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
Homeland Empire | Under the Shadow S2E6
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Minneapolis has been on fire.
People in the streets against an onslaught from Trump’s ICE agents the likes of which the country has never seen.
Homeland Security has deployed thousands of agents, unleashing an assault that has ripped apart families and neighborhoods. They’ve killed two people, under shocking circumstances. Both U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Federal agents have arrested 4,000 people in Minnesota alone since they launched Operation Metro Surge two months ago.
KRISTI NOEM [CLIP]: But we’re surging operations because of the dangerous situation we see in this country and because we’re no longer going to allow illegal criminals to damage and harm, to kill, to sexually abuse, to proliferate drugs, and to steal American taxpayers dollars.
MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: That’s Kristi Noem. The head of the Department of Homeland Security. Of course, none of it’s true. But that doesn’t stop her or president Donald Trump from repeating these lines.
And Minneapolis, Minnesota, is just the latest city on Trump’s hit list.
SARAH LAZARE: I mean, there are so many horrific stories.
MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Sarah Lazare is a labor journalist based in Chicago who’s traveled to Minneapolis in recent weeks to cover the ICE attack and the people’s response.
SARAH LAZARE: And really, the federal assault is only growing more intense. Like Chicago was really bad. There were really terrible things that happened. And you don’t want to compare tragedies at all because it’s all horrible. But the federal occupation of Minnesota, just in terms of scale and numbers, is just
‘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
Peter Thiel is unleashing a neocolonial billionaire fantasy in Honduras
This story was originally published on Truthout on Feb. 16, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
In April 2025, Peter Thiel’s Palantir made headlines after documents were released detailing its partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to create ImmigrationOS, a massive database of information gathered from a variety of sources including the IRS, in order to surveil, detain, and deport immigrants. Thiel is not new to spearheading endeavors that aim to dehumanize and attack people of color. In fact, the tech mogul is one of the billionaires leading our modern-day version of tech neocolonialism, the new-yet-old imperial monster that colonizes land, extracts resources, exploits natives, and is happy to profit off of their suffering.
As a Honduran immigrant myself, I would know.
In 2009, Honduras found itself in turmoil after a military coup destabilized the country leading to unprecedented levels of violence and repression. Taking a page out of the “shock doctrine” playbook, the elite political actors behind the coup (including narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernández, now pardoned by Donald Trump after being sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking and weapons charges) watered down environmental protections on Honduran land and approved illegal contracts to sell Indigenous and protected land to the highest bidder.
Among other corrupt dealings and land grabs, the government approved a law that enabled the creation of Peter Thiel’s Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs). ZEDEs derive from the idea of “charter cities.” Proposed by former World Bank executive and economist Paul Romer, these proposed cities are enclaves within lower-income nations that “promote economic growth” through privatization and the disposal of national regulations, while gifting major tax
SOS: The US is manufacturing a humanitarian crisis in Cuba
The Trump administration is deliberately plunging Cuba into a national and humanitarian crisis, and the US-imposed blockade of oil imports is wreaking havoc on daily life for Cubans. In this urgent episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Cuban journalist and documentary filmmaker Liz Oliva Fernández about the unfolding nightmare in Cuba and what the international community can do to stop it.
Guest:
Liz Oliva Fernández is a Cuban journalist with the outlet Belly of the Beast, and she is the presenter of documentary series The War on Cuba, for which she won a Gracie Award. Apart from her journalism and filmmaking, Oliva Fernández is a dedicated anti-racist and feminist activist.
Additional links/info:
Belly of the Beast website, Facebook page, Instagram, and YouTube channel
Belly of the Beast, The War on Cuba
Al Jazeera Staff & Reuters, Al Jazeera, “Waste piles up in Cuba as US-imposed fuel blockade halts collection trucks”
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, ““Policy of aggression”: Cuba’s U.N. ambassador denounces U.S. oil blockade, push to topple government”
Credits:
Producer: Rosette Sewali
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Marc Steiner:
Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with this. One of my great passions in life is Cuba and I’ve been to Cuba numerous times and now it’s at the center of Trump attacking Cuba again and trying to isolate it and want to try to overthrow the Cuban government. All that’s taking place as we speak and we are lucky to have today our