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Trump Privately Dreams of Iran Regime Change Glory as Democrats Cynically Weigh Political Benefits of War

By Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill & Mutaza Hussain, Drop Site News, 2/20/26

Since mid-January, as U.S. war planners have presented President Donald Trump with a spectrum of options for military action against Iran, Trump has repeatedly opined in private about his desire to go down in history as the president who “changed the Iranian regime” that has remained in power since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Sources with knowledge of internal White House deliberations told Drop Site that Trump is emboldened by what he sees as a phenomenal success in his Venezuela strategy—issuing sweeping demands for capitulation under threat of removing the ruling government and then abducting President Nicolás Maduro when he refused to obey.

But, the sources said, Trump and his aides have pressed war planners for assurances that chaos produced by any U.S. military action would calm down in time for the midterm election season to kick into high gear.

Trump has suggested to aides that he would make a deal with Iran if its leaders bend to his central demands but he stands ready to unleash a massive military operation—potentially including one aimed at assassinating Iran’s leadership—if they do not. Trump has said he may consider an initial round of attacks in an effort to push Iran to submit. In that event, the massive firepower in the region would remain if he decided to move forward with a broader war. Iranian officials say they are currently working on a formal response to the U.S. position laid out in Geneva on Tuesday during indirect talks, but have cautioned Iran has its own red lines. Tehran, meanwhile, told the United Nations it would consider U.S. bases “legitimate targets” if attacked, putting U.S. servicemembers at serious risk.

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The potential for fallout in the event of a regime change war is at the heart of the meek response from Democrats, who see Trump walking into a trap of his own making. The Democratic political calculation was laid bare in an unusually frank conversation last June between a senior foreign policy aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and a top official in an organization opposing Iran strikes.

In June 2025, at the same time Trump was floating the possibility of a strike against Iran, he spoke positively about encouraging progress in ongoing nuclear talks—suggesting that if a deal was met, those strikes would be off.

Schumer responded by mocking the president as TACO Trump—using an acronym for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” a phrase describing Trump’s propensity to make major threats and then back away. For opponents of war with Iran, Schumer’s taunt was counterproductive, and a coalition of more than two dozen organizations sent a letter urging Schumer to delete the video and give Trump political space to reach a diplomatic solution.

The letter led to a phone call between one of the letter’s organizers and the top foreign policy aide to Schumer, who laid out the thinking of many Democrats in the Senate. The organizer who took the call agreed to share details of the conversation in exchange for anonymity. A congressional source briefed on the call shortly afterward confirmed the details. The foreign policy aide, whom Drop Site agreed not to name, explained that a substantial number of Senate Democrats believed Iran ultimately needed to be dealt with militarily. But those Democrats, the aide explained, also understood that going to war again in the Middle East would be a political catastrophe. That’s precisely why they wanted Trump to be the one to do it. The hope was that Iran would take a blow and so would Trump—a win-win for Democrats…

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The US is on the brink of a major new war that Trump has not even bothered explaining

By Glenn Greenwald, Substack, 2/20/26

President Trump has spent two months ordering a rapidly expanding and now-massive military buildup near Iran, with a focus on the Persian Gulf and nearby permanent U.S. military bases in close proximity to Iran (Iran, of course, has no military bases anywhere near the U.S.). The deployment includes aircraft carriers and other assets that would enable, at a minimum, an extremely destructive air campaign against the whole country.

The U.S. under both parties has been insisting for two decades that it must abandon its heavy military involvement in the Middle East and instead “pivot to Asia” in light of a rapidly rising China. Yet in the midst of those vows, Trump has now assembled the largest military presence in the Middle East since 2003, when the U.S. was preparing to invade Iraq with overwhelming military force.

One of the most striking and alarming aspects of all of this is that Trump — outside of a few off-the-cuff banalities — has barely attempted to offer a case to the American public as to why such a major new war is necessary. This unilateral march to war resembles what we saw in the lead-up to the bombing of Venezuelan boats, culminating in the U.S. invading force that abducted (“arrested”) the country’s President, Nicolas Maduro, and took him and his wife to a prison in New York.

In the weeks preceding the Venezuela operation, we heard a carousel of rationales. It was all necessary to stop the flow of dangerous drugs into the U.S. We needed to free the repressed Venezuelan peoples from their dictator. Trump’s embrace and expansion of the Monroe Doctrine — now dubbed the Donroe Doctrine — meant that we cannot tolerate communist regimes in “our region.”

But as soon as Maduro was removed, all of those claims disappeared. Contrary to the expectations of many, the U.S. left in place Maduro’s entire regime rather than replacing it with the pro-US opposition (a wise move of restraint in my view, but one that negates the “liberation” rhetoric). Discussions of the drug trade from Venezuela (a source of drugs for the U.S. that was always minor if not trivial, and did not include fentanyl) have completely disappeared. The only real outcome seems to be that the U.S. has more control over that nation’s oil supply, and barrels of it are now being shipped to Israel for the first time in many years.

In sum, we were given a low-effort smorgasbord to enable supporters of Trump’s actions toward Venezuela to mount arguments in favor of the operation, but there was no systematic attempt to convince the country at large. There was not even a live television address to the nation beforehand to explain it. And the role that Congress played was close to non-existent. All of that is similar to what we are seeing now concerning a far riskier, more dangerous, and complex war with Iran.

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This massive build-up near Iran also signifies the U.S.’s complete inability — or lack of desire — to extricate itself from the Middle East and endless American wars there. In the first year of his second term — 2025 — Trump has already ordered sustained bombing of Yemen; extensive military deployments to support Israel’s attacks on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen; and Operation Midnight Hammer, which was sold to Trump’s base as a one-night-only bombing run that is now close to exploding into something far more protracted.

No matter how fast China’s power grows, the U.S. — despite emphasizing the vital importance of doing so over the last four administrations — simply cannot or will not reduce its massive military commitment to the Middle East. The real reasons why the U.S. does not sharply deprioritize the Middle East as a military focus deserve serious examination (oil is often cited as the reason, but the U.S. is a net exporter of oil, and multiple oil-rich countries in that region are perfectly eager to sell the U.S. as much oil as it wants to buy).

