Ritter is known for his excitability (I say that as a fan), and I really think he needs to calm down on this one. There is absolutely no chance that the USA would use nukes in a first strike. The consequences for the US would be unknowable, and highly deleterious - just for starters, it would also be nuking the non-proliferation treaty. The USA has shredded its soft power in support of Israeli genocide for the previous 18 months, and cavalier use of nukes in an act of blatant aggression, against a non-nuclear state, would finish the job - forever. I could, just conceivably, see the USA panicking & threatening to loose a few off, in the event of a carrier going down, but even in that extreme scenario, it seems to me to be beyond all rationality. I think it’s just Trump bully-bluster. Just like he tried with Kim Jong Un - didn’t work there either. Let’s face it, if America was ever going to attack Iran, it was going to be in the noughties, when it occupied the countries on either side, the USA was much stronger than it is now, and Iran was much weaker than it is now. Also, given that the USA demonstrably cannot be trusted to live up to ANY agreement it ever signed, with anyone, how would this one be different? Furthermore, is Ritter really suggesting that Iran giving up its nuclear industry, would be the end of demands made upon it? Won’t the very next thing be a demand to give up its missile stocks and production, and then its support for the axis of resistance? Iran should stick the finger up to Trump, then it’s a Zugswang for him. Iran needs to remember what happened to Carthage, when it ran out of road giving in to Rome’s escalating demands.
After the Ukraine debacle, the Empire is teetering on the edge. Could be that Iran will be the one to give it a little push, and over it goes. God bless Iran, and Godspeed!
- More and more governments (/regimes) have moved / are moving to the political ultra right wing / fascist / ultra nationalistic side of "the political spectrum". The US & Israel are only two of those examples.
The US are not two examples, there are the most extreme examples: the most malignant and murderous examples. For nearly 25 years now, these ghoouls have been steadily and SYSTEMATICALLY MASS-killing African and arabs, mostly muslims, by the hundreds of thousands,
- Agree. that's why I think it will be a good thing that e.g. the US economy could / will shrink by say 20 or 30%. Then the US will have to get rid of tits military and then the world will become a much more peaceful place.
- It's my assumption that WITHOUT US meddling in the Middle East that region would have seen - at least - 50% less violence in the past say 70 years. And it's the US tax payer and the rest of the world who is paying for those wars. Think: PETRODOLLAR.
- But I was talking about the US and Israel themselves. And this is NOT a "religious issue" or "cultural issue". It's ALWAYS an "Economic / financial issue". Then people are getting desparate and think a strong leader will sort things out for them and help them. But instead these strong men are getting more and more authoritarian and rarely have the good of the nation at heart. They only think of their own pocketbook and their profits.
Mate,these people are running a judeochristian crusdade. A deadly one. Dont fool yourself. Necon zionists and the pharisee christian right, have in collaboration have killed more people across the world than ISIS ever could:
That is what fascism is - its combination of cultural supremacist crusade and profit.
You'd better go an look at the national budgets of the US and Israel: these are rampant armies masquerading as countries. What they have are subjects, and conscripts, not citizens.
- But there are more countries than the US & Israel that have moved to ultra nationalism. Countries like Hungary.
- Ultra Nationalism puts A LOT OF emphasis on cultural identity. One Jason Stanley (Harvard ????) has written A LOT about that. And that comes inevitably with an urge to wage war with the one or other country.
The reality Scott Ritter is ignoring is that this is not about nuclear weapons. Iran has never invaded another country nor has it ever even used its own considerable conventional missile forces for any offensive purpose.
If we are concerned about nuclear weapons and malicious countries, then we would be concerned that Israel, which is paranoid, has invaded every single one of its neighbours and is CURRENTLY committing genocide against palestinians...has nuclear weapons!
Futhermore its is ALREADY the policy of the US government to lay waste to and destroy arab and african and middle eastern countries
Countries that not...coincidentally....have heavily muslim populations.
