US can strike Iran's propaganda machine, IRGC headquarters – Ritter
Former Republican congressman Don Ritter stated this in a comment to Ukrinform.
According to him, the current situation in Iran remains extremely unstable.
He noted that human rights organizations report at least half a thousand people killed and several thousand arrested during the protests. "If 500 people have been killed, maybe there are four or five thousand people wounded," Ritter said.
Against this background, in his assessment, the US administration is now actively discussing possible steps to support the Iranian people. Ritter believes that US President Donald Trump may decide to use military force against the ayatollahs' regime.
"I totally think so. Yeah, I think military force meaning not necessarily soldiers going into mayhem, but the kind of strikes based on good intelligence as to where the bad guys hang out and where their sources of power are derived from," he emphasized.
As possible targets, he named the regime's information and security infrastructure.
"The Tasnim headquarters, radio, TV, the whole government propaganda machine would be, I'm thinking, a reasonable target. IRGC headquarters could be a reasonable target," Ritter noted.
At the same time, he stressed the need for the utmost caution. According to him, among those currently working with the regime there are many people who could potentially switch to the opposition's side. "You don't want to kill them — but they wear the same uniforms at the moment," he explained.
Ritter agreed with the statement by Senator Lindsey Graham, who in an interview with Fox News, addressing the president, said: "If I were you, Mr. President, I would kill the leadership that are killing the people."
"I think if you were able to do so, yes — decapitate the monster, and the monster loses its power," he said.
He also rejected claims that US strikes could unite Iranian society around the regime. "No, no — that's left-wing idiocy," he stressed.
According to Ritter, the overwhelming majority of Iranians are not Islamists, and the Islamist regime was imposed on the country after 1979. He noted that Iran historically was not an Islamist state, and that a broad wave of opposition has now formed in the country.
"I'm sure, and a bunch of people inside as well, who could take leadership and steer Iran to the West, to democracy.," the former congressman said.
He added that Iran’s population as a whole is oriented toward the West, and that the current authorities, in his words, "fooled students," which has led to deep disappointment among young people.
As Ukrinform reported, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called on US President Donald Trump to eliminate Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Human rights activists calculated on Sunday that during mass protests sweeping across Iran and now in their second week, more than 500 people have been killed and more than 10,000 have been detained.
