President Trump has been saying that a war against Iran will begin in the next 10 days. Ships, planes, and US troops now surround Iran. Now, according to a report this evening in the New York Times, a final effort at a diplomatic compromise will be made on Thursday at Geneva. Also, according to “informed sources,” some kind of brief military attack on Iran may be made soon. If neither of these events produces Iranian surrender or an acceptable compromise, Trump may put off more serious military action until “later this year.”
A few quick reminders. In 2015 President Obama completed a decades-long effort to arrive at an acceptable settlement that would safeguard Iran’s right (under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968) to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, such as nuclear power or nuclear medicine, while blocking any path to an Iranian nuclear weapon. The agreement of 2015 did this. Trump withdrew the USA from this agreement during his first term, reimposing economic sanctions on Iran. And here we are today.
Second, it is simply illegal under international law and the UN Charter to attack Iran, however briefly, unless Iran is attacking the USA or the UN Security Council says so. This is not happening. Moreover, the US Constitution says that only Congress can declare war. In recent years this is supported by War Powers Resolutions, which require the President to seek approval from Congress. Such a Resolution will be voted on in the House of Representatives next week. Polls show that US voters are overwhelmingly opposed to a war against Iran, and that only 7 percent of Democrats support a war. Yet leaders of the Democratic Party have been silent on the question of war.
While it is hard to know for sure why Trump is doing just about anything, it is clear from the record that support for attacking Iran coming from Democratic Party leaders is because of their commitment to do whatever Israel says needs to be done. This drove the Biden administration’s unconditional support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, thus losing the 2024 election, and it now guides the likes of Senate leader Schumer and House leader Jeffries. As CAIR, the largest Muslim-American group in the US, says: “This latest march to war with Iran has nothing to do with keeping the American people safe, protecting Iranian protesters, or blocking Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons that it is not pursuing and cannot build, according to our own intelligence agencies. This march to war is about risking American lives to topple an adversary of the Israeli government.”
What can we do? As usual, there is very little likelihood of success, but we should do what we can, including learn, educate, and protest. As for some action, Westchester’s Rep. George Latimer is a “strong supporter of Israel” and has made anti-Iran noises since gaining office last year. He was bought and paid for by AIPAC in the 2024 primary election against incumbent Jamaal Bowman to the tune of $19 million. An honest man, and having taken the money, Latimer is unlikely to go against Israel’s interest in setting the USA against Iran. Nevertheless, it is worth reminding him that he is supposed to represent us, not Israel, in Congress, so please give him a call at (202) 225-2464 and ask him to support the War Powers Resolution soon to be voted on in the House of Representatives. Thank you.
SOME ESSAYS ILLUMINATING THIS WEEK
Trump’s War on Iran?
[FB – Several excellent essays assessing the likelihood of Trump’s war on Iran were included in a Substack mailing on Thursday. To see it (again), go here.]
Welcoming the Stranger and Fighting the Power: A Roundup
By Rebecca Solnit, Meditations in an Emergency [February 22, 2026]
---- Resistance is happening in a thousand ways from people destroying Flock cameras to judges upholding the Constitution to the pope once again spurning JD Vance’s advances. Resistance in solidarity with immigrants and others under attack, resistance against surveillance, cruelty, lawlessness. Even Olympic athletes spoke up against the Administration’s policies this week (”I feel heartbroken about what’s happening in the United States,” said freestyle skier Chris Lillis at an Olympics press conference. “I think as a country we need to focus on respecting everybody’s rights.” So did a lot of other people. There’s just so much going on, some of it encouraging. Very encouraging, which is not to lose sight that what it is is encouraging that there is resistance against this would-be authoritarian regime and its attacks on, well, almost everything. This is a roundup of some notable news. [Read More]
(Video) Jesse Jackson Fought for Justice at Home & Abroad: Juan González & Bishop William Barber
From Democracy Now! [February 18, 2026]
---- Tributes are pouring in from across the globe for Reverend Jesse Jackson, who died on Tuesday. The civil rights icon and two-time presidential candidate was 84 years old. Democracy Now!’s Juan González recounts his experience as a reporter visiting Cuba and Puerto Rico alongside Jackson. “Jesse was always there when people were fighting for some form of social justice,” says González. “Of all the U.S. leaders of the past half-century, I believe none had a more international view and a commitment to worldwide social justice as Jesse Jackson did.” Bishop William Barber, president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, met Jackson 40 years ago as a student when he asked to work with Jackson’s student campaign during his 1984 presidential run. Jackson “was somebody that was serious about people uniting to save humanity — PUSHing — that he was serious about an agenda of uplift,” says Barber. [Read More] – ALSO OF INTEREST is “The Left Owes a Lot to Jesse Jackson,” by Peter Dreier, Jacobin Magazine [February 2026] [Link].
