Scott Ritter: Trump’s Iran Strategy is a Total Disaster – Global Economy on the Brink

I think the things I said to you were have been borne out. Um uh first of all, as a regime change operation, we have failed. I mean, the whole purpose of this was regime change. And um instead, what we've done is empower this uh the Iranian uh regime more than one could ever have imagined. Uh if the goal of killing Ali Kaman was to get Iranians in the street, we succeeded. Millions of Iranians are in the street today mourning his loss. Uh there's never been more support in Iran for the Iranian government. And the more we bomb Iran, the stronger that support gets. I want to remind people about uh the impact of the strategic bombing campaign against Germany uh during the Second World War. Um it didn't break the will of the Germans. It actually made the Germans more resistant and more resilient and more effective in their production. Uh actually the production of German fighters increased under bombing because they came up with new and better ways to do this. Uh the same is true with the Iranians. The Iranians have been preparing for this conflict for um for over 20 years since 2005 when Dick Cheney first threatened them with an existential war. Um and the preparations are played out. Iran, there is no uh escalatory ladder here. They've gone straight for the jugular. Um they are destroying the American military infrastructure in the Middle East. They are destroying the American diplomatic infrastructure in the Middle East. Uh they are um you know punishing Israel in ways that Israel could not imagine. Uh they're punishing Gulf Arab nations. They have shut down the straight or Hormuz. Uh for the first time Qatar, the world's major uh natural gas producer has declared force majour. They're not shipping um uh energy. Lloyds of London won't ensure ships going through the straight horm. Saudi Arabia has had its critical oil infrastructure attacked and these attacks are expanding. United Arab Emirates have seen their safety valve, a pipeline that bypasses straight was attacked. Uh Iran has made it clear that not one barrel of energy will transit out of uh the Persian Gulf, which means this is the end of the global economy if this uh if this continues. And so this is victory for Iran. Iran is winning this war. Let there be no doubt about that. Um the buildings that are being bombed by the United States and Israel are empty buildings. As I said, Iran has been preparing for this conflict. And if you think for a second that Iran has left critical manufacturing capacity inside a building to be bombed by the United States and Israel, then you don't understand the fact of what I just said. Iran has been preparing for this conflict for 20 years. The the material inside these buildings have been moved out and hidden in places where we don't know where they are and we can't reach. Um, so we're blowing up empty buildings. But as I was told by uh an Iraqi general the last time we got involved in one of these lengthy uh Middle East conflicts, um he said, "Mr. Scott, you Americans are really good at blowing up buildings." And he said, "And we Iraqis are really good at pouring concrete. But the difference is that when you blow up a building that's empty, and when our concrete cures, we put the material back in, and we're right back to where we started. You have accomplished nothing." And I'm here to tell you right now, this campaign is just making things worse. I will will say this. We did bomb a site today that is going to have strategic uh as perhaps even greater strategic consequence than killing Ali Kame. Today the 88 member uh assembly of experts met in K. The assembly of experts is a democratically elected body of theologians and uh theologians and people whose job it is to monitor uh the work of the um the supreme leader when the supreme leader is no longer there to replace him. and they were voting on a new supreme sup supreme leader today when either Israel, the United States, or both bombed the building. We don't know the fate of this uh assembly. But I can tell you this, if you want to encourage Iran to produce a nuclear weapon, bomb the assembly of experts as they pick the next supreme leader. Um Iran has openly said that they retain 450 kgs of 60% enriched uranium. We don't know where it is. Iran has probably also uh sequestered um at least one perhaps more 164 centuge cascades which they can use to turn that 60% into 92 94%. And we know that Iran has claimed that they had everything necessary to build a warhead capable of delivering a nuclear weapon on one of their missiles minus the fizzile core. Uh if we want to have a nuclear war with Iran, we're pretty much guaranteeing that outcome because we killed the one man who said no to a nuclear weapon, Al Kane. He's the one who issued two fatwas that said Iran will not pursue these under any circumstance. He's now dead. Theologian who sits on the threeperson council that replaced him is a man who was openly articulated in favor of a nuclear weapon. Now, he could have been held back, restrained by the assembly of experts who could have elected a new supreme leader who shared uh the the the the thinking of Ali Kam, but they've been killed. So, I can pretty much guarantee you that when they reassemble the the assembly of experts, they will not be inclined to continue a uh a passive stance in regard to nuclear war. the the the the leading theologians had advised Kaman that under