In this regard, it is hard not to notice that Trump’s very rapid movement toward war with Iran comes in the midst of yet another visit to the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is not hyperbole to say that Netanyahu’s great dream for decades has been inducing the U.S. into a regime-change war with Iran to rid Tel Aviv of its most formidable adversary, and his dream is closer than ever to being realized.

There is no way to minimize the gravity of the moment. Trump himself has made clear that this huge armada on its way to Iran — far larger than the one deployed to Venezuela — is not for show. He has spent many weeks ratcheting up his war rhetoric. Trump’s public posture is ostensibly one of deterrence: he proclaims that his overarching desire is to strike “a deal” with Tehran in order to avoid the need for war, but he then quickly adds that the US will impose massive damage and violence on the country in the event that negotiations fail to produce the agreement he wants. In sum, he depicts threats of war as motivation for Iran to accept his terms.

That may seem to be a cogent theory of deterrence (or extortion) if one looks at it in isolation. Many world leaders, in general, and Trump, especially, believe that threats of war and military attack are often necessary for extracting the best diplomatic solution possible. But thus far, it has not averted wars.

One reason this tactic is losing efficacy is that it has lost its credibility. As I documented in my report last Tuesday, Trump’s words and actions about the current situation with Iran track almost completely his actions and words which preceded Israel’s surprise attack on Iran in June and the accompanying U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

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Up until the hours before Israel started a war with Iran by bombing Tehran in June, Trump was repeatedly trumpeting how great negotiations with Tehran were going, and he predicted with great confidence that all issues would be resolved without the need for military action against Iran. Central to this scheme was the Israeli “reporter” for Axios, Barak Ravid, who — before his overnight ascension to key reporter in the US for all matters Israel — served in Israel’s notorious Unit 8200 military intelligence unit as well as the IDF Reserves until 2024. This former IDF soldier, from his key perch at Axios and CNN, continuously circulated reports based on anonymous sources in both governments announcing a growing and virulent “rift” between the two leaders, all due to Trump’s refusal to allow Netanyahu to bomb Iran.

That public theater, by design, created the impression that a U.S. or Israeli military attack on Iran was highly unlikely because of how opposed Trump was to it. And that, in turn, manipulated Iran out of adopting a posture of maximum war readiness, given their belief in the sincerity of Trump’s assurances that a deal would be made.

But in the midst of all that, Israel suddenly launched a major attack on Iran, only to have the U.S. join in, with Trump eventually taking credit for all of it. This — quite understandably — created a global perception that Trump’s diplomatic conduct and statements, amplified by Ravid, were an obvious ruse to lure Iran into a false sense of security, so that Israel and the U.S. could attack Iran without much resistance.

When the Israeli attack on Iran was touted in Western media as a success, Trump instantly proclaimed that he and Netanyahu planned it together. He heralded Netanyahu (and implicitly himself) as a “war hero” and, on that basis, demanded that the Israeli president pardon Netanyahu on pending corruption charges.

When journalists asked Trump why the U.S. would not simply be in the exact same situation months from now, when Iran began rebuilding its nuclear program, Trump insisted that it would and never could happen. The U.S. “totally and completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, he insisted, and Iran learned its lesson and knows not to try to rebuild.

Yet here we are just eight months later, seemingly closer to a full-on war with Iran than ever before. “Trump appears ready to attack Iran as U.S. strike force takes shape,” reads the headline in The Washington Post on Friday morning. The paper cites “current and former U.S. officials” as saying that “the Trump administration appears ready to launch an extended military assault on Iran.” While such a war is not yet inevitable, it is clear that the probability increases each day with more and more military assets arriving. That the U.K. is thus far refusing to allow the U.S. to use its military base in Diego Garcia as a launching ground for air attacks is proof that the U.S. is, at the very least, in serious, high-level preparation stages…

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By Uriel Araujo, InfoBrics, 2/6/26

Among the many revelations brought by the Epstein files recently released, one has been overlooked, if not almost entirely ignored. Buried amid many sordid sex-trafficking messages, there is a set of references to biological laboratories in Ukraine. They point to experimental research of an ethically extreme nature, tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s long-documented obsessions with eugenics, genetics, and human engineering. The near-total silence of the Western press on this is mind-blowing, to say the least.

The relevant material appears in email exchanges released by the US Department of Justice. In one message (file EFTA02625486) dated August 30, 2018, Epstein’s correspondent, Bryan Bishop, writes of “proceeding with more mouse testing at my Ukraine lab (surgeries/microinjection)”.

In another message from August 5, 2018 (file (EFTA01003966), the same individual outlines a project whose ambition is, simply put, staggering: “This gets us out of our self-funded ‘garage biology’ phase to the first live birth of a human designer baby, and possibly a human clone, within 5 years. Once we reach the first birth, everything changes and the world will never be the same again, much less the future of the human species”. The same exchange mentions the “use of funds” spreadsheet for a “designer baby and human cloning company”.

The author of these messages, Bryan Bishop, is a Bitcoin developer, self-described transhumanist, and biohacker with a public footprint in cryptocurrency and radical life-extension circles. His interest in funding cloning research has long been known, but the Epstein angle is only coming to light now. In fact, a forgotten 2019 piece by Antonio Regalado (senior editor for biomedicine for MIT Technology Review) details how Bishop was funding “a Ukrainian lab” to conduct experiments on mice connected to his “designer baby” project.

Bishop here is not a marginal crank emailing a nobody. He was actively seeking funding from Epstein, whose power, influence and financial reach was enormous, as we are increasingly learning. The correspondence suggests logistical planning rather than idle speculation, with Ukraine explicitly named as a site for laboratory work. Anyone can search for these messages in the Epstein Library.

Sputnik covered the exchange, explicitly mentioning Bryan Bishop, Ukraine, and the laboratory reference. By contrast, the Telegraph reported on the same email chain but, interestingly enough, carefully omitted any reference to Ukraine, reframing the story as a general tale of Epstein’s interest in eugenics and “designer babies”.

