President Donald Trump met on Thursday with his so-called "Board of Peace," an unofficial gathering of countries willing to pay to have control over post-war Gaza. The meeting comes as Trump sends an increase in military presence around the Middle East.
Politico's morning newsletter was updated after Trump's speech, welcoming the paid members to his first peace meeting, where, according to "Playbook," the "real backdrop is the growing drumbeat of war."
"There are layers of irony here. First — where better to host a peace summit than the 'Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute for Peace,' a building forcibly seized by the administration and renamed in the president’s honor following a bitter power struggle last year? (A federal judge deemed the takeover illegal, though that ruling was stayed pending appeal)," Politico reported.
Sources told Axios that Trump is plotting a "massive, weeks-long" military operation that "would look more like full-fledged war than last month's pinpoint operation in Venezuela."
“The number of fighter planes, aerial refuelers and surveillance planes that have arrived over the past three to four days is immense,” said Politico's Paul McLeary. “Dozens of F-35s, F-16s and F-15Es have moved from the U.S. to the Middle East and the U.K. Several F-22s used in Venezuela last month have also been moved to the U.K., putting them in range for strikes inside Iran. We also sent RC-135 Rivet Joint intelligence aircraft, E-3 Sentry Airborne Early Warning and Control systems and E-11 Battlefield Airborne Communications Node aircraft. It’s staggering.”
The newsletter cited the WSJ report, calling it the largest air-power buildup in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.