Scott Ritter:

President Trump has gambled his entire legacy on a quick and relatively bloodless victory over Iran.

His goal (and the goal of his Israeli masters/partners) is regime change.

The plan his “Secretary of War” (a name which is fundamentally at odds with the concept of a “Peace President”) has convinced him to implement involves decapitating the Iranian leadership, suppressing the Iranian security apparatus, and waiting for the Iranian people to take matters into their own hands. In his concluding remarks made in an 8-minute video posted on his Truth Social account shortly after the joint Israeli-US attacks began, Trump laid out the basic gist of his plan:

To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity. Or in the alternative, face certain death. So, lay down your arms. You will be treated fairly with total immunity, or you will face certain death. Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.

For many years, you have asked for America’s help. But you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny, and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.

Using intelligence provided by the United States (and openly bragged about by Donald Trump in the lead up to this war), Israel attacked and killed some 46 members of Iran’s senior military and civilian leadership—including the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

This single action, more than anything else the United States has done (including yet again carrying out the war crime of perfidy by lulling the Iranians into a false sense of security through so-called “peace negotiations” that neither the US nor Israel ever intended to follow through on) shows both the moral and intellectual vacuum that exists within the Trump administration when it comes to Iran.

Ali Khamenei was a major religious figure in the Shi’a faith, second only to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani, who resides in Najaf, Iraq. The Islamic Republic of Iran is predicated on a religious doctrine known as Velâyat-e Faqih, or the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, which is a defining principle of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is grounded in the faith of the Twelver branch of the Shi’a faith. The Twelver branch dominates in Iran and Iraq, and has a very powerful presence amongst the Shi’a faithful throughout the Middle East.

Killing Ali Khamenei is the equivalent of killing the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church in terms of the impact it will have on the faithful.

…

By sacrificing his life, Khamenei became a martyr to his cause.

The people of Iran and the Shi’a faithful of the Middle East are rallying to the defense of Iran in a way none of the warmongers in Washington, DC or Tel Aviv could have imagined.

On the morning of February 28, Israel launched a salvo of missiles into Iran as part of a surprise attack designed to decapitate the leadership of Iran.

The first six missiles struck the residence of Al Khamenei, resulting in his death, the death of his family members, and the death of senior Iranians who were meeting with Khamenei at the time.

Donald Trump brags that the United States and Israel won the war at that moment, having cut off the head of the snake.

But the reality is that the US and Israel lost the war with Iran the moment those missiles exploded.

Ali Khamenei’s death is the spiritual fuel that will empower the Iranian people and their government to persevere in the face of perfidy and adversity.

Iran won the war the moment it began.