One may recall that Epstein’s fascination with genetics and selective breeding was already documented years ago. In 2019, before these emails were public, the Guardian reported that Epstein hoped to “seed the human race” with his DNA, allegedly planning to impregnate women at his infamous Zorro ranch in New Mexico ranch, where underage sexual abuse and human trafficking had been denounced. The New York Times also reported this, describing Epstein’s fixation on genetic engineering, and noting that prominent scientists attended his gatherings even after his 2008 conviction. No wonder: he was funding many of them.

What the newly released emails do is add is shift the story from grotesque fantasy to something that looks uncomfortably like an attempt at implementation. Be as it may, the mention of Ukraine as a site for such work inevitably intersects with a much older debate.

For years, allegations concerning biological laboratories in Ukraine have circulated, often dismissed in Western media as “Russian propaganda”. Yet the record is quite solid.

Speaking before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 8, 2022, then Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland confirmed that the US was working with Ukrainian biological research laboratories. Documents dating back to 2012 show that the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency funded bioresearch in Ukraine, and leaked materials from March 2022 indicated that an agreement under the Obama administration led to the construction of laboratories handling “especially dangerous pathogens”.

One should also keep in mind that Ukraine has long been a hub for CIA activity, as even the New York Times acknowledged when reporting on the expansion of US covert operations there for over a decade. Epstein himself was no stranger to arms-dealings and CIA connections, even including Iran-Contra links.

I have recently argued that allegations of biological and chemical weapons use in Ukraine deserve serious scrutiny. Accusations involving prohibited weapons are not new, and claims about shady biological research facilities have surfaced repeatedly over the years. Again, Western outlets have largely waved these away, yet they have occasionally surfaced in mainstream media, including reporting on documents indicating Hunter Biden’s role in introducing Metabiota to Ukraine and its ties to pathogen research (Hunter being the son of former US President Joe Biden).

In fact, Ukraine’s well documented record of human rights infringements, including abuses reported by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, makes all of it more believable.

To be clear, the Epstein-Bishop emails do not, by themselves, prove the existence of a cloning program in Ukraine. That would be a claim requiring further evidence. But they do corroborate, in a limited yet disturbing way, the notion that Ukraine has been used as a permissive environment for ethically dubious research, shielded from scrutiny and potentially intertwined with Western intelligence networks. The fact that such material is emerging from the Epstein world, a network already tied to human trafficking and other atrocities is disturbing enough.

To sum it up, the Epstein files demand more than selective outrage and police investigation. They invite serious, sustained international scrutiny of covert biological research, and the institutions and figures that potentially enable it, including shady American players with their share of ties with intelligence agencies.

Reporting on this story by The Daily Mail can be found here.

By Dmitry Pauk, RT, 2/4/26

Dmitry Pauk is a journalist and RT reporter on cultural and political issues.

Four years after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, some sort of peace deal appears to be somewhere around the corner as Moscow, Kiev, and Washington have started holding trilateral negotiations. But while these developments suggest peace could potentially soon be at hand, history shows that the struggles for Ukraine are likely far from over as the ‘echo of war’ is sure to ring out for some years to come.

The prolonged fighting has seen many Ukrainian men forced to the front line by the Kiev regime with estimates suggesting some one million Ukrainians have been mobilized since 2022. The physical and mental toll on these soldiers, many of whom did not want to fight in the first place, has been immense. 

Coupled with an influx of weapons to the country, many of which have made their way to the hands of civilians and criminal groups, Ukrainians appear to be in for many more years of internal strife, as has been the case in numerous countries following prolonged conflicts.

PTSD and substance abuse

In June, The Lancet Regional Health medical journal reported alarmingly high rates of PTSD and other mental health conditions among Ukrainian soldiers who had been “relentlessly” exposed to violence, trauma and death, while also noting a lack of adequate support systems in the country.

According to the Lancet, many combat-exposed Ukrainian soldiers, two-thirds of which already have PTSD, have been resorting to alcohol and drug abuse, particularly cannabis and synthetic ‘bath salts’ which cause severe health effects including behavior change, violence, depression, and suicide. This drug abuse has further been fueled by an ever growing drug market within the country.

Another study published in October by the New Line Institute, authored by several clinical psychologists, found that the issue extends to civilians as well, with 76% of respondents meeting PTSD criteria and 66% exhibiting significant moral injury between 2022 and 2023. 

“Trauma exposure, including PTSD and moral injury, can increase aggression among affected populations, creating a feedback loop in which societal violence escalates even in areas not directly attacked by military forces,” the authors noted citing extensive research on the issue.

Veterans and violence

The trauma and subsequent substance abuse among Ukrainian servicemen have already had an impact on Ukrainian families and communities, with increasingly frequent reports of veterans being involved in violent altercations with law enforcement, often involving firearms. 

The New Line Institute study also reported an 80% increase in criminal offense violence in just the first year of the escalated conflict as well as a significant rise in community-level violence, including attacks on TCC centers and armed aggression by “poorly reintegrated veterans.”

Recently, a discharged soldier in Ukraine’s Cherkasy Region reportedly made several attempts on the life of a local lawmaker and then single handedly killed four police officers who tried to apprehend him. Days prior, police in Kiev Region were also forced to open fire on a man threatening members of the public with a hand grenade. 

History of post-war issues

PTSD has long been linked with subsequent violent behavior. After the US wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, health experts noted that multiple combat tours and repeated trauma led to a “tsunami” of social issues, including increases in “homicides, suicides, domestic violence and divorces,” with veterans also being noted to descend into homelessness or crime within months of returning home.

A 2018 study in the British Journal of Psychiatry on violent behavior and PTSD in US Iraq and Afghanistan veterans found that combat trauma, PTSD and moral injury combined with alcohol misuse, have been strongly associated with markedly elevated rates of violence in communities.

Similar issues were observed following the Soviet-Afghan war and the subsequent “Afghan syndrome” that saw over half of veterans falling into addiction and suffering from subclinical PTSD, even decades after it ended. 

