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Oct. 2, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
33:17
COL. Douglas Macgregor : Iran Hits Israel. What’s Next?
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, October 2nd, 2024.
Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now.
Colonel, no matter what we're about to discuss, it's always a pleasure and a gift for me to be able to pick your brain.
So last week, President Zelensky came to the United States, visited an arms manufacturer in Scranton, Pennsylvania, gave a speech at the UN.
Made the rounds at Washington, went home empty-handed.
Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a very belligerent, belligerent, contemptuous speech to an empty General Assembly chamber, went to an office in the same building and ordered a murder 5,000 miles away, which took place.
What do you see happening?
Well, as I understand it, