US and its allies did. It maintained and improved its existing infrastructure, which he called “economically inefficient until 2022, and then suddenly it looks like a very shrewd bit of planning.”

After the Cold War ended, on the initiative of Soviet leader and visionary peacemaker Mikhail Gorbachev, Russia’s economic weakness forced its military leaders to make honest, hard-nosed assessments of what it would take to defend their country in the post-Cold War world, and the shrewd planning that Connolly put his finger on is one result of this.

On the US side however, Eisenhower’s infamous “military-industrial complex” used its “unwarranted influence” to exploit the west’s post-Cold War triumphalism and expand its global military ambitions. Many Americans immediately recognized this as a dangerous new form of imperialism. Wiser heads among America’s political leaders and foreign policy experts predicted that the rest of the world would ultimately reject America’s new imperialism and be forced to confront it as a threat to peace.

The neoliberal privatization of US and western armament production turned it into an even more lucrative and politically powerful industry, which only reconfirmed Eisenhower’s warnings. Monopolistic military contractors have produced smaller quantities of increasibgly expensive, technologically advanced warships, warplanes and surveillance systems. Despite wreaking catastrophic destruction in country after country, these weapons have proven impotent to prevent humiliating US defeats in its wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine, and will likely prove just as useless in a major war with Iran.

The simplistic, linear thinking of Trump and his advisors leads them to believe that the solution to a trillion dollar per year war machine that can’t win a war is a $1.5 trillion per year war machine.

But this is nonsense. Russia has not defeated the US and NATO by outspending them. Quite the opposite. Since 1992, the US military alone has outspent Russia by fifteen to one ($26 trillion vs $1.7 trillion in constant 2024 dollars, according to SIPRI). Russia’s military superiority is the result of taking its own defense more seriously and confronting its problems more honestly than corrupt US leaders have ever tried to do since the end of the Cold War.

At a price tag of $17.5 billion, the USS Gerald R. Ford is the largest, most expensive warship ever built, costing more than the entire annual military budgets of most other countries. Making an even bigger warship for $26 billion would not make Americans any safer, just a bit poorer.

Relying on the offensive use of military force and record military spending to try to solve America’s problems has put the United States on a collision course with the rest of the world. In 1949, long before Eisenhower’s farewell speech in 1961, he offered some sage advice to politicians and pundits who were calling for a massive US attack on the USSR to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.

“Those who measure security solely in terms of offensive capacity distort its meaning and mislead those who pay them heed,” said Eisenhower. “No modern nation has ever equaled the crushing offensive power attained by the German war machine in 1939. No modern nation was broken and smashed as was Germany six years later.”

Unlike Iran today, the USSR was indeed working to develop nuclear weapons, but Eisenhower warned Americans against launching a new war that might kill millions to try to stop it.

As Eisenhower insisted, offensive military action offers no solutions to international problems. But diplomatic solutions are always possible. Diplomacy does not mean holding a gun to someone’s head and demanding that they sign an unconditional surrender. It means treating other people and countries with mutual respect and finding solutions that everybody can live with, based upon rules that we all agree on.

The UN Charter universally prohibits the threat or use of force and requires all countries to resolve disputes peacefully. So one country’s wrongdoing, real or perceived, is never a valid pretext for another country to threaten or use military force.

There is no good reason to sacrifice American soldiers and sailors in a war on Iran; no justification to kill Iranian troops for defending their country, as Americans would do if another country attacked the United States; no justice in killing Iranian civilians by turning their homes and communities into a new US war zone.

Could the stark choice our country is facing in Iran be a turning point, a moment when the American people will stand up and clearly, strongly say “No” to war, before our corrupt leaders can plunge Iran and the United States into yet another “Made in the USA” military catastrophe?

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He is also the co-author, with Medea Benjamin, of War In Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, which just came out in a new revised, updated 2nd edition. Read other articles by Nicolas.

Peeling Back the US Information Operation in Iran

by Larry C. Johnson | Feb 19, 2026 

As part of the US campaign to engineer a regime change in Iran, the US military and intelligence community are using Operational Preparation of the Environmnet aka OPE. OPE is defined in joint publications (e.g., JP 3-05 Special Operations) as non-intelligence activities conducted prior to or in preparation for potential military operations to set conditions for success. It encompasses shaping the operational environment through intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, information operations, civil affairs, psychological operations, and other preparatory actions—often in denied or politically sensitive areas.

I believe that one of the major OPE efforts is to convince the US public that the overwhelming majority of Iranians despise the Islamic Republic and want it overthrown. In my opinion, a major player in this OPE is a polling outfit known as GAMAAN. GAMAAN (Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran) collaborates with Psiphon VPN, which is widely used across Iran. GAMAAN findings have been consistent in painting a picture of massive opposition to the Iranian regime:

According to GAMAAN polls taken prior to 2025, a significant majority of Iranians — around 70% — oppose the continuation of the Islamic Republic. The highest level of opposition, 81%, occurred during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising in late 2022. Support for “the principles of the Islamic revolution and the Supreme Leader” has decreased from 18% in 2022 to 11% in 2024. Opposition to the Islamic Republic is higher among the youth, urban residents, and the highly educated. An overwhelming majority of Iranians (89%) support democracy. Gamaan

Only about 20% of Iranians support the continuation of the Islamic Republic. When asked about preferred alternatives, about 26% favor a secular republic and around 21% support a monarchy. For 11%, the specific form of the alternative system doesn’t matter. About 22% report lacking sufficient information to choose an alternative system.