Influx of weapons and Organized Crime

Another issue that could end up contributing to long-standing social unrest in Ukraine is the sheer amount of weapons that has trickled from the front line into the hands of the criminal groups and the overall population.

A 2025 report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime found that an increasing amount of military-grade small arms, light weapons, and hand grenades were regularly being salvaged by civilians from the battlefield which has already contributed to an increase in arms-related violence among civilians. 

In the past, an uncontrolled flow of weapons into civilian hands has often triggered prolonged eras of violent organized crime, as was seen in the 1990s in Russia and other post-soviet countries following the collapse of the USSR when poorly secured military arsenals flooded into criminal hands.  

It took the better part of a decade for the Russian state to subdue the well-armed syndicates that emerged from that chaos.

Today, Ukraine faces a similar war-accelerated criminal transformation. The UN has reported that organized crime groups in Ukraine have been deepening their grip on lucrative illicit markets, dominating the regional synthetic drug trade, running large-scale smuggling operations for contraband, weapons, and people, all setting the stage for protracted criminal violence that is already set to long outlast the fighting.

People vs Government

The forced conscriptions and ‘busification’, along with rampant corruption and links between organized crime and top government officials have ultimately decimated the social fabric and relations between the state and the people in Ukraine.

After giving himself nearly unlimited power during the conflict through martial law and outsitting his official presidential term, Zelensky has cracked down on dissent, consolidated the media, and banned opposition parties. However, when he recently attempted to neuter Western-funded anti-corruption bodies, a glimpse of the nation’s pent up frustration became evident as massive protests broke out across all major cities.

But the strongest evidence for the inevitable standoff between the government and the people are the constant standoffs between military conscription police (TCC) and the public, which have been reported almost daily across Ukraine for the past several years and have been growing increasingly violent.

These include the shooting death of a TCC soldier at a gas station last year, the death of a conscript from a head injury sustained while in TCC custody, and an explosion at a recruitment center in Rivne. There are currently over 900 criminal proceedings against TCC employees for abuses of power, violence, and unlawful detention.

Far reaching consequences

European officials have also raised concerns already over an impending flood of Ukrainian soldiers with PTSD to neighboring countries after the conflict ends, who could end up posing a threat to civilians and participating in organized crime. 

“These extreme experiences related to stress, threats to life, witnessing injuries, destruction, hunger, and exhaustion will have great significance not only for Poland but for Europe. Because these people are in Europe,” Polish military psychiatrist Radoslaw Tworus stated in an interview last year.

”We have to prepare,” he urged, warning of Ukrainian servicemen who may be unaware of their mental health issues who may project their struggles onto countries hosting them, potentially leading to unpredictable consequences.

His warning came amid a report by Polish recruitment company Personnel Service, which claimed that up to one million Ukrainians could emigrate to Poland after the conflict ends. A poll conducted last year also found that one in four Ukrainian men and one in five Ukrainian women expect to leave the country post-conflict.

Similar issues in Russia

While similar issues have also been popping up in Russia, with a reported rise in violent crimes involving veterans with untreated PTSD returning from the front line, the scale of the issue in Ukraine and Russia is likely to differ in the long run. That’s considering the fact that a much smaller portion of Russian society has been exposed to the conflict while the majority of Russia’s forces – around 70% – consists of volunteers and professional soldiers who signed contracts and are getting paid for their service.

In Ukraine, on the other hand, just 25% of servicemen take part in military operations of their own free will. Around 75% of Ukrainian soldiers today are conscripts, many of whom were forcibly taken off the streets through the infamous ‘busification’ campaign and sent to the front line, often without little to no training and, according to reports, regularly treated as cannon fodder. Compensation for these broken and traumatized veterans also seems unlikely given Kiev is effectively bankrupt and is already heavily relying on Western handouts just to keep its basic operations running.

Post-war crisis state

Even if the guns fall silent tomorrow, the war for Ukraine will be far from over. The most immediate battles will simply shift from the trenches to the home front, with an entire traumatized generation and streets flooded with weapons and rising organized crime that arguably has already been ruling the country for the past several years.

Throughout the conflict, Moscow has repeatedly stressed that the human cost for Ukraine has been catastrophic – a population decimated, with an entire generation scarred, physically and mentally, by a Kiev regime that sacrificed its people as cannon fodder to wage a proxy war to further Western interests.

While the West keeps talking about the cost of rebuilding Ukraine, ultimately its greatest long-term challenge will likely be the reconstruction of its society, as well as addressing the issue of a coherent national identity that, as described by French historian Emmanuel Todd, has for years been defined by nothing other than opposing everything Russian.

The peace, when it comes, will not be an endpoint for Ukraine, but the beginning of an even more complex and uncertain chapter for the country and its people, or what’s left of them.

By Jeremy Scahill & Murtaza Hussain, Drop Site News, 2/18/26

The U.S. military is in the midst of amassing an enormous fleet of aircraft and warships within striking distance of Iran as the region enters the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. It is the largest buildup of firepower in the Middle East since President Donald Trump authorized a 12-day bombing campaign against Iran last June that killed more than 1,000 people.

While Iranian and U.S. negotiators are speaking in cautiously optimistic tones about the latest round of indirect talks held Tuesday in Geneva and suggested another meeting was possible, comments from the highest levels of power in both countries drive home the reality that the U.S. may be on the verge of attacking the Islamic Republic.

“In some ways it went well. They agreed to meet afterward,” Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Tuesday, following the talks. “But in other ways, it was very clear that the president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through.” Vance maintained that Trump prefers a diplomatic solution, but warned that “the president reserves the ability to say when he thinks that diplomacy has reached its natural end.”

A former senior U.S. intelligence official who is an informal advisor to the Trump administration on Middle East policy told Drop Site that, based on his discussions with current officials, he assesses an 80-90% likelihood of U.S. strikes within weeks.

The extraordinary and expensive U.S. military buildup would be sufficient for a large-scale campaign against Tehran that goes far beyond the limited strikes that have taken place in the past. “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, in an interview with Drop Site News. “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. I think that everybody on both sides knows where this is heading.”

