Former CIA officer Scott Ritter said in an interview on the YouTube channel Judging Freedom that the United States has failed to achieve its primary objective in the operation against Iran. He described the outcome as a humiliating strategic defeat, arguing that Washington did not meet its declared goal of regime change and that, in his view, the Iranian leadership has only become more resilient.

Ritter stated that the killing of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, did not produce the political results the US expected. He stressed that if the United States is unable to overturn the Iranian regime, this means Washington has effectively lost the war and now risks losing everything it sought to gain.

He also pointed out that Iran has not exhausted its missile stockpiles and, as he put it, is prepared for the next phase of its planned operation.

Khamenei was reported to have been killed during a joint US-Israeli operation, in which members of Iran’s top military and political leadership also died. After that, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vowed to avenge the death of the supreme leader. The General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces issued its own statement, promising a harsh response to Washington and declaring that the cause of the slain leader would be carried forward.