So the problem here is not about Iran possibly having nuclear weapons. Its about Iran EXISTING as a cohesive muslim majority country.
I dont know what it will take for Scott Ritter to admit the obvious. Well the way this administration is, it wont be long before Hegseth appears with white robes and a red cross on a horse. Hell, he might even throw on a hood too. Perhaps that's what it will take before people like Ritter admit the blindingly obvious.
China would not help deter a Nuclear attack against Iran is worth questioning. If one follows the logic that Russia and China are the next targets after Iran, then they may regard this as existential for themselves.
If China especially, allowed this then then all of their economic defences against blockade and isolation - belt and road etc - would be unpicked by US coercion of belt and road states under the threat of ‘look what happened to the Iranians and the Chinese did nothing’. Eventually China would be contained and destroyed, just like the USSR.
I believe that it would be a strategic error for Russia and China to not provide deterrence for Iran against the US. I believe that the US needs to be made to answer the question of whether it is prepared to gamble its own existence on defeating Iran.
Should US defeat Iran, employing nuclear capabilities, then we are all back to unipolarity and a new escalation maxim has been established. US will have demonstrated dominance and Chinese and Russian and BRICS development will be what is deigned by the them.
I believe you are wrong - why on earth you believe Trump is in control of this is puzzling. The US is finally going to war with Iran for Israel. Israel is the key - they gave always wanted the US to bomb Iran and they will get their wish.
However - it won't transpire as the US would like. Russia will get involved. They can't not because after Iran they are next. I think the US will get a very unpleasant surprise. It's a huge mistake by the US.
If if. War is declared, the only one's applauding will be the neocon, and 99 % of the population will turn against this administration. Ain't gonna happen.
Even if the USA uses nuclear weapons, it cannot destroy Iran. It is not because Iran is particularly sainty or strong, but rather bombing cannot destroy a nation. OK, the USA can bomb Liechtenstein into oblivion or burn Hiroshima down. But Iran is mountainous, mostly arid (with less inflammable materials), and has prepared for invasion for a long time. Iran can (and likely) be greatly hurt, but it will survive as a nation, likely without regime change. And Persians as a people will survive. Until US ground forces occupied Iran, the USA would have simply created a super-sized Yemen. When Iranians dig out from the rubbles, the days for Israel will start counting down. And then there is an outlier possibility that the Iranian defense knocks a tooth out of the US Navy. No big deal, but highly visible.
I would love to disagree but what you say is highly likely, unfortunately. USA has done Israels military bidding in the middle east for the last 30 years actually
The "deal" the Israelis are insisting on is DOA. There's no way Iran is going to stop supporting the Resistance, especially during the abhorrent genocide Israel has been perpetrating against the Palestinians. I think Scott Ritter's thinking is bound up with his recollection of the Iraq invasion, a totally different scenario. The US supported the Saudis in bombing the heck out of tiny Yemen for over 10 years but still couldn't beat them. They had to stop attacking after the Saudi oil refinery was hit with precision weapons. Recently resuming bombing in massive retaliation against Red Sea selective blockades has not stopped the Houthis. Iran's military capabilities and its geographic area are many times greater; air power alone (when there is effective defense against it) would not be nearly enough to "completely destroy" Iran, and there's no way the US public would support a ground invasion by US armed forces which are insufficient and would cause a wider regional war. US bases and ships are within reach of Iran's highly accurate hypersonic missiles. If the US were to use tactical nukes, very likely Iran will quickly build or procure its own nuclear weapons and that would be a further huge risk. It's also likely Russia and/or China would intervene in some way and would not allow such wanton destruction by the US, and such a war would inflict enormous losses on both sides, including on Israel.
Well, like Russia I tactically supported Syria and its Iranian allied against the US, Israel, Turkey, etc., but the Mullah -regime itself can not possibly, from a Marxist Feurbach inspired point of view, be a liberating progressive perspective.
The “mullah regime” liberated Iran from the US installed dictatorship of the “Shah” Reza. The “Shah” was installed by the US after the US CIA had organized a military coup against Iran’s parliamentary government.
