Scott Ritter On Israel's Desperation; Also Trump's Need For Good Russia Advice

I’ve been thinking about Trump’s despicable “all Hell to pay” statement today, which seemed to come out of nowhere. Statement’s like that just don’t come out of nowhere and, as I wrote, what was especially notable was that, in demanding the release of Hamas hostages/prisoners, Trump did not specify Gaza as the target. Instead, he stated:

if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East

The Middle East. That appears to be a suggestion that Trump’s military would be attacking multiple locations in the Middle East. What moved Trump to make this despicable statement?

Sadly, I have to assume that this statement reflected a demand made on Trump by his primary donor base—Jewish Zionists. Israel has been at war for over a year—a war of its own choosing—and is doing very badly. It was forced into a humiliating ceasefire with Hezbollah within the past week, and promptly pivoted to another war that had clearly been long in the planning—the proxy war with Turkey on Syria, backed by the US. The idea seems to be to wage this proxy war in order to cut Hezbollah off from resupply from Iran, making a future war on Hezbollah conceptually winnable. However, the proxy war in Syria is also faltering. Thus, Trump was trotted out to make a bellicose statement to try to scare the “Middle East” out of its resistance to Jewish supremacy, to buy Israel time.

Today, Scott Ritter engaged in a quite interesting discussion of what’s going on, with Judge Nap. Compare what I wrote above with Ritter’s assessment, if you will, and judge whether it all dovetails. I hate to write this, because of its implications for Trump 2.0, but … bluffing will only get you so far before the bluff is called. This is a dangerous game that, if I’m correct, Trump is playing at the demand of his donor base. It has nothing to do with MAGA or American interests.

Here we go:

Judge: Why did prime minister Netanyahu agree to a ceasefire with Hezbollah?

There was two reasons. One, the Israeli military was demanding it. It appears that the IDF was just exhausted. Over a year of fighting and now they're engaged in a battle in in southern Lebanon that they weren't winning. Hezbollah was resisting fiercely, the Israelis were taking casualties, morale was collapsing amongst even the most elite units, the Golani Brigade, the seventh armored Brigade. And the Israeli military said, 'We're facing strategic defeat, hurting ourselves, we need a ceasefire in the most dangerous front, which is the front with Hezbollah.’ And so they got the United States to step in, and they also were taking advantage of the fact that Hezbollah itself has suffered losses--serious losses, leadership losses. I condemn Israel's actions and bombing of Beirut wholeheartedly, but the fact of the matter is it worked. By inflicting losses on the Lebanese population Israel put pressure on the Lebanese government, of which Hezbollah is a part--a very important part--to bring an end to this conflict, to bring a ceasefire in play.

And Hezbollah--because it's not just a resistance movement but it's also a political party, and also knowing that it's been weakened by the fact that their very influential and charismatic leader, Nasrallah, was dead--Hezbollah couldn't afford to stand up to the will of Lebanon which, prior to the the recent weeks, was steadfastly behind Hezbollah and what Hezbollah was doing. But because of the losses and the fact that Lebanon is suffering economically and from internal political divisions, Hezbollah couldn't afford to undo decades of political success by ignoring the will of the Lebanese people.

So Israel took advantage of the fact that Hezbollah was also open to the idea of a ceasefire, but mainly this is because Israel needed this pause. They were not in a position to go on in this fight in southern Lebanon.

Judge: Over the weekend, a former Israeli defense minister who worked with Netanyahu accused him of war crimes, and accused the Israeli military of genocide. Are cracks starting to appear in the publicly united Israeli front?

Ritter: Yeah this is important. This is Moshe Ya'alon, former Chief of Staff and defense minister, but he also at one time was the head of Aman--Israeli Military Intelligence. That's when I knew him. I know him personally, worked with with him, briefed him many times. This is a very serious man. He is not a dove, either. He is a hawk on many of the issues that are out there, but he has taken a look at how Israel has responded to these challenges and Israel has not been up to the task--especially the Israeli military. When Moshe Ya'alon says that Israel is committing war crimes that means Israel has gone way overboard--beyond anything that could remotely be tolerated or excused as, you know, 'well this is just war.' This means that there are serious breaks [in Israeli opinion]. He recognizes the the tactics employed by the Israeli military, the behavior of the Israeli military, is more harmful to Israel than anything Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran has done or will do. This is how Israel gets destroyed from within.

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Judge: An hour ago president-elect Trp issued a grave and loud warning to militants in the Middle East holding hostages, saying if they're not released by January 20th, 2025, there'll be “hell to pay.” What the hell is he talking about?