Iran realizes that it is facing an unprecedented threat from the U.S. if a deal that conforms with Trump’s terms is not reached, former Pentagon official Jasmine El-Gamal told Drop Site. “This is not a dress rehearsal,” she said. “This is it. This is not the negotiations of last year or the year before or the year before that. They’re backed into a corner. There’s no off ramp.”

The ongoing deployment includes the stationing of dozens of aircraft including F‑15 strike fighters, F‑35 stealth fighters, Boeing EA‑18G Growler electronic‑warfare aircraft, and A‑10C ground‑attack aircraft at a military airbase in Jordan—despite the Jordanian government’s recent insistence that its territory would not be used as a base to attack Iran. Dozens more F-35, F-22, and F-16 fighter jets have also been observed by independent flight trackers transiting to the region over the past 48 hours, along with a large number of tanker refueling aircraft departing from the continental U.S.

Two carrier strike groups—each built around one aircraft carrier, several guided‑missile destroyers armed with Tomahawk missiles, and at least one submarine—are also being stationed nearby, along with several additional U.S. destroyers and submarines in regional waters near Iran to defend against ballistic missile attacks, as well as more than 30,000 U.S. military personnel and numerous Patriot and THAAD anti-missile batteries spread across regional military bases.

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been in the region since late January, also carries an air wing of roughly 60–70 warplanes, including about 40–45 F‑35C and F/A‑18 strike fighters, as well as Growler electronic‑warfare jets, early‑warning radar aircraft, and MH‑60 attack helicopters.

The USS Gerald R. Ford—which last week was redirected from Venezuela to the Middle East—is the world’s largest and most advanced carrier, and can operate a similar mix of up to 75 aircraft. “The Ford was used for the campaign in Venezuela and eventually the strikes on [President Nicolás] Maduro. And now they’re being sent to the Middle East. They won’t be back for several months. So this is a crew that has been stretched to the limit,” said El-Gamal, who specialized in Middle East policy at the Defense Department. “The fact that that carrier is there tells me that this isn’t just a routine kind of, ‘Hey, let’s flex some muscle.’ He didn’t need that. He didn’t need to send that second carrier to flex muscle.”

President Trump explained the move in remarks at Ft. Bragg as a threat to the Iranians amid ongoing talks, saying, “In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it.”

Parallel Negotiations

In June, the Trump administration used the veneer of preparing for additional talks with Iran as cover to launch a surprise attack on the country. Both U.S. and Israeli warplanes struck military and civilian strikes across Iran and killed scores of senior and mid-level Iranian military and intelligence officials, including Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s highest-ranking military official, Hossein Salami, the commander of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the IRGC’s chief of aerospace operations who commanded Iran’s ballistic missile strikes. The attacks also killed several Iranian nuclear scientists. Estimates put the number killed in the strikes at more than 1,000, including at least 400 civilians, alongside an additional 4,000 other Iranians—both military and civilian—wounded.

In a speech on Tuesday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei struck a defiant tone and denounced the Trump administration’s approach to nuclear talks, charging that an ultimatum is not a negotiation. “The Americans say, ‘Let’s negotiate over your nuclear energy, and the result of the negotiation is supposed to be that you do not have this energy,” Khamenei said. “If that’s the case, there is no room for negotiation; but if negotiations are truly to take place, determining the outcome of the negotiations in advance is a wrong and foolish act.”

Acknowledging the “beautiful armada” Trump has boasted of sending to the region, Khamenei said, “The Americans constantly say that they’ve sent a warship toward Iran. Of course, a warship is a dangerous piece of military hardware. However, more dangerous than that warship is the weapon that can send that warship to the bottom of the sea.” He added, “The U.S. President has said that for 47 years, the United States hasn’t been able to eliminate the Islamic Republic. That is a good confession. I say, ‘You, too, will not be able to do this.’”

The Israeli military has also indicated it is making preparations for potential war with Iran. After meeting with Trump in Washington, D.C. last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put out his own list of priorities, which included ending both Iran’s enrichment program and addressing its ballistic missile capabilities. “[President Trump] is determined to exhaust the possibilities of achieving a deal which he believes can be achieved now because of the circumstances that have been created, the force projection,” Netanyahu said at a conference of presidents of major American Jewish organizations. “And the fact that, as he says, Iran must surely understand that they missed out last time, and he thinks there is a serious probability that they won’t miss out this time. I will not hide from you that I express my skepticism of any deal with Iran.”

El-Gamal, the former country director for Syria and Lebanon at the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy under the Obama administration, said she believes Trump would prefer to make a deal that he can claim goes beyond any Iranian concessions made in the 2015 nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration, specifically dealing with ballistic missiles and support for regional resistance groups. “If he can get that without a military confrontation, he will take it,” she said, quickly adding that Iran almost certainly will continue to hold firm to its red lines against such demands.

“Right now, the ballistic missile program is essentially all Iran has left to maintain any sort of deterrence posture and defend itself and project any sort of power in the region,” she added. “And what is the Islamic Republic of Iran if it doesn’t have the ability—any government, by the way—if it doesn’t have the ability to project power as a serious player in the region, maintain deterrence capacity and defend itself? Then you might as well not be a government at all.”

The former senior U.S. intelligence official told Drop Site that Trump was intent on striking Iran in January, but was not satisfied with the options presented by the military based on the existing assets in the region. The renewed diplomatic talks gave the Pentagon time to dispatch more weapons, ships and planes, significantly expanding the scope and power of potential operations. Extensive deployments are necessary not only to conduct sustained attacks on Iran, but also to position munitions and aircraft for confronting Iranian retaliatory strikes against U.S. military facilities and Israel, which Iran has indicated would come under heavy bombardment in the event of a U.S.-led air war.

While several Arab countries have publicly stated they will not allow their territory or airspace to be used for an assault against Iran, in the event of large strikes, the U.S. would need to utilize command and control and targeting systems in several nations, as well as satellite and surveillance capabilities. Military assets in these countries, including advanced U.S. missile systems, would also be used to confront Iranian retaliatory action.

