Peace President Trump and Iran – and an impending new war?

The Peace President is arranging forces and making public statements threatening Iran with war again:

It is unlikely that the world's ailing hegemon would move the largest aircraft carrier on the face of the earth out of the Caribbean, where it had been previously stationed, to the Middle East, if it did not intend to use it. Each day, the U.S. has redeployed substantial quantities of military tonnage to its bases surrounding the Persian Gulf. What has already functioned as an outlandishly expensive negotiating tactic is now in place as the infrastructure for not only a single round of strikes, but a prolonged campaign.

CBS News reported on Wednesday that national security officials informed U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday that American forces will be ready to attack as early as Saturday. There is very little standing in the way of what threatens to be a catastrophic war. (1)

The Iranians have the option of closing the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s key trading routes. They also have a substantial missile force with which they can strike Israel, and Israel’s defensive interceptor missile supply is reportedly seriously depleted.

Scott Lucas describes why military attacks on Iran doesn’t support the protesters or bring more support to the dissidents. For the reason that has been seen again and again, when a country is attacked the government can count on a nationalist-patriotic reaction. As we saw on a large scale during the Second World War in Britain and Germany, and as we saw in the Vietnam War, massive aerial bombardment even over a long term don’t create any immediate mass immediate demand to overthrow the regime. In practice, when cities are bombed, people have to rely immediately and heavily on their neighbors and their government to deal with the death and destruction caused by the bombing. Even people who hate the regime.

Lucas asks, “So where’s the President of Peace now?” (2)

As Joshua Leifer puts it:

Currently, there are almost no forces, domestic or international, that might act as a brake on Trump's war ambitions. In the U.S., media coverage of the build-up to a potentially calamitous war has been anemic. To the extent that it exists at all, it is almost entirely devoid of discussion of the international legal ramifications and geopolitical consequences of the president's unilateral decision to attack another country that is home to roughly 90 million people. [my emphasis]

But he continues immediately to say, “The American public has been demoralized into submission by unceasing chaos at home, leaving Trump with less reason to worry about foreign policy backlash than his recent predecessors.”

Seriously? The mass protests and the calamitous fall in Trump’s popularity and the very unusual Republican setbacks in elections in the last few months say to Leifer that the American people are “demoralized”? Does being angry and disgusted really translate to “demoralized”?

I wouldn’t put it that way …

Also, it’s not as though every other country in the world thinks it’s a-okay for the US to illegally bomb Iran in pursuit of regime change. We see this is a dispute between the US and Britain over the island of Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia is a British territory in the Indian Ocean that the US has been able to use for military operations. “Numerous air operations were launched from Diego Garcia during the Persian Gulf War (1990–91), U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan (2001), and the initial phase (2003) of the Iraq War.”

Trump is withdrawing his support for a deal involving Great Britain over the Chagos Island, also in the Indian Ocean, for which Britain wants to hand over control to Mauritius. Britain Prime Minister Keir Starmer is stating that Britain will not allow US forces to use bases on Diego Garcia for an attack on Iran, which appears to be impending.

This is one more effect of the Trump regime’s hostility to its NATO allies and the subsequent European recognition that they can no longer count on the US to support its mutual-defense commitment under the NATO Treaty – although the European governments are phrasing it more diplomatically!

Notes:

(1) Leifer, Joshua (2026): Trump Is Hurtling Towards a Catastrophic War in Iran, and Almost Nothing Can Stop Him. Haaretz 02/19/2026. Gift link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2026-02-19/ty-article/.premium/trump-is-hurtling-towards-a-catastrophic-war-in-iran-and-almost-nothing-can-stop-him/0000019c-753e-d631-a3de-7dbef7bd0000?gift=92ca5f3acc5a4e90bb0d7c8a83ea6258> (Accessed: 2026-20-02).

(2) Trump Epstein abuse claims explode as key file ‘snuck through’-Scott Lucas. The Trump Report YouTube channel 02/19/2026. <https://youtu.be/O3HLHncXe1E?si=S-7fHpLVydSU9diP> (Accessed: 2026-20-02).

(3) Britannica Editors (2026): Diego Garcia. Encyclopedia Britannica 02/20/2026. <https://www.britannica.com/place/Diego-Garcia-island-Indian-Ocean> (Accessed 2026-20-02.)