➡ The article discusses potential conflicts involving Israel, Iran, and Turkey, with Israel needing to be cautious about its regional conflicts. It also touches on the ongoing war in Ukraine, suggesting that Russia is heading towards victory and the U.S. has limited influence over the situation. The article further discusses U.S. politics, criticizing President Trump’s choice of advisors and his handling of the Ukraine situation. Lastly, it predicts an escalation of U.S. involvement in Venezuela, suggesting a regime change policy is being implemented.
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Hello, my name is Edmund de Marche. I’m with the Trends Journal. I’m here today with Scott Ritter from scottritter.com. He’s the former UN weapons inspector. Scott, thank you for joining the Trends Journal today. Thanks for having me. First question, Scott. We’ll get right into it. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan just signed a new military agreement with each other. This is after Israel’s bombing of Qatar, and it basically broadens their defense relationship that’s already been in place. Do you see any direct connection between this new agreement and Israel’s decision to bomb the Hamas leadership in Doha? Well, you know, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have historically had very close relationships.

Indeed, there’s an ongoing agreement that has Pakistan provide manpower for the Saudi Arabian military. If you look at actually who is in the Saudi Arabian military outside of the National Guard, you’ll see a very large contingent of Pakistani sourced manpower. In a few years ago, you know, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia was looking to Pakistan to provide troops to assist in the conflict in Yemen, and Pakistan hesitated and eventually the parliament said no. And so there have been ongoing discussions ever since then about how best to strengthen the Saudi Pakistani defense relationship. The reason why I bring this up is I don’t believe for a minute that these negotiations began the day after Israel bombed Doha.

Something of this complexity, something of this importance has been these negotiations have been going on for a long time, and I don’t believe that they would hurriedly rush this agreement, you know, after Hamas. I think this is just reflective of, you know, long standing Saudi Pakistani defense ties that are now being formalized, and I think it happens completely independent of Israel’s decision to bomb Hamas in Doha. We saw the Arab summit after in response to the bombing in Doha. And, you know, we got a strongly worded statement from there. No real action from any of these countries against Israel.

Do you see that? Do you see any change in their posturing these countries? Will they be able to just sit back and move on from this without doing anything more than just that reaction to such a bombing? Yeah, I don’t hold out any hope that the Arab world will suddenly, you know, develop a spine, especially when it comes to Palestine and Hamas. I mean, for decades now, the Arab world has sat back and done nothing while Israel carries out horrific policies of, you know, creating large scale open air concentration camps, ongoing violation of human rights.

And now we have just ethnic cleansing and genocide of an Arab people. But they’ve also been silent in the face of Israel’s ongoing bombing of Lebanon, an Arab country, of Syria, an Arab country, of Yemen, an Arab country. So this doesn’t surprise me at all. The Arab leadership is uniformly weak. And I also believe that they are vulnerable. They feel vulnerable in the face of an America that’s supposed to be their friend and ally. But clearly has shown that they’ll put the interest of Israel ahead of everything else. But there are no other options. There’s no country in the world that’s capable of filling a vacuum that would be created if the United States left the Middle East.

And so I just see the Arab world continue to do what they always do, betray the Palestinians and undermine their own sovereignty. You see, Israel just announced that they lost four soldiers today in Rafah. This is during their major offensive in Gaza City. Do you see this, Scott, as a bad military decision for Israel to now go into Gaza City under the auspices to defeat Hamas? Do you see, just from a military standpoint, is this something that Israel is entering that they really won’t know how to get out of? How do you see this unfolding in Gaza City? Because this is a city where there were one million people, one million Palestinians, and they’re being moved out.

I think 300,000 have been moved out, lest I read. Is Israel biting off more than it can chew inside Gaza right now? Well, according to many Israeli military officers, including those on active duty, the answer is yes. According to Israeli reservists who refuse to show up to their units, the answer is yes. And according to the parents who will be collecting the remains of their sons and daughters who perish in Gaza, the answer is yes. Israel will not prevail here. There’s no military solution to this problem. Gaza City has been destroyed in terms of its above-ground infrastructure, but below ground there is still a vast network of interlocked tunnels where Hamas fighters are waiting to come out of the ground and kill Israeli soldiers, which they will do on a daily basis.

And eventually, the Israeli soldiers will go into occupation mode. They’ll make mistakes, they’ll get sloppy, and they’ll die. They will not win. This will not end well for Israel. We see Huckabee, and we also saw Marco Rubio meeting with Netanyahu earlier this week. I think it was on Sunday. And he solidified the U.S.’s position in support of Israel. Do you notice some kind of a doubling down from the Trump administration each time Israel takes a new – each time Israel escalates in Gaza? Doesn’t it seem like the Trump administration doubles down in its support for Israel? Is this like a trend that you’ve noticed as well? Yeah.

The United States is like the parent that can’t say no to a spoiled child, except that instead of the spoiled child demanding candy, Israel is demanding the right to commit ethnic genocide. But the United States has shown no ability whatsoever to stand up to Israel, whether it be from Congress or from the president. But even, you know, the mainstream media. Israel, in the pro-Israel narrative, has been thoroughly insinuated into the very fabric of the United States. And we seem to have a collective inability to call out genocide when it’s taking place. Do you see any off-ramp here, Scott? Like, what needs to happen for the genocide to end in Gaza at this point? I mean, everyone says that Trump could end it with a phone call to Netanyahu, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.

