War with Iran is Likely More Imminent than you Think

Several big clues present a shorter timeline than the official deadline for the long-feared, all-out war that many, including Iran, have said would be the start of WWIII in the Middle East.

Feb 24, 2026

∙ Paid

With the State Department ordering non-emergency personnel to leave the US embassy in Lebanon and stealth raptors taking off from the UK toward the Middle East, Trump appears to have already made a decision to strike Iran, or he is very near that decision. He could, of course, be making moves of an immediate attack just to amp up pressure on Iran by making war look certain; however, from what we’ve seen from Trump so far, purely bluffing about moves toward war are not his M.O., and he often makes the decision to start a war ahead of his own final stated deadline in order to capture the element of surprise for the attack if it looks like the deadline is not going to be met.

The partial evacuation of the embassy was said to be “a temporary measure intended to ensure the safety of our personnel.” That indicates a short-term action to get people out of harm’s way inside of Iran’s closest ally capable of launching attacks on Israel in retaliation for any attack on Lebanon’s longtime partner and supporter against Israel. Trump has said that a war with Iran “will be something easily won”—something he also said when he started his trade war with China some 6-7 years ago, back during Trump 1.0. “So easy, just you wait and see.” Still waiting.

While Trump has scheduled a new round of nuclear talks with Iran this Thursday, making it look like an attack will be, at least, that far off, and while Trump gave a fifteen-day deadline for Iran to accept a deal last Thursday, he often does not wait out his own deadlines if he does not see obvious progress being made. To that end, the Trump administration has now made it clear that, so far as they can see, Iran is doing nothing but stalling for time as it has done under other administrations. It is, in their view, not negotiating, but just using the art of negotiation to stall the inevitable.

In a thinly veiled threat, Iran’s Army Chief has warned,

“If the US strikes Tehran, then IRGC will test it’s [sic] first nuclear capabilities during war.”

Is that just saber rattling, or is this their first official admission that they have actually achieved nuclear weapon capability, contrary to their long claim that they were never even working on that?

For about the past week, most folks have noticed a very stark change of political tone by the US and Israel concerning Iran. Quite a number of people who DID notice, made remarks about the US and Israel, saying “They know something” or “They found out something.”
Perhaps the remarks by the Iran Army Chief is what the US/Israel now know. Perhaps Iran already HAS one or more actual, working, nuclear weapons.

If that is the case, the US military will need the element of surprise to make certain it has taken out Iran’s nuclear launch capabilities with the first strike so that Tel Aviv does not get evaporated. That is if Israel and the US have information detailed enough to know where it would need to strike.

Trump has also said that any attack, if it happens, will not be the kind of limited strike that some have suggested:

Trump said Monday that [General] “‘Razin Caine’ is a Great Fighter, and represents the Most Powerful Military anywhere in the World. He has not spoken of not doing Iran, or even the fake limited strikes that I have been reading about. He only knows one thing, how to WIN and, if he is told to do so, he will be leading the pack.”
“Everything that has been written about a potential War with Iran has been written incorrectly, and purposefully so,” Trump added. “I am the one that makes the decision, I would rather have a Deal than not but, if we don’t make a Deal, it will be a very bad day for that Country and, very sadly, its people, because they are great and wonderful, and something like this should never have happened to them.”

It is hard to imagine, if Trump does decide to go to war with Iran, that he would miss the opportunity of making this one about decisive regime change in order to attempt a final solution over a problem the US has wrestled with for decades, especially now that citizens in Iran are protesting their government and asking to have it ousted. Trump already demonstrated to Iran in Venezuela how willing he is to make surprise regime-change moves.

Fred Fleitz, a former chief of staff to the National Security Council, summarizes the situation as follows:

He really would like to make a deal with the regime. He does not want to use military force…. But to date, there has been no interest whatsoever by the Iranian government, no legitimate interest in a deal. They’re trying to drag out the talks [...] They have played previous administrations with endless talks. This did not work with President Trump last June. It’s not going to work now. Lest the Iranians make significant concessions, I think there is going to be a major military strike.

Trump has actually given a strong hint that his timeline may be much shorter than that fifteen days notice he gave as the deadline for Iran. Following the headlines below, I’ll show how much shorter his hint of a shorter timeline is and lay out one major reason to think we are now talking all-out war with Iran before the coming weekend.