Who exactly then is the west to tell Iran what is a good government.
And who is ruling the west now? Judeo-Christian “mullahs”. That kill children and women by the hundreds of thousands. It’s not only the US in this “mullah” system - they are all mass murders activity or by tacit silence - many like Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Britain, send weapons to the US to give to Israel or they even send directly to Israel the weapons for mass murder.
In the west now people protesting - or even writing - against this mass murder can find the mullahs have kicked them out of university or fired them from their job. They can be kidnapped by masked men on the street, or imprisoned for some imaginary “racism” or “terrorism”. They support, fund, arm and carry out depraved acts of mass murder even
This is “liberal progressive “? Who are you kidding?
In Scott Ritter’s case or Richard Medhurst or ASA Wistanley you can find the government following you or ransacking your house for practicing professional journalism.
Who are the west to lecture ANYONE about what is “progressive”? Nobody really.
The real “crime” of Iran is existing at all as a proud Muslim nation. This very existence is offensive and threatening to genocidal Zionists.
Ritter is known for his excitability (I say that as a fan), and I really think he needs to calm down on this one. There is absolutely no chance that the USA would use nukes in a first strike. The consequences for the US would be unknowable, and highly deleterious - just for starters, it would also be nuking the non-proliferation treaty. The USA has shredded its soft power in support of Israeli genocide for the previous 18 months, and cavalier use of nukes in an act of blatant aggression, against a non-nuclear state, would finish the job - forever. I could, just conceivably, see the USA panicking & threatening to loose a few off, in the event of a carrier going down, but even in that extreme scenario, it seems to me to be beyond all rationality. I think it’s just Trump bully-bluster. Just like he tried with Kim Jong Un - didn’t work there either. Let’s face it, if America was ever going to attack Iran, it was going to be in the noughties, when it occupied the countries on either side, the USA was much stronger than it is now, and Iran was much weaker than it is now. Also, given that the USA demonstrably cannot be trusted to live up to ANY agreement it ever signed, with anyone, how would this one be different? Furthermore, is Ritter really suggesting that Iran giving up its nuclear industry, would be the end of demands made upon it? Won’t the very next thing be a demand to give up its missile stocks and production, and then its support for the axis of resistance? Iran should stick the finger up to Trump, then it’s a Zugswang for him. Iran needs to remember what happened to Carthage, when it ran out of road giving in to Rome’s escalating demands.
Many have tried to destroy the Persians.
The Persians are still here.
After the Ukraine debacle, the Empire is teetering on the edge. Could be that Iran will be the one to give it a little push, and over it goes. God bless Iran, and Godspeed!
- Alastair Crooke has the same opinion (in conversation with Larry C. Johnson (SONAR21.com)
https://www.bitchute.com/video/dQ2gyFWRVEY/
- This is related to the following video (see below):
"David Hearst: Trump's cabinet is a recipe for all-out Middle East war | MEE Opinion"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoBalmuWf0A
(In that regard it's Israel that is wreaking more and more havoc / unrest).
Yep these are crusaders as Chris Hedges pointed out:
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/trumps-christian-fascists-and-the
- More and more governments (/regimes) have moved / are moving to the political ultra right wing / fascist / ultra nationalistic side of "the political spectrum". The US & Israel are only two of those examples.
The US are not two examples, there are the most extreme examples: the most malignant and murderous examples. For nearly 25 years now, these ghoouls have been steadily and SYSTEMATICALLY MASS-killing African and arabs, mostly muslims, by the hundreds of thousands,
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/summary
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
Its sickening.
- Agree. that's why I think it will be a good thing that e.g. the US economy could / will shrink by say 20 or 30%. Then the US will have to get rid of tits military and then the world will become a much more peaceful place.
- It's my assumption that WITHOUT US meddling in the Middle East that region would have seen - at least - 50% less violence in the past say 70 years. And it's the US tax payer and the rest of the world who is paying for those wars. Think: PETRODOLLAR.