“Everything was set up” to strike in January, Davis said, “And then all of a sudden it didn’t happen.” Netanyahu was concerned that more defensive capabilities were needed to respond to Iranian retaliation, he said, and these concerns were echoed by Pentagon war planners. “And I think that that delayed it,” Davis added. “And then of course, right after that, you saw this big surge of air defense missiles going in all over the place.”

Following Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had asked Davis to join the administration in a senior post where he would have overseen the compiling of the Presidential Daily Briefing, a comprehensive intelligence summary presented each morning to the president. In March, as Davis was going through the background check process, Gabbard withdrew his name from consideration after lawmakers and pro-Israel groups protested, citing Davis’s criticism of Israel, the Gaza War and his opposition to military attacks on Iran. Davis said he maintains contact with what he described as some of the few remaining “sane foreign policy minds” in the administration. “They’re beside themselves because they feel powerless,” he said. “They can only go so far to say something or else they’ll be either removed or sidelined.”

Based on his experience with past U.S. war planning and missions, Davis said he believes the military would first strike Iranian air defense, command and control, communications facilities and senior leaders of the IRGC. It would also target Iran’s offensive missile capabilities, mobile launchers, naval bases and vessels. “We’ll be going after the political leaders simultaneously with a lot of this. They may even go with them concurrently with trying to take out the air defense so that they don’t get a chance to go to bunkers or whatever,” Davis said. “I think that that’s the idea, because if you can take out the senior leaders and decapitate the regime, then you have the chance for people to rise up, at least according to that hoped-for theory.” He added that the U.S. will also likely engage in broader attacks against Iranian security forces that would be used to quell or crush domestic uprisings or riots.

El-Gamal said she believes U.S. war planners are anticipating unprecedented Iranian counterstrikes and will seek to preemptively attack its offensive infrastructure. “You have to stop anything that the Iranians would have planned before they even have the chance to begin. It’s kind of akin to destroying a country’s air force fleet before you go to war,” she said. “If you look at it from that perspective and you look at the assets that are being sent to the region and you look at what the Iranians could be planning as retaliatory attacks on the carrier strike group, attacks on U.S. personnel in the region, and you look at everything that would be needed to do those attacks—the ballistic missiles, the short range missiles, the shaheds, then you will have to have a plan to attack all of it right at the beginning, at the onset. And if you’re going to assume or get ready for talks to fail, that would have to be your plan.”

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Trump’s Strategy

In the aftermath of the June strikes, Trump and other senior officials boasted that they had effectively wiped out Iran’s nuclear program. “Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror,” Trump said in a White House address on June 21. “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed, “Our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons,” while Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “This was complete and total obliteration. They are in bad shape. They are way behind today compared to where they were.”

Since those strikes, media reports have suggested Iran is secretly rebuilding and fortifying missile facilities damaged in previous U.S. and Israeli attacks. But satellite images showing the building or reconstruction of access tunnels, which form the basis of these media reports, are not evidence of attempts to build nuclear weapons.

For years, U.S. national intelligence estimates have consistently undermined the alarmist tone of senior U.S. and Israeli officials warning of Iran’s ability to imminently build a nuclear bomb. Those assessments determined that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in late 2003. For decades, Khamenei has maintained his opposition to producing or using weapons of mass destruction. And Iran has publicly stated that the damage to its missile capabilities by the June war was far less significant than the U.S. claimed and that it has worked to rebuild its conventional missile capacity and stockpiles.

In addition to the U.S. military buildup, the White House has also been engaged in a prolonged economic war targeting Iran that has been described in increasingly blunt terms by Trump administration officials as a tool to generate social unrest inside the country.

At a Senate hearing earlier this month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described a policy aimed at inflicting maximum economic harm on ordinary Iranians by targeting the strength of the Iranian currency. “What we have done is create a dollar shortage in the country,” Bessent said in response to questioning by Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), stating that the policy had reached a “grand culmination” in December with the collapse of one of the country’s largest banks. “The Iranian currency went into freefall, inflation exploded, and hence, we have seen the Iranian people out on the street,” Bessent said.

The remarks echoed previous statements made by Bessent at the World Economic Forum in Davos in late January in the wake of mass public unrest in Iran. Following large peaceful demonstrations that began in late December against economic conditions in the country, the protests turned violent on January 8, spurring a series of events that would leave thousands of Iranians dead. Bessent described U.S. policy towards Iran at that time as “economic statecraft, no shots fired,” adding that the uprising showed that “things are moving in a very positive way here.”

As riots broke out and spread across the country, Trump called on Iranians to seize state institutions and promised help was on the way to support an insurrection. Police stations, mosques, hospitals, and other sites were attacked as security forces used overwhelming force to crush the rebellion. International human rights organizations have asserted that much of the violence consisted of unprovoked widespread attacks by Iranian security forces on peaceful protesters, while Tehran characterized the events as foreign-organized acts of terrorism.

In advance of the diplomatic talks that began February 6 in Oman, the U.S. and Israel sought to impose an ultimatum on the Iranian side. Not only did they demand a dramatic reduction in Iran’s civilian nuclear capabilities, but also a significant degradation of the country’s ballistic missile capacity—both in terms of stockpile and range—and an end to Iran’s support for armed resistance movements and groups in the region. Iran rejected that framing and insisted it would only negotiate on the nuclear issue.

“The best way I could characterize it is this is a detachment from reality,” Davis said of conversations he has had recently with current U.S. defense officials. He said some of them have spoken of an administration searching for a successful operation like the recent snatching of Maduro in Venezuela or the 2011 overthrow of Moamar Qaddafi in Libya, giving Trump the appearance of a quick regime change victory. “We’ve got a plan A, which is the Libya model—maybe even more than the Venezuela model—that the people will rise up and do on the ground what we don’t have ground troops for,” he said. “Therein is your problem. If plan A doesn’t work, we don’t have a ground force. The chances of having a regime decapitation—even with this massive amount of firepower, and it is massive, no question about that—I think you’re going to be surprised and disappointed. Then what are you going to do next?”

