February 26, 2026
Dave DeCamp
“We established the squadron last year to rapidly equip our warfighters with new combat drone capabilities that continue to evolve,” Capt. Tim Hawkins told the outlet.
CENTCOM first announced in December 2025 that it deployed the US military’s “first one-way-attack drone squadron based in the Middle East,” but did not disclose the exact location where the drones would be based.
The drones the US has deployed for the squadron, known as Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack Systems (LUCAS), were developed by reverse engineering Iranian Shahed-136 drones, demonstrating that Tehran has an edge over Washington when it comes to this type of drone warfare. The Russian version, known as the Geran-2, has been used extensively in attacks on Ukraine.
“LUCAS drones deployed by CENTCOM have an extensive range and are designed to operate autonomously. They can be launched with different mechanisms, including catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff, and mobile ground and vehicle systems,” CENTCOM said at the time.
A think tank analyst told Bloomberg that the LUCAS drones couldn’t be used against hardened Iranian targets but could be used to strike roadways, missile production facilities, and missile launch sites. The drones are said to cost the US about $35,000 a piece to manufacture.
The thinking is that if Israel starts the war and Iran retaliates against the US, the “politics” would be better for the administration, and it would be easier to justify the war to the American people.
“There’s thinking in and around the administration that the politics are a lot better if the Israelis go first and alone and the Iranians retaliate against us, and give us more reason to take action,” a person familiar with the discussions within the administration told POLITICO.
Polling shows that the idea of a war with Iran is extremely unpopular among Americans and that US voters don’t want to risk American lives to bring about regime change. Support for Israel has also sharply declined in recent years, so a war that Israel leads the US into would also likely have very little support.
Despite the negotiations with Iran, the POLITICO report said that the belief among senior officials is that “we’re going to bomb them,” according to one of the sources, who also acknowledged the risk of major US casualties.
“If we’re talking about a regime-change scale attack, Iran is very likely to retaliate with everything they’ve got. We have a lot of assets in the region, and every one of those is a potential target,” the person said. “And they’re not under the Iron Dome. So there’s a high likelihood of American casualties. And that comes with lots of political risk.”
The Trump administration has failed to make a coherent case to the American people about why they are potentially planning to bomb Iran, as top officials have been pointing to Iran’s nuclear program as a pretext, despite President Trump’s insistence that he “obliterated” the nuclear facilities that were hit with US airstrikes in the June 2025 war.
Contact your representatives in the House and tell them to support H.Con.Res. 38 to prevent the president from conducting an illegal attack on Iran.
The resolution in the House was a bipartisan bill introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) during the 12-Day War in June 2025, but a ceasefire was reached before a vote was held. Khanna announced last week that he would bring the bill to the floor for a vote, and after initially delaying the vote, Democratic leadership is now on board.
Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie conduct a news conference after reviewing unredacted portions of the Jeffrey Epstein files, outside a Department of Justice office on Monday, February 9, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect)
“As soon as Congress reconvenes next week, we will compel a vote of the full House of Representatives on the bipartisan Khanna-Massie War Powers Resolution,” a group of senior House Democrats said in a joint statement. “This legislation would require the President to come to Congress to make the case for using military force against Iran.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) also said on Thursday that he expects to vote on an Iran War Powers Resolution in the Senate “early next week.” Kaine’s resolution is also bipartisan since it has been co-sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
There are signs that more Republicans could dissent to get the resolution through Congress, as the Trump administration has not made a coherent case for war amid what is said to be the largest US buildup of air and naval forces in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“I have asked for a classified briefing defining the mission in Iran,” Rep Warren Davidson (R-OH) wrote on X on Thursday. “In the absence of new information, I will support the War Powers resolution in the House next week. War requires Congressional authorization. There are actions short of war, but no case has been made.”
Araghchi told Iranian TV that the talks “made very good progress and entered into the elements of an agreement very seriously, both in the nuclear field and in the sanctions field.”
The Iranian diplomat said that another round will likely be held next week and that US and Iranian technical experts will meet in Vienna on Monday to discuss the details of a potential deal. Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who mediated the negotiations, also spoke positively of the talks, saying “significant progress” was made.
However, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the US came to the talks demanding that Iran completely dismantle three of its nuclear sites, hand over its enriched uranium, and commit to never restarting its uranium enrichment program without significant sanctions relief, conditions that are unacceptable r for Tehran.
The US and Iran held a session in the morning, then took a break, during which US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met with Ukrainian officials. According to Axios, Witkoff and Kushner were “disappointed” by the Iranian position in the morning, but after reconvening for a second session, an unnamed US official told the outlet that the talks were “positive” without providing additional details.
According to a report from Amwaj.media, the proposal that Iran submitted to the US included a pledge to never develop nuclear weapons, something President Trump claimed that Iran has refused to do, despite the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s long-standing fatwa against making a nuclear bomb.
“The guiding principles are meant to secure nuclear fuel production [in Iran] while ensuring no nuclear weapons through measures such as full verification and no accumulation [of enriched uranium],” an Iranian source told Amwaj.media. “This means enrichment would continue only as much as needed.”