How To Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance
By Andy Greenbert and Lily Hay Newman, Wired [February 21, 2026]
---- Rarely in modern US history have so many Americans opposed the actions of the federal government with so little hope for a top-down political solution. That’s left millions of people seeking a bottom-up approach to resistance: grassroots organizing. Yet as Americans assemble their own movements to protect and support immigrants, push back against the Department of Homeland Security’s dangerous incursions into cities, and protest for civil rights and policy changes, they face a federal government that possesses vast surveillance powers and sweeping cooperation from the Silicon Valley companies that hold Americans’ data. That means political, social, and economic organizing presents a risky dilemma. How do you bring people of all ages, backgrounds, and technical abilities into a mass movement without exposing them to monitoring and targeting by a government—and in particular Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, agencies with paramilitary ambitions, a tendency to break the law, and more funding than some countries’ militaries. [Read More]
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY RALLY IN HASTINGS – MARCH 7
International Women’s Day is celebrated around the world to raise up the accomplishments of women and to demand that they are guaranteed real equality and justice. American in origin, International Women’s Day (traditionally celebrated on March 8th) has been especially strong in Europe, though now it’s worldwide. A Women’s Day demo in Russia in 1917 kicked off the Russian Revolution!
THIS YEAR, Women’s Day will be celebrated in hundreds of cities and towns across the USA. As usual, in Hastings, we are rallying at the VFW Plaza (Warburton Ave. and Spring St.). We will have several “featured speakers” and then an “open mic,” so that all who wish to speak can do so. The rally will begin at 12 noon and go until 1:30 pm. To learn more about the rally in Hastings, and to sign up (please), go here.
CFOW NUTS & BOLTS
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Weather permitting we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) The Northwest Yonkers Neighbors for Black Lives Matter holds a Monday afternoon vigil at 5:30 pm at the corner of Warburton Ave and Odell. The CFOW newsletter can be read on Substack, and is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook group. Another Facebook group focuses on the climate crisis. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. If you would like to support our work by making a CONTRIBUTION, please make out your check to “Frank Brodhead,” write “CFOW” on the memo line, and send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks.
REWARDS!
In his 1776 essay, “A Declaration of Independence,” Thomas Jefferson referenced the inalienable right of all humans “to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The right to pursue happiness has been seriously compromised recently, but last week stalwart newsletter readers may have enjoyed this right – or can enjoy it now – in this video of the fabulous figure skating of Alysa Liu, gold medalist at the Winter Olympics. Makes me happy. You?
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ARTICLES & ESSAYS
An American Lynched in the West Bank
By Jasper Nathaniel, Infinite Jaz [February 22, 2026]
[FB – Jasper Nathaniel is from Hastings. He writes from and about Palestine’s West Bank. Check out (and subscribe!) to his Substack.]
