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Peace Campaigners Demand Congress Stop Trump From Waging ‘Devastating’ War on Iran
"Like the votes before the Iraq War, this could be one of the most consequential foreign policy decisions in a generation."
Feb 19, 2026
Anti-war groups are turning up the pressure on Congress to support a war powers resolution that would limit President Donald Trump's ability to wage war against Iran.
Amid reports that the US is rapidly mobilizing military hardware to the Middle East, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) announced on Wednesday that they'd attempt to force a House vote on a resolution that would prohibit Trump from striking Iran without congressional authorization.
According to a Thursday conversation between Drop Site News journalist Jeremy Scahill and Robert Malley, a former senior US Middle East envoy and lead negotiator of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Trump's intention to launch a US attack on Iran is nearly a forgone conclusion at this point.
"Part of the strategy being discussed within the administration," said Scahill, based on sources and conversations over recent months, is that Trump and his team are putting an "ultimatum on the table," but there's actually not a belief that a real negotiation over terms is taking place.
"It's not actually playing out in public this way," said Scahill, "but what I understand is that Trump's people are basically saying to the Iranians: 'We're not just going to deal with the nuclear [issues] here. This has to involve ballistic missile capacity. It has to involve your alliances with armed resistance groups [in places like Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and Gaza.]'"
"The Iranians have said these are red lines and they're not going to accept this," he continued. "So it seems like what's happening is that Trump is issuing an ultimatum, they know there is almost zero chance the Iranians are going to take it, and then they're going to bomb them. That's really what I'm hearing from inside sources."
Iran's response to Trump's bombing of three nuclear sites in June was measured, but Iranian officials have signaled they are not going to hold back in the event of a broader US strike.
Fouad Isadi, an Iranian professor with knowledge of the government's inner workings, told Scahill last month that in the event of a large-scale strike by Trump, the military was planning a retaliatory strike aimed at killing at least 500 US soldiers.
"We could see the Iranians really hit hard in a way that blows the Americans away on a psychological level and that Trump hasn't had to deal with before," Scahill said on Thursday. "I assume that President Trump's response would be even more enraged and even more brutal than anything one could imagine."
With hope for a deal between Trump and Iran dimming, anti-war groups are saying that Congress may be the only thing standing in the way of a massive conflict.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) urged Americans to contact their members of Congress to oppose what they called an "Israel First War on Iran," noting the heavy involvement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in pressuring President Donald Trump to pursue an aggressive, uncompromising posture toward Iran.
“We call on all Americans to tell their members of Congress to oppose another US regime change war; we call on the media to ask the tough questions it failed to ask in the march to the Iraq invasion; and we call on the Trump administration to put American interests first—not the interests of Netanyahu’s rogue, warmongering government," CAIR wrote in a statement published Thursday.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker group, told its followers to bombard Congress with messages, warning that "strikes on Iran risk widespread civilian suffering inside Iran and could ignite a catastrophic regional war."
Alix Fraser, vice president of the anti-corruption group Issue One, said Trump's threats to carry out "unilateral military action" against Iran "is not an isolated incident but part of a broader troubling pattern."
"Without consulting Congress, the administration is practicing gunboat diplomacy and has gone so far with it as to bring about regime change in Venezuela," Fraser said. "Rep. Khanna’s and Rep. Massie’s bipartisan war powers Resolution is a good first step, but the problem of Congress ceding its war powers goes back decades."
Medea Benjamin, founder of the anti-war women's group CodePink, said that "regardless of how you feel about Iran’s government, another war in the Middle East would be devastating and avoidable," and put US troops "at grave risk of retaliation."
"We've seen this before in Iraq. We can't let history repeat itself," she said. "The people of Iran, whether they like their government or detest it, are terrified of a US attack."
"Congress must act now," she added. "Like the votes before the Iraq War, this could be one of the most consequential foreign policy decisions in a generation."
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'We Are Sailing to Cuba': Humanitarian Coalition Announces Flotilla to Break US Blockade
"Together, we can break the siege, save lives, and stand up for the cause of Cuban self-determination," said the mission's organizers.
Feb 12, 2026
As the Trump administration tightens an already devastating economic embargo of Cuba by targeting the island's fuel imports in a bid to topple the country's socialist government, a coalition of progressive groups on Thursday announced plans for a flotilla to deliver food, medicine, and other essential supplies to the besieged Cuban people.
Members of Progressive International, CodePink, and other direct action and advocacy groups plan to set sail for Cuba next month in the Nuestra América—or Our America—Flotilla, which they said is inspired by the Global Sumud Flotilla missions to break Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza amid the ongoing genocide in the Palestinian exclave.