- But I was talking about the US and Israel themselves. And this is NOT a "religious issue" or "cultural issue". It's ALWAYS an "Economic / financial issue". Then people are getting desparate and think a strong leader will sort things out for them and help them. But instead these strong men are getting more and more authoritarian and rarely have the good of the nation at heart. They only think of their own pocketbook and their profits.
Mate,these people are running a judeochristian crusdade. A deadly one. Dont fool yourself. Necon zionists and the pharisee christian right, have in collaboration have killed more people across the world than ISIS ever could:
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/summary
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
And still counting. Money is on top of it.
That is what fascism is - its combination of cultural supremacist crusade and profit.
You'd better go an look at the national budgets of the US and Israel: these are rampant armies masquerading as countries. What they have are subjects, and conscripts, not citizens.
- Fully agree.
- But there are more countries than the US & Israel that have moved to ultra nationalism. Countries like Hungary.
- Ultra Nationalism puts A LOT OF emphasis on cultural identity. One Jason Stanley (Harvard ????) has written A LOT about that. And that comes inevitably with an urge to wage war with the one or other country.
Even so much as contemplating an attack on Iran by the US is insane…
The reality Scott Ritter is ignoring is that this is not about nuclear weapons. Iran has never invaded another country nor has it ever even used its own considerable conventional missile forces for any offensive purpose.
If we are concerned about nuclear weapons and malicious countries, then we would be concerned that Israel, which is paranoid, has invaded every single one of its neighbours and is CURRENTLY committing genocide against palestinians...has nuclear weapons!
Futhermore its is ALREADY the policy of the US government to lay waste to and destroy arab and african and middle eastern countries
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2023/IraqWarCosts
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2023/IndirectDeaths
Countries that not...coincidentally....have heavily muslim populations.
So the problem here is not about Iran possibly having nuclear weapons. Its about Iran EXISTING as a cohesive muslim majority country.
I dont know what it will take for Scott Ritter to admit the obvious. Well the way this administration is, it wont be long before Hegseth appears with white robes and a red cross on a horse. Hell, he might even throw on a hood too. Perhaps that's what it will take before people like Ritter admit the blindingly obvious.
China would not help deter a Nuclear attack against Iran is worth questioning. If one follows the logic that Russia and China are the next targets after Iran, then they may regard this as existential for themselves.
If China especially, allowed this then then all of their economic defences against blockade and isolation - belt and road etc - would be unpicked by US coercion of belt and road states under the threat of ‘look what happened to the Iranians and the Chinese did nothing’. Eventually China would be contained and destroyed, just like the USSR.
I believe that it would be a strategic error for Russia and China to not provide deterrence for Iran against the US. I believe that the US needs to be made to answer the question of whether it is prepared to gamble its own existence on defeating Iran.
Should US defeat Iran, employing nuclear capabilities, then we are all back to unipolarity and a new escalation maxim has been established. US will have demonstrated dominance and Chinese and Russian and BRICS development will be what is deigned by the them.
Syria on line one for you…
What a hateful, arrogant, evil country. God help us all.
I believe you are wrong - why on earth you believe Trump is in control of this is puzzling. The US is finally going to war with Iran for Israel. Israel is the key - they gave always wanted the US to bomb Iran and they will get their wish.
However - it won't transpire as the US would like. Russia will get involved. They can't not because after Iran they are next. I think the US will get a very unpleasant surprise. It's a huge mistake by the US.
https://youtu.be/q9UDlbBs0ZU?feature=shared
America as a totalitarian entity will attack Iran as its honour has been insulted with the overthrow of the puppet Shah in the 70’s.
I think that’s what it is.
The feudal duel awaits?
Funny how slow the Hegemon Beast is to recognize the world we actually live in today and a challenge it cannot win.
If if. War is declared, the only one's applauding will be the neocon, and 99 % of the population will turn against this administration. Ain't gonna happen.
