War on Iran is unwinnable and Trump knows it – Scott Ritter

Israel can only absorb a limited number of Iranian ballistic missile strikes, former US intelligence officer Scott Ritter said.

According to Ritter, Donald Trump knows the reality. US military planners have told him the mission cannot be done. 

Even with THAAD, Patriot, Arrow-3, David’s Sling, and Aegis fully integrated in the last major clash, missiles still broke through. The forces now being sent are less than before, leaving US bases exposed.

Ritter warns Iran would strike US bases across the region, leading to thousands of American casualties and a war with no clear end. Trump, he argues, understands the political cost: a failed war would end his presidency and crush his party ahead of the midterms.

Adding, more on Iran:

Game of drones: What was Iranian Shahed-129’s true mission over USS Lincoln?

An Iranian drone successfully transmitted reconnaissance imagery of the USS Abraham Lincoln to its command center earlier this week, according to Tasnim.

What was the February 3 mission’s true goal?

♦️ Report followed US claims expressing doubt that the Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) had gotten close enough to the US strike group to collect imagery and questioned the drone’s mission

♦️ Informed source told Tasnim that the Shahed‑129 was conducting a routine and legally permitted mission involving imaging activities over international waters 

♦️ Shahed‑129 is an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike drone routinely used by Iran to monitor regional developments

♦️ Open‑source reports dating back to January 29 say Iranian drones were dispatched to observe intensified US naval movements in Iran’s neighborhood amid Donald Trump's escalating rhetoric, with the prolonged UAV loitering offering persistent ISR that can track carrier strike group maneuvers, aircraft launches, escort formations, and logistics patterns

Testing US reactions?

♦️ Three hours after the Shahed-129 incident, two Iranian vessels attempted to seize the US-flagged tanker M/V Stena Imperative in the Persian Gulf, according to US Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins

♦️ “These two incidents may be the beginning of an Iranian maritime escalation that seeks to deter a US strike by demonstrating Iran’s capability to challenge US naval activity,” the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) asserts

♦️ ISW’s narrative warrants caution: the institute was founded by Kimberly Kagan, wife of neocon scholar Frederick W. Kagan, while his brother Robert Kagan—a prominent US hawk—is married to regime change guru Victoria Nuland

♦️ Kagans, longtime advocates of an assertive US foreign policy, unsurprisingly depict Iran as seeking escalation