Martin Jay – Strategic Review Feb 17, 2026
Trump has the option of going to war with Iran and receiving much-needed campaign funds from Israel for the midterms – or opting to defy Bibi and facing certain defeat by losing both houses and facing certain impeachment. Can the Iranians save him?
Is Trump serious about going to war with Iran? To understand this, it’s important to examine his relationship with Netanyahu and to see who has the advantage when it comes to dragging the U.S. into a war, and whether Israel can actually be a greater threat to the U.S. than Tehran can ever be.
The trap that Trump is falling into is one where he has little or no wiggle room at all to control the Iran crisis, whereby Israel can threaten him with isolation while it goes ahead with its strike.
There are two dynamics at play here which are struggling to find a compromise. Trump wants a deal with Iran which takes away their nuclear capability, while Israel wants a war which overthrows the Iranian regime and installs a Mossad/CIA puppet. The problem, though, is that Israel is not an honest broker and keeps shifting the goalposts. The latest demand now is that removing Iran’s ballistic missiles should be at the heart of any deal that Trump pulls off.
Trump is ensnared and is aware of how Bibi is manipulating him. He may, on occasion, swear at journalists and pretend he is his own boss and his own president and that Israel is a client state of Washington which has to toe the line, but in reality, it is clear that Israel is calling the shots.
In recent days, we have heard that the one aircraft carrier the U.S. had in the region, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is to be joined by a second called the USS Gerald Ford. U.S. media report that the Lincoln is in the “Arabian Sea,” which is a comical way of saying that it’s keeping its distance from Iran’s shores and Houthi missiles off the coast of Yemen. But other reports are suggesting that the reason why Trump claims he has sent a second carrier – to beef up the “flotilla” in case of a war breaking out with Iran – is untrue. Some insiders are briefing journalists that the Lincoln has technical problems which will render it useless in a combat situation and so needs to be replaced with the more advanced Ford.
However, even this might be a false narrative offered by Pentagon insiders who are not supporters of Trump. A second explanation about the carriers is that it buys Trump time. He has even told reporters that it will take about a month for the Ford to get there, which he believes should be ample time for a deal to be struck with Iran, or at least will give him four more weeks to work out a way of dealing with the threat – that’s the threat from Israel, not Iran.
Israel threatened Trump before when he went ahead with his bunker buster bombs in June of last year by saying simply, “If you don’t do it, we’ll nuke Iran.” It worked. This time around, the threat is, “If you don’t join us, then we’ll strike Iran alone and you will have to deal with the consequences of being the first U.S. president to have to explain to the Jewish lobby why Iran is wiping Israel off the face of the map.” This second threat is multi-layered and also might work with Trump, given that the midterm elections, which are approaching, will cost twice what the elections cost which got him into office. It will be Jewish money which bankrolls him this time around, with the intention of saving him from losing both houses and facing inevitable impeachment.
And so, in many ways, Trump is closer to and more dependent on the regime in Tehran to help him out. A deal which limits the enrichment of uranium and can guarantee no nuclear bomb can be made might be something he can present to the American people as a great victory. The irony is that the deal might be more or less a carbon copy of Obama’s, which he, Trump, rejected while in his first term in office, a rejection which has created the present crisis.
The trouble with any deal now about enrichment is that it is unlikely to satisfy the Israelis, who have become more aware in recent weeks about the capability of Iran’s latest generation of ballistic missiles both in terms of defence and attack. Moreover, the U.S. attack on Iran last year for 12 days has now raised the stakes to a fever pitch, making the Iranians clearer and more focused about any kind of attack happening against them: all-out war.
According to some credible reports, Trump was recently asking Pentagon chiefs if the U.S. could carry out a single in-and-out strike operation which could be used to warn Iran while satisfying Israel at the same time about the U.S. threat, and he was told no such options are feasible. This is due to Iran being much more prepared now for such attacks, both militarily and intelligence-wise, while the Mossad operation of creating civil strife on the ground failed spectacularly. The U.S. is in a very tight corner right now, as its forces and its allies in the region are in the crosshairs of Iran the moment the first bomb is dropped, and so Trump’s options to go to war are very limited. It would be suicidal for Trump to strike Iran, as the losses to U.S. forces and the disruption to oil distribution via the Straits of Hormuz would be too great, not to mention the destruction of infrastructure in Israel itself.
But there is also another factor which is putting all the pressure on Trump to get a deal with Iran. Since last June’s attack and more recently Trump’s betrayal of cordial relations with Putin conjured up at Alaska, along with the Venezuela coup, both Russia and China have upped their support for Iran. This is a critical factor now preventing Trump from hitting Iran with anything. China recently gave Iran its latest state-of-the-art new radar system which can identify U.S. stealth bombers at a range of 700km. Game changer. If you consider Iran, Israel, and the U.S. as three poker players at the table, it is now clear that Iran now has the best hand with the most options. It can maximize its role now and exploit Trump’s vulnerability by going for a deal which involves sanctions being relieved, or it could hold out and play a long game way beyond Trump’s one-month breathing space and really turn up the heat on him leading up to the midterms in November. Iran always plays for time and is good at this strategy. And given that even the kindest analysis of America’s strike capability in Iran is two weeks before depletion of all missile stocks is reached, any hawks close to Trump who are pushing for a strike must have the destruction of the U.S. in their strategy as well, as Iran cannot be pounded into a state of submission in such a short space of time. Surely that can’t be the aim of Bibi. Surely not!
