Are Ayatollahs Allowed to Lie through their Teeth?

I have been reading Trump saying the US will start with a small attack on Iran, just to show the Iranians what the US can do, and then give them a chance to capitulate: total disarmament of Iran, removal of the Ayatollahs to some monastery (or whatever the Muslims call it) where they can pray in isolation, and return of Iran to the Shah and all Iran's oil to BP, and if they do not capitulate, then total destruction of Iran.

I have read several analysts guessing when the small strike will be, and how much damage it will do to Iran, and if the US will really stop after a small strike and let the Iranians surrender, or will just continue with the total destruction of Iran, losing no US military forces or equipment while they totally destroy Iran.

This, however, does not conform to what the Ayatollahs have been saying: if one bomb lands on Iran from the US or Israel, Iran will respond with a full, 'regional' response, meaning, Iran will destroy all US military forces in the region, plus all oil assets, plus all of Israel.

Obviously, Iran lacks (maybe) missiles that can hit the US mainland, we only know they have hypersonic missiles that can go 1,400 km (870 miles), far enough to reach Israel and just about all the US military assets now gathered around Iran, ready for an attack like the one on Iraq in 2003. Only Iraq didn't have any hypersonic missiles, while Iran have many.

We also know that the US have nothing that can stop a hypersonic missile, unless they can destroy them on the ground before launch.

The US military now say they can do just that, US stealth airplanes cannot be detected by Iran, and US intelligence have located every single Iranian missile, so all the missiles can be totally destroyed in about 5 minutes, leaving Iran with no offensive weapons, and no defensive weapons that could hinder the US destruction of Iran.

As Scott Ritter says, the US cannot destroy all the Iranian missiles, but they can destroy almost all of them, leaving just a few of what the military call 'leakers', but these few leakers cannot possibly overwhelm the US or Israeli air defence systems, so all will be destroyed before they can do any damage to US military assets or Israel.

So Scott is saying that, while it is not true that the US air and ship-launched missile attacks can take out every Iranian missile, they can leave Iran unable to strike any US or Israeli targets with the few missiles not destroyed before they can be launched.

Again, all this leaves out what the Ayatollah has been saying: one bomb, just one, and an all-out retaliation will take place, and if the US cannot destroy all those hypersonic missiles, a lot of US matériel and Israeli buildings will be destroyed and a lot of US military forces and Israelis will be killed. It also leaves out the PRC and Russian defence systems that have been installed in Iran (and which Russia and the PRC figure should have been installed before 13 Feb 2025).

So the US military saying they know they can overwhelm Iran is either a) a bluff, an attempt to convince the Iranians to surrender, since Iran can't possibly know it's a bluff  (actually, Iran will react as if it's a bluff); or b) utter stupidity, which will work just like utter stupidity always works.

The question remains: when will the US actually try any utter stupidity????

Attacks have been scheduled for 14 January, 1 February, and 6 February, but all were 'postponed'.

Trump said on 19 February that Iran had just 10 days to surrender, later extended to 15 days, so will the actual attack by the US on Iran be on Monday, 2 Mar? Friday, 6 Mar? Tue, 3 Mar to catch the Iranians off guard, since they'd never expect an attack on 3 Mar?

Basically, I'm sure Scott Ritter based his assessment on what he was told by his friends still active in the US military, but they don't seem to know much, or couldn't tell him anything except the official lie that the US is still, by far, the strongest military power in the world.

I keep repeating: the US ordered sanctions, actually a naval blockade, or Iran from 1980 until 2021. I read many newspaper accounts of an oil tanker that tried to buy Iranian oil, only to be stopped by the US Naval Blockade, taken to a friendly port, and sold, along with the oil, with all the money going to the US Treasury, so not one $ of the oil's value went to Iran, and the owners of the tanker lost their tanker and the cargo of oil.

Then, in 2021, a fleet of oil tankers showed up in Iran and bought every drop of oil Iran had to sell, and when the US Navy showed up to stop them, found the tanker fleet protected by a more powerful navy than the US blockade, so the blockade withdrew, and Iran have been selling about 2 million barrels of oil a day, every day, ever since.

So the US military ain't what they used to be many long years ago.

One final point: the New York Times, always reliable, i.e., always reliably demonising Trump, says they heard from the top US general that the general told Trump not to order an attack on Iran, after Trump said that general gave him the green light to order an attack.

Which might actually be partly true: the general might know that an attack on Iran is not possible, never said it openly, but quietly mentioned it to a New York Times reporter. And Trump might be threatening a small attack in hopes that Iran will accede to at lease some small part of Trump's demands (not clear what, if anything, the Iranians might agree to at this point, backed by the evil Russians and PRC who are providing the Iranians with defences the US cannot handle).

But whoever is really running the US (and Trump) might be hoping they can somehow convince Iran to make some small concessions (possible, if those concessions are small enough, or conceding that they will never do something that Iran never had any intention of doing).