Antiwar.com’s Week in Review for Friday Feb. 27, 2026

The thinking is that if Israel starts the war and Iran retaliates against the US, the “politics” would be better for the administration, and it would be easier to justify the war to the American people.

“There’s thinking in and around the administration that the politics are a lot better if the Israelis go first and alone and the Iranians retaliate against us, and give us more reason to take action,” a person familiar with the discussions within the administration told POLITICO.

Dan Grazier, a retired Marine officer and senior fellow at the Stimson Center notes that there are now nearly 100 aerial re-fuelers in the Middle East in addition to the carrier strike groups and fighter aircraft suggesting a much larger operation of longer duration.

To experienced eyes, the composition of the attacking force suggests one strategic purpose: A level of destruction designed to induce the disintegration of the Iranian State and its society.

Is “disintegration” with the use of standoff attack an attainable political military objective? Will Iran fall to pieces like a “House of Cards” under the crushing weight of U.S. and Israeli air and missile attack? The answers are unclear, but the political and military leaders who start air and missile wars are usually convinced that the application of massive firepower from a distance will be stunningly effective.

The reason is simple: In the frenzy of analytical targeting focused on precision strikes against the opponent’s critical nodes, systems, weapons and key political and military leaders become true believers. In a world where ground forces mean casualties, the promise of victory through air and missile power is warmly welcomed.

Huckabee made the comments when pressed on his Christian Zionist view that the modern state of Israel has the divine right to the land that it controls. Carlson asked how far that goes, pointing out that the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis suggests his descendants would have all the land between the Euphrates and the Nile Rivers, which includes Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and parts of Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

“It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee said. When pressed further, Huckabee insisted that Israel wasn’t trying to take that land, but the idea of a “Greater Israel” has support within the Israeli government, and Israel currently occupies parts of Syria and Lebanon, and continues to expand illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and its occupation of more than 50% of Gaza.

Smotrich, who also holds a minister position in the Israeli Defense Ministry, said that he expects the US to give Hamas an ultimatum in the “coming days” to disarm, and if the group doesn’t, Israel will restart its full-scale bombing campaign with the goal of conquering Gaza with US support.

“If [Hamas] does not comply, the IDF will receive international legitimacy and American backing to do it itself,” he said, adding that the demands for disarmament include “all AK-47 rifles, all small arms, and of course, all the tunnels and explosives.” Previous reporting said the US was considering a plan that would allow Hamas to keep some small arms.

“One thing is certain: The IDF will enter and occupy Gaza if Hamas does not disarm,” Smotrich said. “In the end, Israel will occupy the Gaza Strip, implement a military government, and establish Jewish settlements there. It is impossible to run away from that because it is the truth.”

“I don’t want to use the word frustrated because [Trump] understands he has plenty of alternatives, but he’s curious, he’s curious as to why they haven’t, I don’t want to use the word capitulated, but why they haven’t capitulated,” Witkoff told Fox News host Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law.

“Why, under this sort of pressure, with the amount of seapower, naval power, that we have over there, why they haven’t come to us and said, ‘we profess that we don’t want a [nuclear] weapon, so here’s what we’re prepared to do,’ yet it’s hard to get them to that point,” Witkoff added.

Tehran’s official position is that it doesn’t seek nuclear weapons and that the development of such weapons is banned by a fatwa issued by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Iranian leaders have repeatedly “professed” that they don’t seek a nuclear bomb.

According to media reports, Iran has offered a deal that would involve it suspending its uranium enrichment program for three to five years and later restarting it at a civilian-grade level, far below the 90% needed for weapons-grade, as part of a joint nuclear program with regional countries. Iran has also publicly offered to dilute its stockpile of uranium enriched at 60%, though it’s likely buried underground following the US airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Contact your representatives in the House and tell them to support H.Con.Res. 38 to prevent the president from conducting an illegal attack on Iran.

The resolution in the House was a bipartisan bill introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) during the 12-Day War in June 2025, but a ceasefire was reached before a vote was held. Khanna announced last week that he would bring the bill to the floor for a vote, and after initially delaying the vote, Democratic leadership is now on board.

Dave DeCamp

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