Charities fear millions in Ramadan giving will not reach crisis zones as UK Muslim groups ‘debanked’
Story by Kaamil Ahmed charities fear millions in Ramadan giving will not reach crisis zones as UK Muslim groups ‘debanked’
by jewish banks
Story by Kaamil Ahmed
They did this with live aid and feed africa where the jews had their hand in the takings
The BBC have done it with red nose day/
Buckets passed around mosques, fundraisers shared on WhatsApp groups and televised appeals will raise hundreds of millions of pounds for charity over the coming weeks of Ramadan.
Each year they give generously as do christian churches but much of the £2bn raised by British Muslims each year comes when giving surges during the holy month, but the full potential of that support m especially at a time of US, British and European government aid cuts – is being limited by challenges charities say they face in sending money abroad.
According to a 2025 report on “debanking” by the UK-based coalition, Muslim Charities Forum (MCF), more than two-thirds of Muslim charities face problems opening bank accounts and 42% have been had their banking services completely withdrawn, compared with 12% of charities generally.
Most of the charities also reported that aid payments to humanitarian projects had been delayed because of banking issues.
it is known that the IDF have stolen so much money food and medicines destined for Gaza
the TV chap Simon Cowell has donated much to the Israeli IDF to keep the killing going
The MCF chief executive, Fadi Itani, said the humanitarian crisis in Sudan was an example of where charities struggled to get banks to send on the money to the countries in need, and with holding it and keeping it in high interest accounts
“These obstacles disrupt essential charitable operations and undermine the delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance,” he said.
“As part of wider derisking strategies, banks are becoming increasingly reluctant to serve charities – particularly those operating in perceived high-risk jurisdictions such as Sudan or gaza leaving many organisations effectively excluded from the financial system,” said Itani.
According to MCF, Muslim charities are disproportionately falling foul of these banking policies. Organisations have had to wait up to three years to open a bank account; many have had accounts suddenly closed without explanation or appeal or have faced rigorous questioning about aid payments, particularly going to Palestine, Syria or Pakistan.
Muslims donate four times more than the average adult in Britain, according to a report by the thinktank Equi published in December. Much of this during the month of Ramadan, when they believe rewards for giving are multiplied.
It is one of Isaams 5 basic laws to feed the hungry
Many use the month to make their annual zakat payment – a contribution of 2.5% of surplus wealth that must be used to support the poor.
While zakat is increasingly being used to help people in poverty in the UK, much of the money is also directed to the destitute in crisis zones.
One charity surveyed by MCF said simply using “Syrian refugees” as a reference led to transactions being frozen to an aid project supporting Syrian children receiving cancer treatment in Turkey.
“Almost all the Muslim-led charities I have spoken to would not even try to obtain the special licence required to work in sanctioned states such as Afghanistan, despite often being areas most in need,” said Dr Samantha May, a senior lecturer at the University of Aberdeen.
“They would expect the licence not to be granted or that just applying for the licence could raise ‘red flags’ and create banking issues associated with derisking.”
May said these policies were not by design targeted at Muslim-led charities, but in reality they were often working in fragile states.
Related: Aid cuts could cause 22m avoidable deaths by 2030, study finds
These problems can have an effect when donors become concerned about delays on projects to which they have contributed. Mosques are frequently wary, tending to stick with causes they know.
The administrator of one east London mosque, who did not want to be named, said they were very careful about the charities they supported, selecting four to support during Ramadan or at Friday prayers so they were able to directly monitor how the money was used.
They added that partners they had worked with had encountered problems because of the extra scrutiny they felt Muslim campaigns faced.
Razib Hasan, finance director at Muslim Aid, one of the largest Islamic charities in the UK, said one solution would be to adopt legislation already enforced in France and Belgium, which makes having a bank account a legal right.
Itani also believes this would mean charities having to spend less time and resources on administrative battles and more on humanitarian work.
“Muslim-led charities must be able to operate without undue hindrance. Only then can their capacity to support vulnerable communities – in the UK and globally – reach its full potential,” said Itani.
A spokesperson for the Financial Conduct Authority said it was aware of the problems caused by the banks “We know that some charities face real difficulties opening and keeping bank accounts,” they said. “We’ve been clear in our expectations on banks for how they should handle charity accounts.”
“Trump has the option of going to war with Iran and receiving much-needed campaign funds from Israel for the midterms – or opting to defy Bibi and facing certain defeat by losing both houses and facing certain impeachment. Can the Iranians save him?”
NOW, if that is not utterly imbecilic Western Jour-nalism to feed the woky Voters of Murica the greatest Nation that ever was than the Murican Pope surely must be a true Roman Catholic.
“Strategic Culture” lol