“I am considering a massive attack,” Trump told Axios reporter Barak Ravid. “Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.”

The president didn’t elaborate on what he was planning, but he has previously threatened to launch massive strikes targeting civilian infrastructure in Iran, including bridges, power plants, and water desalination plants.

Trump has also signaled that he may bomb Picakaxe Mountain, known as Kolang Kouh, where US and Israeli officials have claimed there may be underground nuclear activity, claims Iran has denied. Israeli media reported on Wednesday that the US informed Israel that it intends to escalate its attacks on Iran in the coming days and may use heavy bombers to target the mountain.

Hegseth, joined by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday to discuss the Trump administration’s request for an additional $87.6 billion in supplemental spending.

Most of the money would go to the Pentagon, but approximately $11.1 billion would go to US farmers. The war with Iran has depleted Pentagon funding, and the shock to the oil economy will have a direct impact on the fertilizer market farmers depend on.

On Tuesday, Hegseth defended the supplemental funding and claimed it would be part of the Pentagon’s FY27 budget, not in addition to it. Congress has yet to approve the $1.5 trillion the Pentagon wants. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted to authorize $1.15 trillion of the massive military budget, but the Senate has yet to approve it.

The NDAA passed largely along party lines in a 216-212 vote. Seven Republicans voted against it, and two didn’t vote, meaning that the Democrats could have blocked the legislation, but six Democrats voted yes on the sweeping military spending bill despite President Trump’s continued war against Iran, which was launched without congressional authorization.

The Democrats who voted for the bill include Reps. Henry Cuellar (TX), Donald G. Davis (NC), Jared F. Golden (ME), Vicente Gonzalez (TX), Adam Gray (CA), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA).

The Republicans who voted against the legislation include Reps. Thomas Massie (KY), Chip Roy (TX), Anna Paulina Luna (FL), Harriet M. Hageman (WY), Elijah Crane (AZ), Tim Burchett (TN), and Josh Brecheen (OK).

Those records illuminate two very different cases.

My own experience illustrates the first case. In 2019, I filed a Privacy Act request asking the NSA whether it possessed records mentioning me. Years earlier, while serving as a congressional staffer, I had worked to help free an American constituent detained by Ethiopian authorities and communicated extensively with U.S. officials in East Africa. I wanted to know whether those communications had ever found their way into NSA databases – and specifically the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702 database, which sweeps up vast quantities of digital data on Americans even when the actual targets are foreign persons or entities.

The agency refused even to acknowledge whether any records existed, claiming that doing so would set a dangerous precedent. If the NSA confirmed or denied records for one requester, it argued, that would allow “a terrorist or other adversary to file a FOIA request with us in order to determine whether he or she was under surveillance or had evaded it.”It was an absurd, but typical, NSA response to a FOIA request.

Trump’s comments came after Ansar Allah announced a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia, which came a week after the Saudis bombed Yemen’s Sanaa airport to prevent the landing of a plane carrying a Yemeni delegation from Iran to enforce its long-standing blockade on the country that was eased under a 2022 ceasefire deal but never fully lifted.

Ansar Allah has already warned shipping companies against using Saudi ports, and Reuters reported that two oil tankers loaded with Saudi crude bound for China and India made U-turns in the Red Sea, heading for the Suez Canal instead of attempting to cross the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Yemeni media reported that a total of six ships turned around following the warning.

For his part, Trump downplayed the blockade, claiming it hasn’t started yet. “So far, it hasn’t happened, might happen, but we take care of things,” Trump told reporters while meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the Oval Office.

The systematic campaign to present Zelensky as a hero is crucial to NATO’s overall portrayal of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war as nothing less than an existential struggle between freedom and dictatorship – a conflict with truly global implications.  New York Times columnist David French contends that “for the first time in my adult life, the moral and strategic heart of the defense of liberal democracy doesn’t beat in Washington.  It doesn’t beat in London or Paris or Berlin or Ottawa, either.  It’s in Kyiv, where a courageous leader and a courageous people have picked up the torch America has dropped.”

Western leaders have redoubled their propaganda initiatives efforts in recent months to sell the proposition that underdog Ukraine is beginning to win the military contest against Russia.  Despite a few flashy Ukrainian military successes, however, the overall picture of an eventual Russian victory in a war of attrition remains essentially the same.

Dave DeCamp

For more information, contact

akeaton@antiwar.com

323-512-7095