US attack on Iran seems imminent — but here’s what we actually know

An American attack on Iran appears imminent. US president Donald Trump has deployed massive military force to the Persian Gulf while negotiations between the two counties seem to have stalled. Media reports the attack could start as soon as Saturday 21 February.

Iran’s leadership has said that the principles of the negotiations — centring on Iran’s nuclear plans (or lack thereof) — were understood but that no agreement had been reached. The US has said military options are very much ‘on the table’ while Iran now says it’s open to international nuclear inspections.

Iran closed large areas of its airspace on 19 February. It’s aviation authority said it was:

to allow a planned missile launch exercise tomorrow. It specified danger zones where flying will be completely banned due to military activity.

Anonymous Iranian security officials said it was a show of force, and the US aviation authority has followed suit:

warning that uncoordinated missile launches could pose catastrophic risks, including endangering civilian flight paths.

The closure was enough to active alarm bells for some countries. Poland urged its citizens to leave Iran. Prime minister Donald Tusk said:

In a few, a dozen, or several dozen hours, evacuation may no longer be possible.

Behind the scenes, US military aircraft have been moving into the region for days.

Tankers inbound

Sky News reported that American refuelling planes have passed through the UK as part of the build-up. Starmer’s Britain, it appears, is happy to serve as checkpoints for Trump’s march to war.

Military expert professor Michael Clarke was on Sky on 18 February. Using open source air traffic mapping, he showed how on 16 February six US tankers passed through the UK on their way to Greece. On 18 February, a further ten tankers passed through the UK on their way towards the Mediterranean:

You can hear his analysis from around 1.55 in this report:

And Drop Site News journalists Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Huzzain reported:

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.

One anonymous former Trump insider told the investigative outlet that:

based on his discussions with current officials, he assesses an 80-90% likelihood of U.S. strikes within weeks.

And retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis said the level of build-up:

harkens back to what I saw ahead of the 2003 Iraq war.

Davis warned:

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.

And a key US command and control aircraft is now in the region…

Critical command and control aircraft

Former US Marine and State Department whistleblower Matthew Hoh said the presence of the E-3 command and control aircraft was an indicator Trump intended to pull the trigger:

The E3 is an incredibly important aircraft. For those unfamiliar, it is the large airplane that looks like an airliner, but with a revolving radar disc on top.

The airplane is loaded with an air crew whose job is to observe, manage and control the airspace in its area. It is especially important for directing fighters and ground/sea based missile interceptors against Iranian missiles and drones.

This is the strongest indication to me of the seriousness of the US threat to Iran. The US has deployed more than 2/3 of its available E3 command/control aircraft to Europe and the Middle East.

The E3 is an incredibly important aircraft. For those unfamiliar, it is the large…

— Matthew Hoh (@MatthewPHoh) February 19, 2026

Renowned international relations scholar John Mearsheimer reminded us that barring UAE – which has close ties with the settler-colonial pariah state – the only country absolutely determined to have a war with Iran was Israel:

Drop Site broke down the scale of the build-up:

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 USS Gerald R. Ford is on its way to the Gulf from the Caribbean. The ship took part in Trump’s last ‘spectacular’ – the Caracas raid which snatched Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro on 3 January. The Ford is the biggest and most advanced carrier in the world.

Former Pentagon official Jasmine El-Gamal told Drop Site.

This is not a dress rehearsal. 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.

El-Gamal said:

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.

But what would a US-Iran war actually look like?

Short intense war?

With negotiations deadlocked, one expert said that Iran and US might favour a short intense war followed by a return to talks.

Swedish-Iranian scholar Trita Parsi told Democracy Now:

We have a very dangerous situation, because both sides actually believe that a short, intense war may improve their negotiating position.

The US believes its overwhelming military capability will:

be able to take out Iran militarily rather quickly and then force it to capitulate.

Parsi said the Iranians have other plans:

They believe that they have the ability to inflict significant damage on the United States in the short term, including on civilian oil installations in the region, closing down the Strait of Hormuz, that would shoot up oil prices…

The Iranians were calculating that:

the initial cost of this to the United States would be so immense, and the United States would recognize that it would have to go for a longer war, which it cannot afford, and as a result, it would get the United States to back off.

Yes another Middle east war is looming. It would be a war which is not at all separate to the current genocide in Gaza and the legacies of the Iraq war. In fact, it would compound both. The best case scenario is that it doesn’t happen at all. Next best? The sort of ‘limited’ bombing we’ve seen in the past.

The third, most terrifying and not at all unlikely outcome is that the war escalates into something altogether more existential with profound impacts for the region and the world, and which sends violent shocks through the global economy. A number of experts and insiders are saying we’ll find out sooner rather than later.

Featured image via the Canary