El-Gamal said that suggestions that Reza Pahlavi, the son of the ousted dictator who fled Iran in 1979 as the Islamic revolution began, or the Israeli-linked MEK (Mojahedin-e-Khalq), a fanatical cult-like faction that has achieved success in cozying up to U.S. politicians, would be major players in a regime change operation is fantasy. Iran is not comparable to Syria, she said, where there was a prolonged civil war, involving multiple armed factions and major Western military and intelligence support for overthrowing the Assad government and installing a replacement. More likely, she said, is that U.S. intelligence and military planners believe that if they decapitate the country’s leadership, they could make a deal with the surviving officials, similar to what is unfolding in Venezuela.

“You skim off the minimum required at the top and you keep as much of it as possible in place, but then it becomes a pliant regime. It’s exactly what’s happening in Venezuela,” she said. “If I were sitting at the Pentagon thinking, ‘Okay, how do we do this and not risk a country of 90 million just being a failed state essentially,’ I think that’s what you would try to plan for. So you would look at, what assets are we going to take out? What people and personnel are we going to take out? Who are we going to keep? What intelligence assets, largely Israeli, are we going to activate in order to send the messages that we need to send to the remnants of the regime? And how are we going to turn this around quickly so that you don’t leave a vacuum open?”

The level of military force now or soon to be stationed around Iran would be sufficient for a large-scale military operation potentially lasting weeks or longer. The logistical presence in the region also suggests that the U.S. could facilitate the fueling and support of longer-range heavy aircraft that could launch attacks from U.S. territory—similar to those that struck Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-Day War.

“Over the summer, the U.S. and Israel demonstrated that they can destroy or bypass Iranian air defenses. You probably don’t need eight aircraft carriers in theater, because U.S. aircraft can operate with a high degree of confidence moving in and out of Iranian airspace,” said Harrison Mann, a former U.S. Army major and executive officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency for the Middle East/Africa Regional Center. “If you were trying to implement regime collapse in China or Russia, you would bring far more forces. This is still a budget operation—what is more notable is the reminder of what is not there, which is a substantial number of ground troops. The plan seems to be to simply destroy things until the Iranians accept an escalating list of demands—or until there is simply no government left to accept anything.”

In response to this buildup, Iran has hinted that it may take action during a conflict to halt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—a strategic waterway vital to global energy flows through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil consumption and about one‑fifth of global liquefied natural gas trade pass.

On Monday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy started a live‑fire military drill in the strait. Iranian officials framed the exercises as a test of rapid reciprocal response to threats and a signal that they can threaten one of the world’s critical oil and gas chokepoints if pressured further.

“Iran’s missiles wreaked havoc against the best missile defense systems in the world in Israel during the 12-day war. Iran also enjoys very powerful speedboats that can operate in the environment of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman. They can control everything there,” said Mostafa Khoshchesm, security analyst close to the Iranian government. “A second option is shutting down the Strait of Hormuz by mining it, sinking ships, and hitting vessels with missiles from anywhere in Iran.”

In previous cases where Israel and the U.S. have bombed Iran over the past two years, Iran has retaliated with strikes calibrated to avoid killing American military personnel and Israeli civilians and engaged in pre-strike choreography with the U.S. through back channels. The strategy was aimed at Iran being able to respond without dramatically escalating the situation into a larger-scale war. Since early January, Iranian officials have warned they will no longer operate under those informal rules of engagement and intend to inflict real damage in any future strikes. Davis, the retired Army officer, said he believes the U.S. is underestimating Iran’s missile capacity.

“I’ve heard this from people who have access deep inside the Pentagon at the highest levels that there are those who say, ‘I think we can handle Iran’s military, their missile strikes now. I think that we can defend adequately,’” said Davis. “I don’t think we can. I think that Iran demonstrated in the 12 Day War that they could penetrate the absolute best integrated air defense systems that we have. I think it’s a bad gamble—not even a bet, but I think it’s a gamble—to say, ‘I think we can sustain this and still knock them out and get their offensive missiles before they have a chance to shoot us.’”

By Sergey Poletaev, RT, 1/28/26

Sergey Poletaev is an information analyst and publicist [journalist]. He specializes in Russian foreign policy and in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

By the start of 2026, the Ukraine conflict had entered a familiar but no less consequential phase. After a year of intense maneuver warfare, grinding battles for key logistics hubs, and the steady erosion of Ukrainian reserves, the front line has once again settled into an operational pause. Such lulls should not be mistaken for de-escalation. In this war, periods of relative calm have consistently served as intervals for regrouping, replenishment, and the preparation of the next major blows.

A similar pattern unfolded a year ago. The fighting subsided during the winter months, only to give way in spring to a large-scale Russian offensive that defined much of 2025 and effectively concluded by year’s end. There is little reason to assume that the Russian General Staff has abandoned this approach. On the contrary, the current pause appears to be less an endpoint than a transition – one shaped by the outcomes of last year’s operations and by the strategic objectives that remain unresolved.

Against this backdrop, the key question is not whether the front will heat up again, but where and how. The configuration of forces, the condition of Ukrainian defenses, and the logic of Russian operational planning all point to several potential axes of advance, each with its own constraints and strategic value. In this overview, we assess the results of the recent fighting across the main sectors of the front and examine which directions may emerge as priorities for Russian operations in 2026.

Sumy front: Deceptive calm

The buffer zone along the Ukrainian border was established following the destruction of the grouping of Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk Region last spring. For a while, Ukrainian forces attempted counterattacks in this area without success, but gradually, things settled down. Then, in December, Russia’s North group of forces opened a new front here, capturing the large village of Grabovskoye without significant fighting. 

It is likely that the Sumy front will continue to serve as a secondary front compared to others; the Russian Army lacks the strength and resources for a major offensive here. Apparently, the Russian Army’s actions in Grabovskoye are aimed at stretching Ukrainian reserves and preventing their redeployment elsewhere.