But what are the funding sources for GAMAAN and Psiphon VPN? Let’s start with GAMAAN. GAMAAN describes itself as an independent, non-profit research foundation registered in the Netherlands. It emphasizes its academic credentials (e.g., founded by scholars at Dutch universities like Tilburg and Utrecht) and innovative online methods (e.g., anonymity sampling via VPNs like Psiphon) to overcome self-censorship in authoritarian contexts.

GAMAAN operates under the supervision of a board including Dr. Ammar Maleki (founder and director), assistant professor of comparative politics at Tilburg University, and Dr. Pooyan Tamimi Arab, associate professor of secular and religious studies at Utrecht University. Maleki is an assistant professor of Comparative Politics and a self-described activist for democracy in his native Iran. Tilburg University Critically, he does not hide his political stance — his Tilburg University profile explicitly states that he is “a pro-democracy activist and political analyst of Iranian politics” and that he tries “to have an impact on political debates around democratization of Iran.”

This is where the picture becomes more contested. GAMAAN has relied on US government-funded VPN provider Psiphon to disseminate its surveys; collaborated with the USAID-funded Tony Blair Institute; and collaborated with and received funding from historian Ladan Boroumand, co-founder of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran, which is in turn supported by the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Psiphon is owned and operated by Psiphon Inc., a Canadian corporation based in Ontario. Psiphon was originally developed by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, with version 1.0 launching on December 1, 2006, as open-source software. In early 2007, Psiphon, Inc. was established as a Canadian corporation independent of the Citizen Lab and the University of Toronto.

It has a notable funding history. In 2008, Psiphon, Inc. was awarded sub-grants from the US State Department Internet Freedom program, administered by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. In 2010, Psiphon began providing services to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (US), the US Department of State, and the BBC. More recently, in April 2024, the Open Technology Fund (OTF) announced increased long-term funding for Psiphon, with subsequent OTF awards totaling US$18.54 million for 2024 and US$5.87 million for 2025.

The Open Technology Fund (OTF) is administered by the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), an independent federal agency of the US government. USAGM provides OTF with its primary funding through annual grants, which originate from Congressional appropriations under the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs budget. OTF operates as an independent nonprofit corporation (since 2019) but remains a grantee under USAGM’s oversight and governance, as authorized by Congress (e.g., via the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act).

So while Psiphon Inc. is technically an independent Canadian company, it has historically been substantially funded by the US government and other Western institutions — a fact worth noting given its role as the methodology partner for the GAMAAN polling inside Iran. In other words, it is a cut out that, in my opinion and based on my experience, is supporting a CIA information operation to portray Iran as a country on the precipice of overthrowing the Islamic Republic.

There is an alternative polling database that paints a radically different picture of the mood in Iran with respect to the Islamic Republic… The Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland has conducted a separate series of surveys using phone-based methods, which show more moderate results. Their findings from 2023 and 2024 found that about 75% of respondents expect Iran’s constitution and political system to be about the same in ten years, and only 17% agreed with protesters’ calls for the Islamic Republic to be replaced. However, three in five now think the government should not be strict in enforcing Islamic laws, distinctly up from 2018, and support for demands that the government fight corruption has been consistently near-unanimous since 2018.

On the protests themselves, asked in 2024 to think about waves of demonstrations over the past ten years, two thirds say their main objective was to demand that officials pay greater attention to people’s problems, while only one in five think their main objective was to demand greater freedoms or bring about change in Iran’s system of government.

President Pezeshkian, based on the polls from 2024, was viewed favorably by 66% of those polled at the start of his term… and 70% expressed confidence that he would be an honest and trustworthy president, though only a quarter were very confident. Majorities expressed some confidence that he can improve relations with neighboring countries and protect citizens’ freedoms, notably women’s rights, but majorities are not confident that he can lower inflation or improve relations with the West.

There have been no new polls in the wake of Israel’s surprise attack on June 13, 2025. Based on my conversations with both Nima and Professor Marandi, the reaction in Iran has been similar to what happened in the United States in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks… National unity increased.

The failed color revolution launched on December 28, 2025 by the United States and Israel has reinforced support for the Islamic Republic. President Pezeshkian has openly admitted his government’s failures on the economic front and he has taken some steps to institute reforms. A more important development was the signing of the Trilateral Security Agreement with Russia and China at the end of January. Those two countries are now providing more resources and support to stabilize the Iranian government and improve the economic lives of the Iranian people.

Donald Trump’s threats to attack Iran are backfiring among the majority of the population in Iran. Yes, there are some Iranians who still want to bring an end to the Islamic Republic, but they are dramatically outnumbered. Remember the boost in popularity that George W Bush enjoyed in the aftermath of 9-11? He even picked up support from Democrats who had previously despised him. That same phenomena has happened in Iran. Prior to the June 13, 2025 attack, Iranians under the age of 50 had no vivid memory of Iran/Iraq war — where Iran was attacked with the encouragement and support of the United States. The June 2025 attack, coupled with the foreign instigated late December 2025 protests and violence, have awakened a new sense of nationalism among the Iranian public that has strengthened support for the Islamic Republic.

The belief in the West that Iran is more vulnerable now than at anytime in the last 46 years is the creation of a US funded propaganda campaign that relied on an ideologically biased pollster to produce results that have been used to convince most Americans that Iran is yearning to breath free… All we have to do is kill off the leadership in Iran.

Reprinted from SONAR21 with permission.

Larry C. Johnson is a former analyst at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. He is the co-owner and CEO of BERG Associates, LLC (Business Exposure Reduction Group).