existential conditions the fatwas could be reversed that it wasn't against Islamic juristp prudence to build a nuclear weapon if that nuclear weapon could be used to deter forces which are seeking to destroy the Islamic Republic those forces are at play today played out by the bombing of the assembly experts. Oh yes, we know they are running low. Um uh and and this is why on day three, Donald Trump, actually on day two, Donald Trump is changing the war plan. This is why he had to meet with his war planners who said, "We're we're we're done. We've we've shot our load. We're we're facing imminent disaster. We need to we don't have any more weapons." And then he was advised by Pete Hegth, oh no, we have we we have some more um you know, we have global stockpiles. Well, so they're drawing down right now from South Korea and Japan, uh, taking FAD missiles, taking Patriot missiles, uh, from the war fighting stocks there, which means that when you go to the National Security Strategy document promulgated by the Trump administration this past November, that said that our primary mission um, militarily is to have conventional military overmatch with the Chinese in the first island chain, second island chain against Taiwan. Um, basically now we're stripping bare that conventional overmatch. We're weakening ourselves in the Pacific in order to sustain the fight in the Middle East. But here's another critical point because it's not just Israel and the United States that are running out of this. For instance, United Arab Emirates about $2 billion worth of Americanmade anti-missile defense system. They're running out and they are sending an emergency call to the United States saying we need more. Now remember the United Arab Emirates together with Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, um, Qatar and others have been operating under a security umbrella from the United States where the United States has promised that Iran will never threaten them so long as the United States is in in in position that the United States is their true friend, their true ally. Well, Iran's blowing the hell out of these people right now, blowing the hell out of American bases. And America has been proven to be a paper tiger. They can't protect these nations. But now these nations need more ballistic missile defense. So, the United States is stripping bare its Pacific front and where are they sending these missiles? Not to the Gulf Arab states, to Israel. Um, and this is the ultimate insult because these Gulf Arab states who were told that America is their true friend, the true ally, are finding out the reality that the only true friend and ally the United States has is Israel and the United States will abandon everybody else and this is going to create political problems for the president down the road. Um, again, I mean, I say no. Um, I don't have access to the intelligence, but what I can say is this, that the Iranians have been preparing for this very fight for 20 years. And the notion I just want to remind people in your audience, because I I know I'm not supposed to read the comments, but every once a glimpse at it, and I see some people who are repeating some of the Israeli propaganda where the Israelis say that uh they've they've taken uh Iran down to their last 12 launchers. Well, count the number of missiles that are fired from Iran, and I guarantee you it's more than 12. Uh so right off the bat that math doesn't work. But you know when I was in the Gulf of Desert Storm, we were trying to um you know interdict Iran Iraq's ability to fire uh missiles into Israel and Saudi Arabia. We had assessed that Iran Iraq had 19 mobile launchers. Uh by the end of the first week and a half we had destroyed 64. Yes, you heard me. 64. which means we weren't destroying mobile launchers because first of all the Iraqis continued to fire high volumes of missiles indicating there was no meaningful intervention. Uh the fog of war is absolute. You always have military people who believe they're accomplishing more than they're actually accomplishing. And for political reasons they tend to produce reports that are designed to appease their political masters, not to speak reality. Um, I can pretty much guarantee you that the Iranians have many, many more launchers than 12 and that we haven't even begun to tickle their stockpiles of missiles. We may have blown up some um whether or not the Iranians offered them up as decoys uh to to absorb uh American um you know, military capability or whatever, but Iran will continue to fire missiles for a lot longer than we can continue to defend ourselves from missiles. And then the other thing is the ignorance of this president. He tends to believe that we can replace the Iranian government. We can't. Iran is a functioning constitutional republic. I know the United States isn't because we have this narcissistic cult of personality in place instead of a president who adheres to the Constitution. We have a Congress that absolutely is punted on its responsibility regarding war powers. And we have a Supreme Court that has been mocked and belittled and ignored by this president. So, we don't function as a nation that adheres to checks and balances as required by Federalist Paper 51. um you know so so we we're James Madison wrote that down the danger of giving the president so much powers is that it can become a tyranny but to offset is we have checks and balances but we don't have checks and balances anymore Iran