Scott Ritter makes a claim that, if true, reframes everything… According to Ritter, Trump’s last-minute decision not to trigger an attack on Iran was not hesitation, but a deliberate move to dismantle a long-prepared regime-change operation involving Mossad, the CIA, and the usual neocon war hawks.
The way Ritter describes it, Trump allowed these actors to believe he was fully aligned with their objective. At Mar-a-Lago he came to an agreement with Netanyahu. He let them plan, activate networks and position assets. In other words, he let the operation reach the point of maximum exposure, and then, at the very last moment, he didn’t pull the trigger.
Iran, allegedly alerted by Russia (with Trump’s knowledge?) moved in time to dismantle the entire covert network. Assets were rolled up, communications were compromised, the entire infrastructure was destroyed. Finito.
Bear in mind, these kinds of intelligence networks take years, sometimes decades, to build, so once exposed, they don’t simply get rebuilt, the capability itself disappears.
So if this account holds, Trump didn’t just stop a regime-change operation in that moment. He removed the ability to carry one out in the foreseeable future, (at least under Israel’s terms).
But the genius of it doesn’t stop there…
By allowing the situation to escalate right up to the edge, Trump also forced Iran into believing an attack was imminent. And when a regime truly believes the moment has arrived, it reveals itself; emergency protocols get activated, military movements occur, communication pathways change and leadership protection mechanisms are triggered. In other words, Iran showed its hand.
That response; how they move, what they protect, what they prioritise, what they trigger, is priceless intelligence, which you only get it when the other side believes it’s real.
Israel and the intelligence hawks were allowed to overextend and expose their covert machinery. Iran was pressured into revealing its defensive response. No war was launched, no missiles fired, but the strategic balance changed completely.
If this was a carefully premeditated plan by Trump, as Ritter suggests, then it was nothing short of genius; warmongers were neutralised, the adversary was exposed, war was avoided and Trump walks away with all the leverage.
That’s strategic mastery, and it’s exactly why Trump continues to confound both his enemies and his supposed allies.
