Scott Ritter is an outspoken former Marine Corps Intelligence Officer who was deployed in the Middle East. He's been pointing out the lies and blunders of U.S. policy there for a long time.





Ritter was also a U.N. Weapons Inspector in Iraq and is an author and analyst. His latest article for the site truthdig.com is titled “The U.S. Stands to Lose Much More Than a War With Iran.”
Here is some of what he has to say about the latest U.S.-Iran interactions:



"After much back-and-forth posturing by the Trump administration, book-ended by national security adviser John Bolton accelerating the planned deployments of an aircraft carrier battle group and a B-52 bomber task force to the Middle East, and President Trump commenting, “I hope not” when asked whether there would be a war, the American commander in chief threatened to destroy Iran on Sunday. 'If Iran wants to fight,' Trump tweeted, 'that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!'”
"Trying to pinpoint what prompted Trump to communicate what amounts to a genocidal threat is like reading tea leaves—more art than science. But after seeing his effort to isolate Iran diplomatically rejected by a united Europe, and learning from military leaders that a war with Iran would be far costlier and much more problematic than he originally thought, the president reverted to character, lashing out with apocalyptic fury against a nation that has frustrated his administration from its inception."
"Trump has backed himself into a corner. The self-imagined dealmaker sincerely believed that by applying economic pressure on Iran, backed up with the threat of force, the Iranian government would come to the negotiation table and agree to a nuclear deal that denied it everything it had achieved through diplomacy with the Obama administration. Trump believed he could bully America’s allies in Europe to go along with him. And, in the end, when he asked his military leaders to provide him with options to forcefully compel Iran to bend to his will, Trump was told that nothing short of an all-out war, involving more than 500,000 troops, could provide the outcome he sought, and even then only at great cost. Trump had run on a platform that promised an end to costly wars of choice in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. If he pulled the trigger on Iran, his chances of reelection in 2020 would be all but eliminated."
That was the opening of Ritter’s most recent article. The complete, more detailed article is here:

The U.S. Stands to Lose Much More Than a War With Iran - Truthdig

https://www..truthdig.com/.../the-u-...war-with-iran/