Kharkov Region: Battles for logistics 

At the end of 2025, we saw intense fighting for the city of Kupyansk. Control over the western part of the city was transferred several times, while east of the city, the Russian Army gradually tightened its grip around Krugliakovka, Kovsharovka, and the Kupyansk-Uzlovoy railway station. The station holds strategic importance: the Russian forces aim not only to capture it but also to push the front at least 15-20km to the west, away from Kupyansk. Achieving this would enable direct railway supplies from Russia’s Belgorod Region to the ‘West’ group of forces, significantly easing logistics for the Russian Army in both Kupyansk and Liman.

The localized offensive near Volchansk has similar goals. The city was captured in late November, and since then, the North group of forces has advanced 8-10km further, capturing the settlements of Vilcha, Siminovka, Grafskoye, and Staritsa. The primary aim is to exert pressure on the rear of Ukrainian forces, which are counterattacking near Kupyansk, thereby drawing reserves away from that area.

Until Kupyansk and the railway station are fully liberated, this axis will likely remain secondary. At some point, the two groupings (one from Volchansk and the other from Kupyansk) may move toward each other, but that is not likely to happen soon.

Liman: On the way to the Seversky Donets River

The ‘West’ group of forces is also involved in battles for Liman, which was abandoned by the Russian army in 2022. Since last year, the city has been partially encircled, and in January, the last remaining crossings over the Seversky Donets River were destroyed. This indicates that the Russian Army is attempting to exhaust the Ukrainian garrison in Liman.

The Russian Army has also advanced to the banks of the Seversky Donets River in several locations: in Sviatogorsk, near Novoselovka, in Dibrova, and Ozernoye. These maneuvers are crucial not only for capturing Liman, but also for ensuring success in the future battles for Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, since they establish a northern flank for encircling the city.

In 2022, the Russian military struggled to cross the Seversky Donets River; we’ll see how things unfold this time.

Seversk, Chasov Yar, Konstantinovka: Moving towards Slavyansk-Kramatorsk 

This is one of the active areas of the front as of January. From Seversk, the South group of forces is pushing west along the Severskiy Donets river toward Slavyansk. Key settlements like Reznikovka and Zakotnoye have been captured, and the next major objective is Rai-Aleksandrovka.

Fighting also continues in Konstantinovka. The map illustrates how a semi-encirclement is forming around Ukraine’s largest remaining stronghold: the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration. If Russian forces successfully cross the Seversky Donets River south of Liman and liberate Konstantinovka, they will be able to close in around Slavyansk-Kramatorsk (and nearby Druzhkovka) from three sides.

This may potentially become one of the most significant operations not only of the year, but of the entire Special Military Operation. Of course, we don’t know the plans of the Russian General Staff. However, such a strategy would demand coordinated actions from three military groups: The West Group of Forces will have to move from Liman across the river; the South Group of Forces – from Seversk, Chasov Yar, and Konstantinovka; and the Center Group of Forces – from Shakhovo-Zolotoy Kolodets. It seems unlikely that such an operation could occur before the middle or the second half of the year.

Pokrovsk-Mirnograd: At a crossroads

At the end of December 2025, the Mirnograd pocket was eliminated. Two Ukrainian brigades (a total of 3,000-4,000 troops) found themselves encircled in Mirnograd. Ukrainian attempts to break through via Rodninskoye were unsuccessful. A small portion of the surrounded troops managed to traverse the fields and find the way back to their army; some surrendered; but the rest had no way out. 

In December and January, Russian forces also captured the small but strategically important town of Rodninskoye, and cleared the northern and western outskirts of Pokrovsk. This marked the end of the Russian Army’s major operation of 2025. The Center group of forces, which carried out the operation, is currently being replenished and is undergoing regrouping.

What’s next? From Pokrovsk-Mirnograd, there are two possible directions of advance. First, it’s possible to move north towards Dobropolye and Slavyansk-Kramatorsk, thereby forming a southern flank for encircling this major Ukrainian stronghold. The prospects of such an offensive were discussed earlier and it likely won’t happen until the latter half of the year. 

There’s also the option to move westward toward the border with Dnepropetrovsk Region where there are no substantial fortifications. We will soon learn what objectives the General Staff chooses for this sector.

Dnieper River area and Gulaipole: The last stronghold on the way to Zaporozhye 

According to the Russian constitution, Zaporozhye Region and its capital, the city of Zaporozhye, are considered occupied by Ukrainian forces. The successful advances of the East group of forces in Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye regions, the effective collapse of the Ukrainian front near Gulaipole, and the capture of this city at the end of the year have all created a solid foundation for a further advance toward Zaporozhye itself.

At the same time, the long-stagnant front along the Dnieper River has become active again. The Dnepr group of forces has liberated the strategically important town of Stepnogorsk and is advancing further along a wide front.

The main Ukrainian stronghold on the way to Zaporozhye is the city of Orekhov, which was the center of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023. Approaching Orekhov from the south is challenging due to a formidable line of Ukrainian defenses, but a glance at the map reveals that the city is gradually becoming encircled from the sides of Gulaipole (from the east) and Stepnogorsk (from the west). If Ukrainian forces suffer losses comparable to those in Pokrovsk-Mirnograd during the fighting for Orekhov, they may find themselves unable to defend Zaporozhye, at least its left bank. 

Given how rapidly the Ukrainian front crumbled in Gulaipole, the situation in this sector looks grim for Kiev. To patch up the holes, Ukrainian Commander-in Chief Aleksandr Syrsky had to pull reserves from other fronts – primarily Pokrovsk and Seversk.

In summary, an analysis of the front suggests that the Russian Army could launch two major offensives this year: one towards Slavyansk-Kramatorsk and another towards Orekhov, which would open the way to Zaporozhye. Both operations will require coordination and joint action from several groups of forces. In scale, they may surpass anything we’ve seen on the front since spring 2022.

It’s likely that these operations will begin simultaneously, although the first is more ambitious and will take longer to execute; troops will first need to reach Slavyansk-Kramatorsk. As in 2025, we may expect results and significant achievements towards the end of the year.