Peloni: The possibility of any US strike to be used to push the Mullahs to agree to Trump’s terms rather than is a serious mistake would be a waste of good amunition which should instead be tarteted at bringing this Iranian regime to an end.
By | Feb 21, 2026
Donald Trump speaking at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America – Donald Trump, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikipedia
Those hoping for a massive attack on Iran to destroy what remains of its nuclear program, to devastate its store of 1,500-2,000 ballistic missiles, and to get Iran to agree to stop giving support to its proxies, the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah, may well be disappointed. Though every other day President Donald Trump changes his mind as to what he may, or may not, do in Iran, at the moment, his aides have let it be understood that he is now planning a limited strike that would leave the supreme leader’s regime in place, but sufficiently chastened so that he will be more willing to accept American demands for a complete end to Iran’s nuclear program. More on Trump’s latest plan can be found here: “Trump says ‘considering’ limited strike on Iran to coax it into accepting deal on his terms,” Times of Israel, February 20, 2026:
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he was considering a limited military strike on Iran to coax it into accepting a nuclear deal on Washington’s terms as the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, steamed into the Mediterranean.
The threat came as Iran said it would be ready to present its draft of a possible nuclear deal to the US within two or three days, but also claimed that a demand for zero uranium enrichment was not on the table.
Amid the tensions, the Israel Defense Forces said it was on high alert amid expectations that Iran would attack and fire missiles at Israel should the US strike. However, the military reiterated that there were currently no new instructions or restrictions for the Israeli public.
Asked by reporters on Friday if he was looking at a limited strike after The Wall Street Journal reported as much, Trump paused and smiled before responding, “I guess you can say I am considering it.”
However, as reporters were ushered out of the room at a White House event, Trump appeared to mock the question, suggesting that he wasn’t going to publicly telegraph his plans regarding Iran….
Mossad has an extensive network of agents throughout Iran that surpasses those of all other foreign powers, including the U.S. But Israel will, of course, share with the U.S. any intelligence it has on the whereabouts of Iranian senior officials and military men, just as it has done in the past. Israel also shares information with the U.S on the nuclear enrichment sites at Natanz, Fordow, and in the city of Isfahan.
Amid the US military buildup, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran would be ready to submit its plan for a nuclear agreement to the United States in the coming days.
“The next step for me is to present draft of possible deal to my counterparts in the US. I believe that in the next two, three days, that would be ready, and after final confirmation by my superiors, that would be handed over to Steve Witkoff,” Araghchi said in an interview published online on Friday with the Morning Joe show on US TV network MSNBC.
Araghchi dismissed the notion that Trump had given Iran a deadline.
“Well, I have to say that first of all, there is no ultimatum. We only talk with each other how we can have a fast deal. And a fast deal is something that both sides are interested about,” Araghchi said.
Trump did indeed say on February 19 that he expected a satisfactory response from Iran on the nuclear issue “within ten days.” That sounds like an ultimatum to me.
Araghchi also said that US negotiators have not requested Tehran end its nuclear enrichment program, contradicting statements from American officials.
“We have not offered any suspension, and the US side has not asked for zero enrichment,” Araghchi said in the interview….
Trump said publicly several weeks ago that he expects there to now be zero enrichment of uranium by Iran, but it may be that the tag-team of Witkoff and Kushner did not repeat that demand in their own negotiations with Aragchi. Aragchi has therefore chosen to believe that the U.S. has “not asked for zero enrichment.”
Someone is lying about American demands for zero enrichment, and it is not the Americans.
Trump let down the protesters in January with his unfulfilled promise that “help is on the way” if the Islamic Republic continued to kill them. The Iranian rulers continued to kill protesters, albeit at a lower level because the protests themselves had subsided, but help was not, after all, “on its way.” Trump may not want to be seen again as someone who is all hat and no cattle. He has to do something against the regime in Tehran, but the dilemma is what at this point makes the most sense.
If Iran only wants its uranium used for peaceful purposes — the country’s nuclear reactors — it has no need to enrich it beyond the level of 3.67%. There is only one plausible explanation for its enriching uranium to 60% purity, just one step below the weapons-grade level of 90%. Iran does intend to build a nuclear weapon. That enriching of uranium to the level of 60% is the surest proof of its malefic intentions.
After sending the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and escort battleships to the Gulf in January, he ordered a second carrier, the Gerald Ford, to depart for the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Iranian naval forces this week conducted military drills in the Gulf and around the strategic Strait of Hormuz in their own show of force.
Would Trump have assembled such a force, the mightiest American force since the Iraq War, only to put pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear program? Isn’t it more likely that the president will again attack Iran, this time not for a few hours one afternoon as happened in the 12-Day War, but for several weeks, during which the American forces will do all of the following: first, decapitate both the civilian and military leadership, including the supreme leader and the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps; second, strike again at the uranium enrichment sites at Fordow and Natanz that this past June were devastated, but not entirely destroyed, and also strike with bunker-busters a new site that the Iranians have built inside Pickaxe Mountain, under 1606 meters of earth and rock; third, destroy as many of the estimated 1,500-2,000 ballistic missiles Iran still has in its armory, a key demand of our ally Israel.
What’s to come is still unsure, but every day it looks more and more as if Iran has made a fatal error in not coming to terms, when it still had a chance, with The Donald.
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