War With Iran?

Looming war with Iran. The storm clouds of war are growing increasingly thick over the Middle East, as the U.S. military masses a huge amount of planes and ships for what looks like an increasingly likely attack on Iran.

Both The New York Times and CNN reported yesterday that the U.S. would be ready to hit Iran by the weekend, but President Donald Trump hasn’t made a final decision on whether to go through with a strike or not.

Dozens of refueling tankers have been deployed to the region, as have 50 fighter jets and two aircraft carrier strike groups, reports the Times.

During the first Trump administration, the U.S. periodically deployed additional forces to the region as a show of force against Iran without ever attacking the country. Military analysts report that this time appears different.

Defense news site The War Zone notes that most of the U.S.’ few battle-ready E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes, which are used to control airspace in combat situations, are either staging in Europe or already in the Middle East.

Not good, Bob.

A situation to monitor or nothing happens? For the time being, the White House is still talking like it wants to keep talking.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Iranians in Switzerland, Reason‘s Matthew Petti noted yesterday. Iranian officials were quick to say those talks went well.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also said that “the president has always been very clear, though, with respect to Iran or any country around the world, diplomacy is always his first option, and Iran would be very wise to make a deal.”

Nevertheless, Petti notes that Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed the idea that diplomacy was feasible with the Iranian regime in his remarks at the Munich Security Conference on Monday.

Similar to the recent intervention in Venezuela that led to the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro, the White House isn’t even bothering to consult Congress about a war with Iran or even to make a propagandistic case to the American people that a new Middle Eastern conflict is a good idea.

Doing that would be a little too small-r Republican for this administration.

More worrisome still is the fact that Trump administration officials are increasingly talking like pre-Iraq War Bush administration officials.

Petti again:

Two officials told Reuters that they are planning for weeks of large-scale warfare. Trump told reporters last week that regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen.” Kushner believes that the Middle East “is a liquid and the ability to reshape is unlimited,” as he wrote in September 2024.

That rhetoric is exactly how the Bush administration and its supporters sounded on the eve of the Iraq War. Not to worry, though. The Trump administration knows that it’s better than the last people who got struck down for their hubris.

“I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East,” Vance told NBC News in his June 2025 interview. “I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives.”

Who knows. Maybe this time, everything will work out just fine.

Scenes from Redwood City: My reporting trip out here in the San Francisco Bay Area brought me to Redwood City. And while my reason for being there was not specifically to see the San Mateo County History Museum, it was a nice secondary bonus.

When the first Britschgis immigrated from Switzerland to America, we largely settled down in the San Mateo County area, where we prospered as dairy farmers. My great-great-uncle Carl Britschgi was briefly mayor of Redwood City in the 1950s and then represented the area in the California Assembly from 1956 to 1970.

My museum trip was partly motivated by a hope of seeing his name or picture somewhere, but I had no such luck. Indeed, the Swiss community did not even make the museum’s immigration section.

The closest thing to a Swiss I could find in the whole place was this man from the 1880s dressed up as a pocket watch. Chalk it up to this country’s persistent Alpinophobia.

A fun thing I did learn at the museum was that the 1964 Republican National Convention, in which the libertarian-leaning Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater was selected as the party’s presidential candidate, was held at the famous Cow Palace venue in nearby Daly City.

A little subsequent research pulled up an extended interview my great-great-uncle gave about his time in politics, in which he included an anecdote about seeing Goldwater’s nomination.

As a libertarian, I have a real fondness for Barry Goldwater. As a liberal Republican, Carl Britschgi couldn’t stand him. Seeing the rude behavior of Goldwater supporters at the convention led my relative to disavow any support for his party’s candidate.

This led to a minor scandal right before the election when the elder Britschgi told a group of swing voters to vote Democratic. Perhaps that contributed to Goldwater’s historic defeat at the hands of Lyndon Johnson.

QUICK LINKS

• The future of media is parlayed on when the next Matt Yglesias piece defending the Austro-Hungarian empire is published and what Richard Hanania’s next ideological conversion will be.

Polymarket ???? Substack

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Starting today Substack authors can natively integrate data from the world’s largest prediction market.

Journalism is better when it’s backed by live markets. pic.twitter.com/kxosFe8Zqt

— Polymarket (@Polymarket) February 18, 2026

• Per The Guardian‘s Jeremy Barr, the Federal Communications Commission has launched an enforcement action into ABC’s The View over whether the show violated the commission’s equal time rule for political candidates.

News: FCC chairman Brendan Carr confirmed that the agency has opened an enforcement action into ABC’s The View over a potential violation of the equal time act… (it had been reported, citing anonymous sources)

— Jeremy Barr (@jeremymbarr) February 18, 2026

• Eight skiers are dead in Lake Tahoe following an avalanche.
• Washington’s proposed “millionaire’s tax” would be economic suicide, argues Jared Dillian for Reason.
• Speaking of economic suicide, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) rallies support for California’s proposed wealth tax.