does Iran functions as a constitutional republic and uh we will will continue to function so the notion of us picking a replacement is absurd Iran will pick the replacement and Iran's replacement will be somebody who uh operates in defense of the Islamic Republic. And this is the defeat. There will not be regime change in Iran. This president is simply smoking dope because we realized that the regime change fantasy that we had wasn't going to work. We realized that by killing Ali Kame, all we did is enrage the Iranian people. And we realized that the Iranians had a plan that was better than our plan. Uh we realize that should this conflict go on Iran will [ __ ] the global economy by shutting the straight or moves and attacking the critical energy infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, United Airlines Qatar. Um I mean look at in Europe right now uh the price of gasoline has doubled in England. The price of liquor the price of natural gas in Europe is spiking and it's going to go even higher. This is the end of the European economy. They can't afford to go on. We need to avoid this. So we were reaching out. We also the president realized that we have insufficient resources to accomplish his mission and so that we were looking for the easy way out. Uh but again this president is just a known liar. It's just a natural-born liar. He says that they are in contact with the Iranians. They are not in contact with the Iranians. The Iranians did not reach out to the United States. Ali Lani, the man who is responsible for taking over the functions of the supreme leader that was handed to him before the war began uh has said there will be no negotiations. No, this is an existential struggle for survival for Iran. They are playing for keeps here. They're not playing stupid games. The president only plays stupid games. He doesn't know anything else. We go nuclear. Does Iran go nuclear? Does the world end? Um because [clears throat] thinks that this conflict can be contained in the Middle East is is crazy, >> right? I think Madison also wrote Federalist 10, which talks about factionalism and the danger of factionalism. And of course, that's what we have right now in the United States. We don't have uh political parties anymore. We have factions. Uh and as a result, we have the it's impossible now to get bipartisan agreement on anything. You're either MAGA or you're not. Uh factionalism. And that's the death of the republic as well. Um Madison was a very wise man. Um, I wish more people would familiarize themselves with uh Madison's writing and the writing of all the people who wrote not only the federalist papers but the anti-federalist papers because the anti-federalist papers gave us the bill of rights. But most Americans are unfamiliar with that because most Americans are unfamiliar with the constitution and therefore most Americans remain, you know, silent in the face of the absolute collapse of what America's supposed to be. This president has lied to us from the very beginning. This were going to attack and therefore we knew that if Israel attacked Iran would respond by attacking us. So we had to preempt the Iranian response to the Israeli attack. But he lied because the decision for this war was made when Benjamin Netanyahu came to the United States. Uh you might recall that we were talking about a potential divide between Israel and the United States and I said there is no divide that the United States and Israel are one mind. the president has agreed to execute this attack against Iran. Um, and that the date was set because I've talked about the the flow of logistics. It creates its own momentum that cannot be ignored. So, they pointed on the map and they said, "This is the day we're going to bomb." And then the president right after Netanyahu left immediately initiated diplomatic outreach. The purpose of Woodco and and Kushner was to create a diplomatic front that could buy time until the day of the bombing began. And once again, we've committed an act of perity, hiding behind a white flag of diplomacy in order to shield a surprise attack, a stab in the back. Um, this is a regime change operation that's promagated on lies. The lies of an Iranian nuclear threat. We know Tulsi Gabbert said there is no Iranian nuclear threat. One of the reasons why she articulated that was because she knew the stance taken by Ali Kam uh in his two fatwas. But we also know that the Iranians signed a deal were ready to sign a deal that gave up any potential of them possessing a nuclear weapon. That 450 kgs of 60% enriched uranium was put on the table promising to dilute it down under the supervision of not just the IAEA inspectors but American inspectors. The Iranians agreed to allow American inspectors back in, something that they have never allowed. So, the Iranians bent over backwards to do everything necessary to ensure that they would verifiably uh not be able to pursue a nuclear weapons program in perpetuity. This there were no sunset clauses. There were nothing. That was the end of it. So, if this was about Iran's nuclear weapons, then we clearly or potential for nuclear weapons, we clearly had a solution. No, this was about regime change. Re That's all it was about. And we have failed. We failed the first m six missiles that hit Tyrron. When we murdered Ali Kame and his 14month old granddaughter, um we sealed our own fate because we guaranteed that the people of Iran would r look at the streets of Iran