---- On Wednesday, in the small Palestinian shepherding village of Mukhmas, a masked Jewish settler armed with an M16 shot and killed a 19-year-old Philadelphia native named Nasrallah Abu Siyam. It’s highly likely that the gun was supplied by the United States. At least four other local Palestinians were wounded by settler gunfire during the invasion of the village, including another young man whose foot may be amputated. Some were shot while carrying the wounded to safety. Many others were severely beaten with metal rods. Israeli soldiers, who accompanied the settlers into the village, responded to the shooting rampage by firing stun grenades and tear gas into the residential area, burning an elderly man. When it was over, settlers walked off with more than 300 of the village’s sheep and goats under the military’s watch. It was the first full day of Ramadan. As of this writing, no one has been arrested. Two days after the attack, I spoke with eight young men who had been there, several of them injured, some among those who carried Nasrallah to a car and drove him toward the hospital. [Read More]
Ukraine Has Passed a Point of No Return
By M. Gessen, New York Times [February 22, 2026]
---- This is the most painful irony forced by the war. Ukrainians rose up against Russian aggression in order to protect their democracy — by any measure, one of the most vibrant and robust in the post-Soviet space. But over four years of martial law, military censorship, suspended elections, and mobilization both legal and psychological, Ukraine has become progressively less democratic. This was part of Russia’s goal. In the course of the war, I’ve heard Ukrainians talk less about democracy. It’s understandable: This is a war for independence, and everything else is secondary. But in many ways, Ukrainians have never been less independent from Russia. It’s Russia that determines when and if Ukrainians sleep, whether they can move through their cities and whether they have running water, light and heat. [Read More] - ALSO OF INTEREST - “A Bitter Winter in Ukraine,” by Tim Judah, New York Review of Books [March 12, 2026 issue] [Link].
Macroeconomics is the driver, not median voters.
By Thomas Ferguson, Boston Review [February 3, 2026\
---- It is obvious that Democrats cannot win a majority again without being a “big tent” party, in principle open to anyone who supports their platform; they will want to reach out to Republicans, including business groups, and they will need to raise money. But they cannot rely on opposition to Trump and simple support for “democracy.” As [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren recently stressed, building a big tent does not require a “tepid, nibble-around-the-edges approach” that flatters billionaires. Unless Democrats offer a message far stronger than anything they have in a long time—unless, in Warren’s words, they “aggressively challenge the status quo” and “chart a clear path for big, structural change,” especially on the economic front—they will remain easy targets for caricature. Promoting a Whig revival around democracy and Obamacare tweaks, supply-side tinkering and free trade, or abundance-by-deregulation, jobs, AI wonders, and all the rest risks cementing their status as a permanent minority party. … The resulting “K-shaped” economy is now attracting much wider attention. But its political implications are not: that the affordability crisis is hitting a much wider swath of the public than in 2016, when Sanders made such a strong run. It is not at all clear that the many millions of Americans now under pressure are not a base for a much stronger challenge than then. [Read More]
THE WAR ON PALESTINE
(Video) What’s next for Gaza after Trump’s Board of Peace meets in Washington?From Aljazeera [“Inside Story”] [February 20, 2026]
---- Donald Trump’s Board of Peace meets for the first time – pledging money, peacekeeping troops and investment for Gaza. Only one Palestinian was present, and major European nations remain wary. So, what did the gathering mean for the people of Gaza? Guests include Rami Khouri and Gideon Levy. [See the Program].
The Disappearance of Palestine?
By John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus [February 11, 2026]
---- By some measures, the Palestinian bid for statehood has never been stronger. By the end of last year, at least 157 countries had recognized the state of Palestine, which represents slightly more than 80 percent of the world’s nations. Some of those countries are quite powerful, such as China, India, Indonesia, the UK, France, Australia, and Russia. Palestine is a member of the International Criminal Court, UNESCO, the Group of 77. … And yet, the territory that could be included in such a state is disappearing like sand in an hourglass. What’s happening today in both Gaza and the West Bank is a deliberate effort by the Israeli government to change the facts on the ground and make any “two-state solution” a territorial impossibility. Palestine is disappearing in another sense as well. What was once a unifying goal for countries in the Middle East—siding with the powerless in an effort to create a state—has been replaced by an overriding desire to make deals with powerful countries, the United States chief among them. In the scrum of Donald Trump’s mano a mano diplomacy, Palestinians simply don’t have the leverage to gain a meaningful position. As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney memorably stated in Davos last month, if you’re not at the table in these carnivorous times, then you’re on the menu. [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “Israel’s not-so-subtle Push to Annex the Entire Palestinian West Bank,” by Ranjan Solomon, Middle East Monitor [February 19, 2026] [Link]; and “Trump officials plan to build 5,000-person military base in Gaza, files show,” by Aram Roston and Cate Brown, The Guardian [UK] [February 19, 2026] [Link].