So, where does this end? Does it end with the Palestinians in Gaza being like the surviving ones to be shipped to a new country or a new area where it’s going to be designated for them? Because we had Smotrich come out yesterday and he said it’s going to be a real estate bonanza. The Israeli government’s working with the U.S. on how to divide Gaza up as we speak. How do you see this ending if you’re a Palestinian right now, living in a tent in Rafa? What are the chances that you have for a future? No chance whatsoever.

I mean, maybe a handful will be shipped off somewhere. But a future, that would be a future as a permanent exile. Depending where you shipped, you’d just go from one open-air concentration camp to another. If they’re not going to send you to the United States, the United States refuses to admit people with Palestinian passports. So, you know, there’s no future. This war ends one of two ways, with either Israel successfully ethnically cleansing the Palestinians from Gaza committing genocide and war crimes without any consequence, because the United States will not permit the world to meaningfully engage on this.

Therefore, Israel is defeated. But it has to be a fundamental defeat. And, you know, we’re headed in that direction. We’re speaking of the absolute isolation of Israel on the global stage. We’re beginning to see nations start to take the kind of measures that should have been taken years ago, stopping the sale of munitions to Israel, to deplatform Israeli athletes and international events to show that there is no tolerance of this. And also economically, I mean, Netanyahu has said that Israel has to look to become, you know, economically self-sufficient, but they never will be able to do that.

So what he’s really saying is that the United States taxpayer has to continue to underwrite the cost of keeping Israel up and running. And at some point in time, there will be exhaustion here in the United States. So it’s a race against time. Can Israel kill all the Palestinians first, or will Israel’s, you know, the foundation upon which Israel is sustaining the struggle, will that collapse? Now, just to step back a little bit farther, I heard John Mearsheimer give an interview with Judge Apal Tenno. Judge Apal Tenno is going to be with us next weekend, not this weekend, the following weekend in Kingston, New York with Occupy Peace Rally.

I’m going to put a link below us for people to check it out. John Mearsheimer was on the Paul Tenno show, and he said that he thinks that a war with Iran, another war between Israel and Iran is all but certain. And he said in the fall, is that something that you agree with? Do you think Israel, and his opinion is that Israel is determined to expand the greater Israel, and Iran is the country that really does stand in its way to achieve its goals there. Do you agree that we’re going to be seeing a war with Iran and Israel, again, provoked by Israel? There’s two things that mitigate against this.

One is Turkey, the growing recognition in Israel of the danger posed by Turkey’s continued opposition to the concept of greater Israel, especially Israel’s expansion into Syria. And so Israel has to be careful about overextending itself in terms of a regional conflict with Iran, leaving itself vulnerable to Turkish engagement. But two is Iran itself. Iran is not a defeated nation by any stretch of the imagination. Iran just tested a very advanced ballistic missile today, and the Iranians have a significant military capability. We can’t forget the fact that this last 12-day conflict was brought to an end because Israel begged the United States to create the conditions for a ceasefire.

It was Israel that had had enough it come to the end of its tether. Iran, even though they were ready to accept this, they were prepared to continue. If there is another conflict, Israel will be very heavily damaged. So I don’t see the inevitability of an Israeli-Iranian conflict, because as things stand, I don’t see any positive outcome for Israel. Israel had a shot at regime change at the beginning of their 12-day conflict, and they failed. I think Iran is even more resilient today. Israel, on the other hand, their air defense has not improved. Yes, I guess today they announced the deployment of mobile laser systems.

I’m not going to get into how easy it is to defeat these mobile laser systems, but I’m sure the Iranians have figured it out as well. It’s just a joke, an absolute joke. Israel has no defense, and if they have another go-round with the Iranians, Iranians will hit Israel with missiles that can’t be shot down. And Israel will run the risk of being destroyed, and the Israeli leadership knows this, so I just don’t see there being this impetus. Scott, I’d like to just move to Ukraine now. I know we have a limited amount of time. Keith Kellogg, he’s the envoy to Ukraine from the U.S.

I think his quote would kick Russia’s ass in a conventional war, and I guess that got some applause from the crowd that he said that in front of. Where do you see the Ukraine war? How do you see that unfolding? Because you had Trump today, he said that he’s disappointed in Vladimir Putin for not agreeing to any kind of a peace deal. Do you see that war continuing to escalate, or is there an off-ramp there? The only off-ramp is total Russian victory, and that’s the direction that Russia’s heading, and Russia refuses to get off that off-ramp.

Is Trump just delaying for the next president to put this problem in the next administration’s lap, or is Trump, do you think something will be resolved during Trump’s term? I think this will get resolved during Trump’s terms, but not on terms dictated by Trump, on terms dictated by Russian reality. There’s not much that the United States, Europe, can do to put pressure on Vladimir Putin to alter the approach he’s taken towards conflict resolution here. I think Donald Trump is disappointed, but he had artificial expectations from the start of the influence that can be brought to bear on Russia.

