Drones over Washington - the war against Iran is closer than expected

Unidentified drones have been spotted multiple times over Fort Lesley J. McNair, the Washington military base where Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth live, over the past ten days. Where they came from remains unclear to this day. What followed was a meeting at the White House to assess the situation and a discussion about whether the two ministers should leave the base. So far, they have stayed.

Fort McNair is not an ordinary base. It is conveniently located between Capitol Hill and the White House, houses the National Defense University and senior military officials - but it does not have the same security buffers as other facilities in the region. That Rubio and Hegseth live there has been publicly known since October. That drones are now appearing there while the United States and Israel are attacking Iran is no longer an abstract threat. The context makes it serious. This week, the United States issued a global security alert for all diplomatic posts abroad. Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey and MacDill Air Force Base in Florida - home of U.S. Central Command, which coordinates military operations against Iran - were raised to alert level Charlie. This is the second highest level, it means: an attack is possible. The highest level, Delta, applies when an attack has already occurred or is imminent. MacDill was shut down twice this week - once because of a suspicious package that the FBI is now investigating, once because of an unspecified security incident that brought the base to a standstill for hours.

The Iranian background is not new, but it has intensified. Since the American drone strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020, Iran has pursued the question of retaliation with a persistence that has occupied American intelligence services ever since. During the 2024 election campaign, the security service around Donald Trump encountered unidentified drones multiple times - at a press conference in Los Angeles, during a drive through Pennsylvania. In September 2024, Trump was informed that Iran wanted to kill him and had multiple teams in the country. A direct connection to the assassination attempts at the time was never proven, but it was not ruled out either.

Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, whom Iran holds responsible for the Soleimani strike, were under state protection for years. Trump removed their security in 2025. That Rubio and Hegseth are now living on a base over which drones are circling, whose origin is unknown, while at the same time American and Israeli forces are attacking Iran, fits into a picture that has been forming for years. The war does not only take place where bombs fall. It reaches into the living quarters of those who lead it.