Amid the negotiations between the US and Iran, President Trump and his top officials have been claiming that Iran may be taking steps toward a nuclear weapon, despite also insisting that the US “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities in the June 2025 war. Experts and diplomats have rejected the US claims, saying all signs indicate Iran’s nuclear enrichment program has been frozen since the US airstrikes.
Iran has reportedly offered to formally suspend its enrichment program for three to five years, an arrangement that would ensure there would be no Iranian uranium enrichment for the remainder of the Trump administration.
The US has continued its major military buildup in the Middle East and has made movements in the region that suggest it’s still preparing for war. The 12-day US-Israeli war against Iran was launched by Israel when the US and Iran were still holding negotiations. Israel began the war with a series of airstrikes on June 13, two days before the next round of US-Iran talks was supposed to be held.
Kyle Anzalone
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that any strikes on Iran should be aimed at causing regime change in Tehran.
“In my view, if you’re going to do something there, you better well make it about getting new leadership and regime change,” the Senator said on Thursday. “If you’re going to take some sort of action, I think you want to achieve a result that actually brings about the transformational change that I think we want in the region.”
Thune is among several Senators who have argued that Tehran is historically weak, and President Donald Trump should order an attack on Iran to cause regime change. “The Ayatollah lost to Israel in the 12-day war. They are weaker. The regime is weaker than it ever has been. And what I’ve urged the president, do not miss this opportunity,” Cruz told CNBC host Joe Kernen on Wednesday. “If the Ayatollah is removed from power, it will make America much safer.”
Trump is threatening to attack Iran if Tehran does not agree to a deal that severely restricts its civilian nuclear program in exchange for minimal sanctions relief.
While Senators and administration officials have asserted that the US must attack Iran to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the Islamic Republic does not have a nuclear weapons program and is not currently enriching uranium.
“The President, I don’t think, to my knowledge, has made any decisions, but I think they’re gaming out what contingencies might look like and what’s in our national security interests.” Thune added, “Of course, first and foremost is to prevent them from having a nuclear capability but there are also other threats that they represent in the region.”
Dave DeCamp
The drones the US deployed to the
Middle East were designed by reverse engineering Iran's Shahed-136 drones
The US military’s first kamikaze
drone unit is ready for potential strikes on Iran, Bloomberg reported on
Thursday, citing a US Central Command official.
“We established the squadron last year to rapidly equip our warfighters with new combat drone capabilities that continue to evolve,” Capt. Tim Hawkins told the outlet.
CENTCOM first announced in December 2025 that it deployed the US military’s “first one-way-attack drone squadron based in the Middle East,” but did not disclose the exact location where the drones would be based.
The drones the US has deployed for the squadron, known as Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack Systems (LUCAS), were developed by reverse engineering Iranian Shahed-136 drones, demonstrating that Tehran has an edge over Washington when it comes to this type of drone warfare. The Russian version, known as the Geran-2, has been used extensively in attacks on Ukraine.
“LUCAS drones deployed by CENTCOM have an extensive range and are designed to operate autonomously. They can be launched with different mechanisms, including catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff, and mobile ground and vehicle systems,” CENTCOM said at the time.
A think tank analyst told Bloomberg that the LUCAS drones couldn’t be used against hardened Iranian targets but could be used to strike roadways, missile production facilities, and missile launch sites. The drones are said to cost the US about $35,000 a piece to manufacture.
According to POLITICO, senior US
officials think the 'politics' would be better if Israel started the war
Senior advisors to President
Trump would prefer if Israel attacks Iran to launch a war against the Islamic
Republic rather than having the US lead the opening airstrikes, POLITICO
reported on Wednesday.The thinking is that if Israel starts the war and Iran retaliates against the US, the “politics” would be better for the administration, and it would be easier to justify the war to the American people.
“There’s thinking in and around the administration that the politics are a lot better if the Israelis go first and alone and the Iranians retaliate against us, and give us more reason to take action,” a person familiar with the discussions within the administration told POLITICO.
Polling shows that the idea of a war with Iran is extremely unpopular among Americans and that US voters don’t want to risk American lives to bring about regime change. Support for Israel has also sharply declined in recent years, so a war that Israel leads the US into would also likely have very little support.
Despite the negotiations with Iran, the POLITICO report said that the belief among senior officials is that “we’re going to bomb them,” according to one of the sources, who also acknowledged the risk of major US casualties.
“If we’re talking about a regime-change scale attack, Iran is very likely to retaliate with everything they’ve got. We have a lot of assets in the region, and every one of those is a potential target,” the person said. “And they’re not under the Iron Dome. So there’s a high likelihood of American casualties. And that comes with lots of political risk.”
The Trump administration has failed to make a coherent case to the American people about why they are potentially planning to bomb Iran, as top officials have been pointing to Iran’s nuclear program as a pretext, despite President Trump’s insistence that he “obliterated” the nuclear facilities that were hit with US airstrikes in the June 2025 war.