The best thing that Donald Trump can do is recognize the inevitability of a Russian victory, and seek to preserve as much of Ukrainian sovereignty as possible. But the longer he plays these stupid games, the less likely it is that Russia will be willing to compromise. Compromises take place when you’re willing to give something up, and Russia’s not willing to give up anything in this conflict, so there’s nothing to compromise over. Why do you think Trump surrounds himself with people like Keith Kellogg, Marco Rubio, even Pete Hegseth? You could describe them almost as neocons. Trump said he’s going to be a peace president.

Why would he surround himself with people like Keith Kellogg? Because it was the path of least resistance. Donald Trump is a politician that isn’t known for his detailed planning, his in-depth preparation. He’s a man who narcissistically believes he knows it all, and he’s someone who is susceptible to what I call expert syndrome. So you find somebody who is ideologically aligned, and they suddenly become your advisor, and they whisper sweet nothings in your ear, and you will embrace that narrative without challenging it. And when we take a look at people like Keith Kellogg, Pete Hegseth, and others, these are people who are sycophants, straight-up sycophants, who will say anything to make this president happy.

This president is comfortable around sycophancy, and therefore he is susceptible to the ideas that they have, even if these ideas are not reality-based. And that’s what’s happened here. He needs to confront the fact that he has failed policy with Ukraine, and that one of the reasons why the policy has failed is because of advisors like Keith Kellogg and others, and they need to be replaced. And he needs a new slate of experts on Russia to tell him what the ground truth is, what the reality is in Russia. Until that happens, we’ll continue to get bad advice, whisper in the ear of the president, who will seek to implement bad policy that’s doomed to fail.

And my last question, Scott, is what do you see unfolding with Venezuela? Trump said that we bombed a third vote. I don’t know exactly when that happened, but we have the naval assets not too far off the coast of Venezuela. We have Marco Rubio, who seems dead set on regime change in Venezuela and Caracas. I think it was in foreign policy a person said that it could be that something that looked like the U.S. attack on Iran when we bombed the nuclear sites, that he doesn’t see a troop invasion of Venezuela from the U.S. if it got to it.

But he said that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of an aerial bombardment, certain maybe drug cartels, infrastructure and things like that. Do you see the U.S. escalating in Venezuela within the next few months? I do. As we speak, there’s a new National Security Strategy document on Pete Hegseth’s desk for final review before it’s turned into official policy. And this document speaks of implementing a strategy that focuses on creating Fortress America, America’s domination of the Western Hemisphere, the implementation of Monroe Doctrine 2.0. Venezuela stands in the way of this. The general, the female general of command, southern command, has spoken about Venezuela’s oil, has spoken about the resources of South America, and that it’s in America’s national security interests to be in absolute control of this.

Venezuela has two strikes against it. They have, you know, Maduro is not a compliant, you know, servant of American, you know, dictate. And they have oil, which is essential to our security. The Venezuelan grade of crude is ideal for American refineries that were built in the Gulf States, specifically for the purpose of refining Venezuelan oil. And it would cost us hundreds of millions and billions of dollars to, you know, to reset this refining capacity. So we need Venezuelan oil. And we could get it through using legal ways, but that only props up Maduro more. And then there’s the third thing, which is what I call the WMD aspect of this, just like we manufactured a case of WMD against Iraq to justify invasion regime change.

We’re manufacturing a drug cartel connectivity between the Venezuelan government and drug cartels to say this is an excuse. When you put the three together and you combine the new national security strategy, I believe that we are in the midst of a regime change policy being implemented, and that at some point in time, the United States will use its absolute supremacy and military power to launch strikes that are the purpose of which are to not destroy narco-trafficking infrastructure that doesn’t exist in significant quantities in Venezuela, but to destroy the security infrastructures, those, the units, the establishment, the command and control of Venezuelan security forces loyal to Maduro, while at the same time, the CIA working with regional partners, Ecuador comes to mind, will seek a color revolution type affair that you’ll see a popular revolt against Maduro that will result in Maduro being ousted.

I think this is inevitable. I don’t think there’s anything Venezuela can do to stop it. And I don’t think there’s anything that Russia or China can do to stop it as well. The United States, once we embark on strategies of this nature, these things can go on for decades. So whether or not this is done before Trump leaves office or continues to fester afterwards, the fact of the matter is, you know, we put our sights on Saddam Hussein back in 1990 and in 2003, he was gone. We put our sights on Bashar al Assad back in the early 2000s, 2023, he’s gone.

You know, we can wait 10 years, we can wait 20 years. But the bottom line is Maduro’s history of his regime will be gone because it’s in the national security strategy vision that’s being articulated today to make it so. Scott Ritter, thank you for joining the Trend Journal. Everyone, please go check out ScottRitter.com. That’s just ScottRitter.com. Scott, thank you for joining us. And I’m looking forward to it again to see you on September 27 in Kingston, New York at the Occupy Peace Rally. Scott, thank you for joining us. Thanks, Jen. [tr:trw].

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