Even if the USA uses nuclear weapons, it cannot destroy Iran. It is not because Iran is particularly sainty or strong, but rather bombing cannot destroy a nation. OK, the USA can bomb Liechtenstein into oblivion or burn Hiroshima down. But Iran is mountainous, mostly arid (with less inflammable materials), and has prepared for invasion for a long time. Iran can (and likely) be greatly hurt, but it will survive as a nation, likely without regime change. And Persians as a people will survive. Until US ground forces occupied Iran, the USA would have simply created a super-sized Yemen. When Iranians dig out from the rubbles, the days for Israel will start counting down. And then there is an outlier possibility that the Iranian defense knocks a tooth out of the US Navy. No big deal, but highly visible.
I would love to disagree but what you say is highly likely, unfortunately. USA has done Israels military bidding in the middle east for the last 30 years actually
The "deal" the Israelis are insisting on is DOA. There's no way Iran is going to stop supporting the Resistance, especially during the abhorrent genocide Israel has been perpetrating against the Palestinians. I think Scott Ritter's thinking is bound up with his recollection of the Iraq invasion, a totally different scenario. The US supported the Saudis in bombing the heck out of tiny Yemen for over 10 years but still couldn't beat them. They had to stop attacking after the Saudi oil refinery was hit with precision weapons. Recently resuming bombing in massive retaliation against Red Sea selective blockades has not stopped the Houthis. Iran's military capabilities and its geographic area are many times greater; air power alone (when there is effective defense against it) would not be nearly enough to "completely destroy" Iran, and there's no way the US public would support a ground invasion by US armed forces which are insufficient and would cause a wider regional war. US bases and ships are within reach of Iran's highly accurate hypersonic missiles. If the US were to use tactical nukes, very likely Iran will quickly build or procure its own nuclear weapons and that would be a further huge risk. It's also likely Russia and/or China would intervene in some way and would not allow such wanton destruction by the US, and such a war would inflict enormous losses on both sides, including on Israel.
Well, the oppressive religious Iranian, or any islamic regime, is not worth to preserve, But the method can not be military (atomic) destruction.
The oppressive, expansionist nuclear armed judeo-Christian fascism that’s taken over the so called west is not worth preserving.
Who are they to tell anyone else what government they should have in their own country?
And the Iranians have never invaded anyone. Unlike the west who have bombed innocent lives to death for 23 years straight in Asia and Africa.
Well, like Russia I tactically supported Syria and its Iranian allied against the US, Israel, Turkey, etc., but the Mullah -regime itself can not possibly, from a Marxist Feurbach inspired point of view, be a liberating progressive perspective.
The “mullah regime” liberated Iran from the US installed dictatorship of the “Shah” Reza. The “Shah” was installed by the US after the US CIA had organized a military coup against Iran’s parliamentary government.
Who exactly then is the west to tell Iran what is a good government.
And who is ruling the west now? Judeo-Christian “mullahs”. That kill children and women by the hundreds of thousands. It’s not only the US in this “mullah” system - they are all mass murders activity or by tacit silence - many like Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Britain, send weapons to the US to give to Israel or they even send directly to Israel the weapons for mass murder.
In the west now people protesting - or even writing - against this mass murder can find the mullahs have kicked them out of university or fired them from their job. They can be kidnapped by masked men on the street, or imprisoned for some imaginary “racism” or “terrorism”. They support, fund, arm and carry out depraved acts of mass murder even
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/07/vlbm-a07.html
They are also building a judeochristian theocracy in open sight:
https://mronline.org/2025/04/05/wrapped-in-the-flag-waving-the-cross/
This is “liberal progressive “? Who are you kidding?
In Scott Ritter’s case or Richard Medhurst or ASA Wistanley you can find the government following you or ransacking your house for practicing professional journalism.
Who are the west to lecture ANYONE about what is “progressive”? Nobody really.
The real “crime” of Iran is existing at all as a proud Muslim nation. This very existence is offensive and threatening to genocidal Zionists.