WAR ON IRAN?
Iran-US tensions: What would blocking Strait of Hormuz mean for oil, LNG?
From Aljazeera [February 22, 2026]
---- The curved waterway lies between Iran to the north and Oman and the United Arab Emirates to the south. It is roughly 50km (31 miles) wide at its entrance and exit and narrows to about 33km (20 miles) at its tightest point. It forms the only maritime link between the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Despite its narrow width, the channel accommodates the world’s largest crude carriers. Major Middle Eastern oil and gas exporters rely on it to move supplies to international markets while importing nations depend on its uninterrupted operation. [Read More]
WAR ON CUBA?
The Cuban Revolution Holds Out Against US Imperialism
By Vijay Prashad, Counterpunch [February 20, 2026]
---- In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council—which permits sanctions under strict conditions—the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba. … Trump’s savage policy has effectively cut off much of Cuba’s oil imports, which has created a major energy crisis on the island of eleven million people. There are rolling blackouts, fuel shortages for hospitals, water systems, and transportation, and rationing of electricity. [Read More]. – ALSO OF INTEREST - “Trump Is Using Mexico’s Oil to Put the Squeeze on Cuba,” by Kurt Hackbarth, Jacobin Magazine [February 2026] [Link].
THE EPSTEIN CRIMES
(Video) Carole Cadwalladr on Epstein Fallout: As U.K. Arrests Ex-Prince, Where is the Accountability in U.S.?
From Democracy Now! [February 20, 2026]
---- British police released former Prince Andrew on Thursday after 11 hours in custody, with his shocking arrest earlier in the day making him the first senior British royal to be arrested in nearly 400 years. Police are probing his connections to the deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein and whether he shared classified government information with him while serving as a U.K. trade representative from 2001 to 2011. King Charles’ brother, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after being stripped of his royal title, is the most high-profile figure in the U.K. to be implicated in a widening scandal over ties to Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking. Authorities did not reference sexual abuse allegations against Mountbatten-Windsor or Epstein’s sex trafficking case; Mountbatten-Windsor settled a lawsuit with Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre in 2022 and has denied all wrongdoing. Investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr says this week’s arrest feels like a “rupture” in British society because the royals are seen as “sacrosanct” and rarely subjected to such treatment. “And in America, what are we seeing? We’re seeing this sort of culture of complete impunity, where it appears the law is not equal, where there are people who are above it.” [See the Program]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “The Israeli Government Installed and Maintained Security System at Epstein Apartment,” by Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain, Drop Site News [February 18, 2026] [Link]; and “The Ex-Prince and the President,” by David Cay Johnston, DC Report [February 20, 2026] [Link].
THE CLIMATE CRISIS
The Men Who Sold the World
By Trevor Jackson, New York Review of Books [February 20, 2026]
---- Social disaster is becoming increasingly affordable. On February 12 the Trump administration rescinded the Endangerment Finding, a 2009 EPA determination that “the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases…in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.” For more than sixteen years the finding had required the EPA, under the Clean Air Act, to track, report, and limit climate-heating pollution from cars and trucks. Its repeal removes the scientific and legal basis that allows the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles, the largest source of emissions. … The administration’s move is clearly motivated by fossil fuel profits and ideological commitment. But these disputes over dollars, costs, benefits, taxes, and savings are focused on what economists call “externalities.” These are things, both good and bad, that are not represented by the price of a market transaction. The price of a scone doesn’t capture the pleasant smell of a bakery to its neighbors; the price at the pump doesn’t capture the environmental degradation produced by burning a gallon of gas. [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES
(Video) Courts Have Ruled 4,400+ Times That ICE Jailed People Illegally; Despite Rebukes, ICE Keeps Doing It
From Democracy Now! [February 19, 2026]
---- Following violent and indiscriminate sweeps of immigrant communities across the United States, the number of people in ICE detention has increased 75% since President Trump returned to the Oval Office. Yet, as the number of lawsuits against the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign skyrockets, the federal government has continued to jail people indefinitely. Although judges across the U.S. have handed down more than 4,400 rulings of illegal detentions of immigrants since October, very few of these rulings have been acted upon. Reuters reporter Brad Heath says the unprecedented “pile-up” of tens of thousands of cases is straining the capacity of the rapidly shrinking staff at the Department of Justice and further delaying the release of immigrants from ICE [Read More] - ALSO OF INTEREST is (Video) “Mohsen Mahdawi, Palestinian Columbia Student Targeted by Trump, Hails Court Ruling Blocking Deportation” from Democracy Now! [February 20, 2026] [Link].