"We are sailing to Cuba, bringing critical humanitarian aid for its people," the flotilla organizers said on their website. "The Trump administration is strangling the island, cutting off fuel, flights, and critical supplies for survival. The consequences are lethal, for newborns and parents, for the elderly and the sick."
"That is why we are launching the Nuestra América Flotilla, setting sail from across the Caribbean Sea in solidarity with the Cuban people," the organizers continued. "And we are asking for your support, to help us prepare the mission and purchase the food and medicine that we will bring to the Cuban people."
"Together, we can break the siege, save lives, and stand up for the cause of Cuban self-determination," they added.
The announcement of the flotilla came as the Trump administration ratchets up pressure on Cuba's socialist government by further suffocating the island's economy via an oil embargo similar to the one imposed on Venezuela before last month's US invasion and abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
At the time, President Donald Trump threatened the leaders of Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico that they could be next.
Trump reversed former President Joe Biden's eleventh-hour move in January 2025 to remove Cuba from the US state sponsors of terrorism list, a designation utterly divorced from reality. Trump officials have cited Cuba's baseless inclusion on the list as justification for measures taken against the country's government and people.
The US embargo on Cuba dates to the early 1960s when the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations responded to the successful revolution that overthrew a brutal US-backed dictatorship with a blockade accompanied by a decadeslong campaign of state-sponsored terrorism against the Cuban people that left thousands dead and more than $1 trillion in economic damages, according to the Cuban government.
Every year since 1992—with the exception of the Covid-19 pandemic year of 2020—the United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to condemn and call for an end to the US blockade of Cuba.
Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler told El País' Veronica Garrido Thursday, "The US government is drowning the Cuban people, who are running out of light, have no food, no medicine, no energy."
"I do not exaggerate when I say that we are seeing in Cuba the same playbook that Israel applied to the people of Gaza: an encirclement, an act of collective punishment that violates every aspect of international law,” he continued.
"We hope that [the flotilla] will be a mechanism of popular pressure to the governments of the world that have the responsibility, before international law, to protect the fundamental rights of the Cuban people and export the energy required by the island,” Adler said.
“There is nothing illegal about what we are doing," he added. "We are coming to a sovereign country and delivering humanitarian aid. We are ready to take risks in the name of humanity and the fundamental right of the Cuban people."
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China Reaffirms Vow to Aid Cuba Amid Trump's 'Inhumane' Economic Strangulation
"China firmly supports Cuba in safeguarding national sovereignty and security and opposing external interference," a Beijing spokesperson said.
Feb 11, 2026
As the Trump administration weaponizes its economic privation of the Cuban people in hopes of ousting their socialist government, China on Tuesday reaffirmed its pledge to help alleviate the island's worsening oil shortage.
Emboldened by his recent abduction of socialist Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on legally dubious "narco-terrorism" charges, President Donald Trump is ratcheting up pressure on a people already ravaged by 64 years of what many critics call Washington's "economic terrorism" and decades of actual terrorism committed by US-based right-wing Cuban exiles.
Cut off from the Venezuelan petroleum that provided around 75% of Cuba's imported oil just a few years ago, the island is suffering a worsening energy emergency. The Cuban government has responded by strictly rationing fuel and seeking alternate sources of oil such as Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Russia.
"I would like to stress again that China firmly supports Cuba in safeguarding national sovereignty and security and opposing external interference," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said during a press conference.
"China stands firmly against the inhumane actions that deprive the Cuban people of their right to subsistence and development," he added. "China will, as always, do our best to provide support and assistance to Cuba."
As is usually the case when Washington tightens the screws on Cuba, everyday Cubans are suffering the most.
“You can’t imagine how it touches every part of our lives,” Marta Jiménez, a hairdresser in Cuba’s eastern city of Holguín, told CodePink co-founder and frequent Common Dreams opinion contributor Medea Benjamin, who traveled to Cuba last week with a group to deliver 2,500 pounds of lentils.
“It’s a vicious, all-encompassing spiral downward," Jiménez continued. "With no gasoline, buses don’t run, so we can’t get to work. We have electricity only three to six hours a day. There’s no gas for cooking, so we’re burning wood and charcoal in our apartments. It’s like going back 100 years."
"The blockade is suffocating us—especially single mothers,” she added, “and no one is stopping these demons, Trump and [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio.”
The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly every year but once since 1992 to condemn the US blockade on Cuba. Last October, the UNGA voted 165-7 against the embargo, with 12 abstentions.
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