Ritter: Well I'd like to believe that he's talking about the Israelis--who are holding tens of thousands of Palestinians hostage and torturing them--because the Israelis are militants, after all. This is a radical government, a Zionist government that's committed genocide against the Gazan people and has imprisoned tens of thousands of Palestinians. I'd like to believe that he's talking about holding Israel to account, that there will be hell to pay, but he's not. He's talking about the United States, willing go to war because Hamas continues to hold roughly a hundred Israelis hostage, prisoners. Look, I don't support hostage taking and, even though many of these people that are held are military people, they're not prisoners of war because to be prisoners of war you have to be treated as a prisoner of war. They're being treated as hostages, they're being held as hostages, as leverage. I'm against it and I'd like to see them released, but nothing happens in a vacuum. One of the things that Hamas has said is, 'We'll release our hostages when you release your hostages,' and Israel refuses to do that.

But, more importantly, what more hell does Trump think he can bring to bear on the Palestinian people? I mean, the Israelis have already dropped almost all the 2,000 pound bombs in our inventory. We're going to drop more? We're going to make that rubble shake a little bit more? Hezbollah has been bombed to hell and back by Israel, using American planes and American bombs. We're going to make it shake a little bit more? The Houthis have absorbed the air power that we have to deliver and they keep resisting. I don't think Trump understands that, one, he was elected on a platform of peace. He's supposed to be the guy that never got us into a big war the first term, and he was going to keep us out of a big war. And yet he's promising to get us involved in one of the most complicated regions on the planet. He's talking about going to war in a region where war has never solved any of these issues. This is about the most ignorant statement a man could make, and it's a shame he's making it because it runs against the grain of everything he claimed to stand for when he ran for for office.

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Judge: What is Israel doing in the middle of the Syrian Civil War?

Ritter: As I said before, Israel is desperate right now. They got their butts handed to them by Hezbollah. They had to call for a ceasefire and they saw a situation where the perception was that Syria was fruit ripe for the picking. If you did this right you could knock Syria out of the equation, take Assad out of the equation, thereby break up the linkage between Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah that had Iranian weapons flowing in. Hezbollah was felt to be tied down because of the desire of the Lebanese people, and Iran was clearly not seeking any broader conflict. So the feeling was that this action could play. This is important, because what it says is, everybody's talking about Turkey calling the shots. Israel called the shots. Turkey had an operation that was planned to take place in March—this was the Turkish plan. Israel said, 'No, we have to act now because by March there's a new president [in the US]. Trump may come in and shake things up. All these pieces aren't going to played. We need to go now.' It was Israel that launched. Remember, Israel was involved in the pagers going off amongst the Syrian military--they planned it, they executed it. The timing shows they're clearly involved. Israel's been behind Turkish intelligence and almost everything they've been doing in Azerbaijan, what they've been doing in Kurdistan, and what they've been doing in Northern Syria. Israel is The Hidden Hand here and Israel wanted this offensive. They were hoping that the offensive would be very successful. It appears that it's stalled, which shows how desperate they are because they're talking about opening up a southern front against Syria to draw reinforcements away. Because they can't afford to have this gambit fail. If this gambit fails it's going to solidify the Hezbollah, Syria, Iranian axis backed by Russia.

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Judge: This 'hell to pay' comment that Trump made just two hours ago reminds me of the comment made by Sebastian Gorka last week--for which he was roundly and soundly criticized--that if the Russians don't come to the negotiating table with us and with President Zelensky the aid we've given Ukraine will look like peanuts compared to the aid we will give it next round. I don't know where these guys get these ideas from--they're as delusional as the people they're about to replace.

Ritter: And Keith Kellogg's even worse. He's a man who knows nothing about Russia, and yet he's throwing out irrational, fanciful notions of a freeze of the combat lines--including leaving Ukrainian troops in Kursk. What part of 'that will never happen' does he not understand? Russia's not losing this war, and that's what Donald Trump needs to understand. He needs to have people who brief him that say, 'Russia not only is winning this war but has won this war, and there's nothing we can do short of a nuclear war that kills everybody to stop that outcome. So all you'll do is make matters worse by going down these ridiculous policies as outlined by Gorka, Waltz, and Kellogg. You actually need to bring somebody in who can talk sense to you about what needs to be done to stabilize relations with Russia.' And a key aspect of that is Arms Control. You know, not once has Trump talked about Arms Control control. Not once has Trump taken responsibility for getting out of the INF treaty--[an action] that enabled Russia to build the Oreshnik missile.