THE STATE OF THE UNION
AI and the Economy: A Losing Bet for Working People
By Marty Hart-Landsberg, Znet [February 22, 2026]
---- Tech billionaires and the Trump administration, with the apparent support of most of the capitalist class, are betting big on artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, AI investments have become the primary driver of US economic growth. But this is a losing bet for us. The AI boom is not sustainable. And because it is delivering little of value, unbalancing our economy, intensifying our ecological crisis, and threatening the quality and responsiveness of our social institutions, the longer it goes on, the greater the harm done, and the more difficult will be the task of economic and social renewal. … The AI boom will end. But it would be a mistake for us to just wait for that to happen. It could take years, and every year it continues, we pay a price. The massive investment in generative AI and its data center infrastructure is drawing funds away from areas of greater social importance, leaving our economy ever more unbalanced and incapable of responding to our needs. [Read More]. - ALSO OF INTEREST - “ICE tripled its reliance on Microsoft in last six months, leaked files reveal,” by Yuval Abraham, +972 Magazine [Israel/Palestine] [February 17, 2026] [Link].
OUR HISTORY
Is “Voter Fraud” the Most Dangerous Political Lie in American History?
By Thom Hartmann, The Hartman Report [February 11, 2026]
---- Donald Trump has made good use of the propaganda technique known as the Big Lie, famously claiming that the 2020 “election was stolen” from him. And now he’s preparing to use one of the GOP’s favorite perennial Big Lies to disrupt this November’s midterm elections. … Republicans have been using this lie to attack the heart of our democracy right out in the open ever since the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, the year they responded by rolling out Operation Eagle Eye, yelling about nonexistent “illegal alien voter fraud” and using it as an excuse to intimidate minority voters in the Goldwater/Johnson race. … Most countries don’t even have what we call voter registration, because they don’t need or want a system to try to cut back on the number of people who can vote. Like with Social Security here, when you’re born you’re put on the list (which is also usually the list for their national healthcare system and their equivalent of Social Security), and when you turn 18 you can vote. In many democracies, particularly across Europe, they simply mail you a ballot and you vote by mail. Everybody who’s on the list gets one. As I document in The Hidden History of the War on Voting, in all the years since the 1960s when Republicans began this continuous and relentless attack on American voting rights claiming that “voter fraud” was happening in Black and Hispanic communities across America, our media has been totally asleep at the switch. … Expect this “voter fraud” Big Lie to burst onto the scene over the next few weeks with much sturm and drang — and pontificating Republicans on Sunday shows trying to act like Very Serious People as they wring their hands about non-citizens voting — as the media will almost certainly give Trump and the GOP another pass on this monstrous lie when they threaten to shut down our government this weekend over ICE funding. [Read More]
Paths of Resistance [World War II Germany]
By Joshua Hammer, New York Review of Books [March 12, 2026 issue]
---- The individuals who challenged the Third Reich knew that they were almost certainly doomed to failure. The Gestapo, with its network of informants, ubiquitous surveillance, and merciless use of torture, proved ruthlessly effective at rooting out opposition. And yet many risked everything to defy the regime. What does it take to rouse oneself from complacency to engagement? Why hazard imprisonment, unimaginable pain, and death when passivity and silence offer a far safer course? In an era characterized by growing authoritarianism and the dehumanization of some of society’s most vulnerable, such questions have taken on new urgency. A number of recent books underscore the eternal fascination of the resistance to Nazi evil. It took place not just in the offices and salons of Berlin and Munich but also in the ghettos and concentration camps of occupied Europe, where the oppressed engaged in acts of quiet rebellion and sometimes rose violently against their oppressors. [Read More]
