Over 150 U.S. aircraft sweep into Europe, Middle East as Trump mulls strikes

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

Visual Forensics

Over 150 U.S. aircraft sweep into Europe, Middle East as Trump mulls strikes

The buildup comes after a round of nuclear talks between the two nations concluded last week without a deal.

Today at 5:00 a.m. EST


A U.S. military F-22 Raptor lands at Lakenheath Air Base in England on Feb. 19. (Harry Moulton / @havoc_aviation on X and Instagram)
By Meg Kelly and Imogen Piper

The U.S. military has rapidly increased its presence near Iran, shifting more than 150 aircraft to bases in Europe and the Middle East since a second round of nuclear talks between the United States and Iran ended without a breakthrough on Feb. 17, according to publicly available flight tracking data and satellite imagery reviewed by The Washington Post.

{snip}

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/02/24/united-states-iran-buildup/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Nothing makes the other party cooperate like a good pummeling

Twisted logic.

[ClaudetteCC]

2. A strong presence would likely reduce the chance of a pummelling

A weak presence would lead the IRGC to think 'we got this' and make war more likely. Hopefully a strong presence has a better chance of making top leadership think its time to lay down arms and start shopping for condos in Moscow.

[popsdenver]

3. Knowing Trump

He will kick off the State of the Union, with the statement:

"As we all sit here tonight.....bombs are now dropping on IRAN with a flurry not seen since the first night of Desert Storm".......

[lostnfound]

4. Do I comment on editing oopsie in subheading, or on possibility that he might just decide to bomb a US ally?

Would not surprise me in the slightest if he had ordered a strike on some other country.

The editing oopsie is “ The buildup comes after a round of nuclear talks between the two nations concluded last week without a deal.” when the only reference before that is ‘Europe’ and ‘the Mideast’ so one wonders whether Europe or the Mideast got demoted to be a ‘nation’.

[purr-rat beauty]

5. If our military abides

This will be a very grave mistake

This is due to poor policy on trump's behalf and is most def a wag the dog in the shadow of the epstein scandal. We had Iran working with us, he broke it...now he has to pretend to fix it.

Iran has allies
We don't

[Bayard]

6. Iraq and Afganistan all over again

The stupidest thing that trump dumped the nuclear agreement with Iran. He thinks this is going to be a slam dunk for his glory that he will never shut up about. I think he's in for a big suprise. And if Iran actually has nukes, they will have no problem using them against infidels.

We could be there for years, and you know--you can't elect a new president in war time. Wave the flag.

[surfered]

7. How much is this costing?

[bluedigger]

8. Operation Reobliteration is staged to proceed.

We will reobliterate them really good this time.

[bluestarone]

9. Just another "I CAN DO THIS"

From the worthless fucker RUMP!