MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. A declaration of victory over Iran by US President Donald Trump would look strange if Iranian missile launches against Israeli territory continued afterward, Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence analyst and former United Nations arms inspector in Iraq, told TASS in an interview.
"Well, I don’t know how he [Trump] can declare victory when Iran refuses to admit defeat. Of course, he could declare a military victory, couch it any way he wants: ‘We’ve sunk the Iranian fleet, we've blown their buildings into oblivion.’ But after declaring victory, if the next day Iran continues to launch missiles against Israel, what victory is that?" he said, answering a question about whether the US president could soon declare victory in the Middle East conflict.
Ritter also noted that declarations of victory would look questionable if the Strait of Hormuz remained blocked. "If Donald Trump declares victory, but every day gas prices go higher in America, it will become clear that there was no victory, it's just empty words," he added.
The United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran on February 28. Major Iranian cities, including Tehran, were struck. The White House justified the attack by citing alleged missile and nuclear threats from Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a retaliatory operation, targeting sites in Israel. US military bases in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were also hit. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some other key Iranian leaders were killed in the joint US-Israeli attack.