Contact your representatives and
tell them to support the effort to block Trump from launching the war without
congressional authorization
Democrats in the House and Senate
vowed on Thursday that they will hold a vote next week on War Powers
Resolutions aimed at blocking President Trump from launching an attack on Iran
without congressional authorization, as required by the US Constitution.Contact your representatives in the House and tell them to support H.Con.Res. 38 to prevent the president from conducting an illegal attack on Iran.
The resolution in the House was a bipartisan bill introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) during the 12-Day War in June 2025, but a ceasefire was reached before a vote was held. Khanna announced last week that he would bring the bill to the floor for a vote, and after initially delaying the vote, Democratic leadership is now on board.
Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie conduct a news conference after reviewing unredacted portions of the Jeffrey Epstein files, outside a Department of Justice office on Monday, February 9, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect)
“As soon as Congress reconvenes next week, we will compel a vote of the full House of Representatives on the bipartisan Khanna-Massie War Powers Resolution,” a group of senior House Democrats said in a joint statement. “This legislation would require the President to come to Congress to make the case for using military force against Iran.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) also said on Thursday that he expects to vote on an Iran War Powers Resolution in the Senate “early next week.” Kaine’s resolution is also bipartisan since it has been co-sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
There are signs that more Republicans could dissent to get the resolution through Congress, as the Trump administration has not made a coherent case for war amid what is said to be the largest US buildup of air and naval forces in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“I have asked for a classified briefing defining the mission in Iran,” Rep Warren Davidson (R-OH) wrote on X on Thursday. “In the absence of new information, I will support the War Powers resolution in the House next week. War requires Congressional authorization. There are actions short of war, but no case has been made.”
The US and Iran are set to begin
technical talks on Monday, but the threat of a US attack remains
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas
Araghchi said on Thursday that the talks between US and Iranian officials in
Geneva were one of the most “serious” rounds of negotiations yet, though the
threat of a US attack on Iran remains, as there were no signs of a major
breakthrough.Araghchi told Iranian TV that the talks “made very good progress and entered into the elements of an agreement very seriously, both in the nuclear field and in the sanctions field.”
The Iranian diplomat said that another round will likely be held next week and that US and Iranian technical experts will meet in Vienna on Monday to discuss the details of a potential deal. Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who mediated the negotiations, also spoke positively of the talks, saying “significant progress” was made.
However, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the US came to the talks demanding that Iran completely dismantle three of its nuclear sites, hand over its enriched uranium, and commit to never restarting its uranium enrichment program without significant sanctions relief, conditions that are unacceptable r for Tehran.
The US and Iran held a session in the morning, then took a break, during which US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met with Ukrainian officials. According to Axios, Witkoff and Kushner were “disappointed” by the Iranian position in the morning, but after reconvening for a second session, an unnamed US official told the outlet that the talks were “positive” without providing additional details.
According to a report from Amwaj.media, the proposal that Iran submitted to the US included a pledge to never develop nuclear weapons, something President Trump claimed that Iran has refused to do, despite the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s long-standing fatwa against making a nuclear bomb.
“The guiding principles are meant to secure nuclear fuel production [in Iran] while ensuring no nuclear weapons through measures such as full verification and no accumulation [of enriched uranium],” an Iranian source told Amwaj.media. “This means enrichment would continue only as much as needed.”
Amid the negotiations between the US and Iran, President Trump and his top officials have been claiming that Iran may be taking steps toward a nuclear weapon, despite also insisting that the US “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities in the June 2025 war. Experts and diplomats have rejected the US claims, saying all signs indicate Iran’s nuclear enrichment program has been frozen since the US airstrikes.
Iran has reportedly offered to formally suspend its enrichment program for three to five years, an arrangement that would ensure there would be no Iranian uranium enrichment for the remainder of the Trump administration.
The US has continued its major military buildup in the Middle East and has made movements in the region that suggest it’s still preparing for war. The 12-day US-Israeli war against Iran was launched by Israel when the US and Iran were still holding negotiations. Israel began the war with a series of airstrikes on June 13, two days before the next round of US-Iran talks was supposed to be held.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that any strikes on Iran should be aimed at causing regime change in Tehran.
“In my view, if you’re going to do something there, you better well make it about getting new leadership and regime change,” the Senator said on Thursday. “If you’re going to take some sort of action, I think you want to achieve a result that actually brings about the transformational change that I think we want in the region.”
Thune is among several Senators who have argued that Tehran is historically weak, and President Donald Trump should order an attack on Iran to cause regime change. “The Ayatollah lost to Israel in the 12-day war. They are weaker. The regime is weaker than it ever has been. And what I’ve urged the president, do not miss this opportunity,” Cruz told CNBC host Joe Kernen on Wednesday. “If the Ayatollah is removed from power, it will make America much safer.”
Trump is threatening to attack Iran if Tehran does not agree to a deal that severely restricts its civilian nuclear program in exchange for minimal sanctions relief.
While Senators and administration officials have asserted that the US must attack Iran to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the Islamic Republic does not have a nuclear weapons program and is not currently enriching uranium.
“The President, I don’t think, to my knowledge, has made any decisions, but I think they’re gaming out what contingencies might look like and what’s in our national security interests.” Thune added, “Of course, first and foremost is to prevent them from having a nuclear capability but there are also other threats that they represent in the region.”
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