Trump admits war would be disastrous for ordinary Iranians as he weighs military assault
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Feb. 24, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
President Donald Trump admitted Monday that a US assault on Iran would be disastrous for the Middle East nation’s people as he considers options for a military attack, reportedly drawing private warnings from the United States’ top general.
In a Truth Social post, Trump pushed back against reports that Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has voiced concerns about the potentially massive risks of attacking Iran, a country of more than 90 million people. Trump has previously claimed that Caine believed any military conflict with Iran would be “something easily won.”
“He has not spoken of not doing Iran, or even the fake limited strikes that I have been reading about, he only knows one thing, how to WIN and, if he is told to do so, he will be leading the pack,” Trump wrote of Caine in his Monday post.
The US president—who blew up a landmark diplomatic agreement with Iran during his first term—added that if a new deal with the Iranian government doesn’t materialize, “it will be a very bad day for that Country and, very sadly, its people, because they are great and wonderful, and something like this should never have happened to them.”
Trump’s acknowledgment that a US military assault would likely be devastating for ordinary Iranians runs counter to the narrative pushed by supporters of war, who claim conflict and regime change is necessary to aid Iran’s population.
“The stakes are clear,” the National Iranian American Council, an advocacy organization that has vocally opposed a US attack on Iran, wrote late Monday. “President
US-backed killing of cartel boss unleashes wave of violence across Mexico
US builds up air power reminiscent of Iraq invasion as Trump mulls Iran attacks
This story was originally published on Truthout on Feb. 19, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
The U.S. is rapidly building up its military force in the Middle East, amassing an amount of air power reminiscent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as President Donald Trump mulls attacks on Iran without seeking congressional approval.
Top administration officials reported that the White House has been told that the U.S. is ready to strike Iran as soon as this weekend, CBS News reports, with other news outlets confirming.
On Thursday, at opening remarks for his “Board of Peace” event, Trump said that “you’re going to be finding out probably over the next 10 days” whether the U.S. will attack Iran. He once again threatened Iran to negotiate a deal with the U.S. on its nuclear program, or else “bad things will happen.”
Reports find that the military is, indeed, prepared for a significant operation. Air and sea trackers have shown an enormous amount of firepower being amassed in the region, with the Wall Street Journal comparing the amount of air power concentrated there to the build-up before the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Trump has not yet made the final decision on whether to strike, outlets have reported. Israel, which has long urged the U.S. to initiate war with Iran, may participate in potential attacks.
Trump does not have the statutory authority to unilaterally launch a war with Iran. Representatives Ro Khanna (D-California) and Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) have said that they are planning to force a vote on a War Powers Resolution next week in hopes of preventing strikes.
“Like the votes before the Iraq war, this could be one of the most consequential votes in the history of Congress. Are we going to
‘A big f*ck you to big tech’: New Jersey residents defeat AI data center
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Feb. 19, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
The New Brunswick, New Jersey City Council voted Wednesday to cancel plans to construct an artificial intelligence data center and instead build a new public park where the 27,000-square foot facility would have gone.
Artificial intelligence data centers—which house the servers and other infrastructure needed to train and power AI models—have major environmental and climate impacts, as they consume massive amounts of electricity and water, as well as rare earth metals and other resources.
According to New Brunswick Patch, hundreds of people packed into Wednesday evening’s city hall meeting to voice concerns that the proposed data center would send their electricity and water bills skyrocketing, and that the facility would harm the environment.
“Many people did not want this in their neighborhood,” New Brunswick NAACP president Bruce Morgan said during the council meeting. “We don’t want these kinds of centers that’s going to take resources from the community.”
The site of the nixed data center, 100 Jersey Avenue, is already slated for development including 600 new apartments—10% of which will be affordable housing units—and warehouses for startups and other small businesses. Now, thanks to Wednesday’s vote, a park is on the agenda too.
“This is great news, no data center,” New Brunswick resident Anne Norris told Patch.
“My kids went through the public school system; we didn’t pay for lunch because we have so many families under the poverty line,” Norris said before taking aim at what she said was the dearth of affordable housing approved for the site.
“Given the economic status of the people who live in New Brunswick, I don’t think 10% is really sufficient,” she contended.
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‘The tankers just keep coming’: US military movements spike fears of imminent attack on Iran
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Feb. 18, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
As an adviser to President Donald Trump told Axios that “I think there is 90% chance we see kinetic action” against Iran in the next few weeks following nuclear talks in Switzerland, US military movement on Wednesday fueled fears of an imminent attack on the Middle Eastern country.
Multiple open-source intelligence accounts on social media shared images of what OSINTdefender called “one of the busiest days for the US Air Force in Europe that I have seen in recent history, with close to a dozen KC-135R/T Stratotankers airborne across the Mediterranean and off the coast of Spain, while a steady line of C-17A Globemaster IIIs can be seen heading towards and returning from bases in the Middle East.”
Sharing a similar image showing North America, Europe, and the top of Africa, intelligence analyst Oliver Alexander declared on X that “the tankers just keep coming.”
Greek economist and Progressive International co-founder Yanis Varoufakis responded to that post with a clear message directed at Trump—who notably abandoned the United States’ previous nuclear deal with Iran during his first term.
“Looks like an imminent US strike is in train as US tanker planes are heading eastwards. HANDS OFF IRAN Mr. TRUMP,” he said. “And to the rest of us: Let’s do whatever it takes to oppose another war crime—this time against the Iranian people.”
Also spotlighting the US military movements on Wednesday, progressive US political commentator and talk show host Kyle Kulinski nodded to Trump’s deadly invasion of Venezuela last month to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and hand over the South American country’s nationalized oil industry to his US campaign donors.
A US attack on Iran by “imperialist warmonger Trump” would be “another illegal and offensive war