now filled with mourners. Millions of mourners mourning the loss of a man who is who they view as a martyr now. Um and when we speak of the Shia faith, I know Donald Trump doesn't know anything about Shiism. It doesn't know anything about what 12 or faction of Shia is. He doesn't know who Ali is. He doesn't know who Hassan is. He doesn't know who Hussein is. He doesn't know what the battle of Karbala is. But um Ali Kaman now is revered as a martyr, as a saint along line with Ali Hassan Hussein. Um and these deeply religious people who populate the Islamic Republic of Iran are will now die for this cause. I have to be guarded in what I say here because uh but I I've had conversations with uh people in Russia who are um in a position to know things >> and the the feeling right now is that uh Donald Trump is insane um and that u he just can't be trusted at all. Um, the Kuriel Demitri of Steve Whit uh, you know, bro, brochip, friendship, whatever you want to call it, uh, is not just stymied, but dead. Um, because, uh, Witco can't be trusted. Um, he's been exposed as a liar. Uh, the Russians are a gasast at what has happened here because it basically means the United States cannot be trusted. that all of the worst fears. For instance, uh the Russians have been trying to explain away the fact that Donald Trump was on a phone call with Vladimir Putin while the Ukrainians sent 91 CIA directed drones to assassinate their president. They've been trying to pretend that Trump had nothing to do with that, that this was a mistake, etc. Well, it wasn't a mistake. They now know that Donald Trump is fully capable of perity of hiding behind the the shield of diplomacy while he tries to kill you. and he tried to kill the Russian president. Uh this is a reality that's being reluctantly embraced. You see Sergey Lavrov start to talk about this uh reing the notion of uh spirit of Alaska. Um look, I'm supposed to go to Russia later this month and uh I've been trying to uh organize panels to discuss, you know, things of this nature. I was told by Russians that uh they're hesitant because of the anti-Trump stance that I've taken. I'm sorry. I'm I'm not anti-Trump. I'm just pro constitution. The fact that Trump is so against the Constitution places that the way. But they're very nervous about working with me because they felt that I would somehow undermine the spirit of Alaska. I don't think the spirit of Alaska exists anymore. I think the Russians are woken up. But it's not just Russia. Vlad uh Donald Trump is supposed to be with X Jinping in April. Um how can the Chinese even begin to trust this man? How can anybody trust this man? How can anybody trust the United States? We have lost all credibility. We have zero credibility. We can't be trusted in anything. And um this is this is what Donald Trump has done. Don't call it Trump's uh derangement syndrome. I see people out there saying this. That's absurd. Be honest. Be objective. This is an insane man who has created a cult of personality. Look at the banner that was dropped at the at the Department of Justice. And then compare that with uh Harry Potter in the Deathly Hallows where the Minister of Magic drops his own banner as he took over dictatorial. I hate to bring up movies and I hate to bring up Harry Potter, but it's the one that resonates because I just watched it with my family. Um but this is a cult of personality. This isn't what the United States is about. We're we're we're supposed to be the furthest thing removed from this. But this is what we have become a cult of personality where what Donald Trump thinks is paramount. It's more important than anything else. We're being told by people that this man plays 4 D chess. This man couldn't even play 1D checkers and uh and we're now supposed to give him the ability to maneuver things around and, you know, spock the world out and and all this stuff. This man is truly the most ignorant man that's ever occupied the White House. He knows nothing about the world we live in. He knows nothing about military affairs. He knows nothing about the economy. He is a morally weak, morally compromised person, intellectually weak person who is susceptible to the last whisper in his ear. And that's what makes him very dangerous because he has surrounded himself with sycopants and people who are more loyal to the state of Israel than they are to the American constitution. And these are the people whispering in his ear and as a result found oursel in a death trap in Iran.

In this explosive analysis, Scott Ritter breaks down the catastrophic failure of recent US and Israeli operations aimed at regime change in Iran. He argues that the assassination of Ali Khamenei and the strikes on the Assembly of Experts have backfired, uniting the Iranian people and pushing the nation toward an inevitable nuclear breakout. Ritter warns that Donald Trump is leading the US into a strategic death trap, stripping military assets from the Pacific and leaving the global economy vulnerable to a total collapse. As the Strait of Hormuz closes and American credibility vanishes, Ritter explores why the "Spirit of Alaska" with Russia is dead and why the world no longer trusts Washington. This is a chilling look at the reality of a Middle East conflict that the United States is currently losing. #Scott Ritter #Donald Trump #Iran War #Geopolitics #Global Economy #Middle East Crisis #Nuclear Escalation #US Foreign Policy #Scott Ritter Analysis #Scott Ritter Interview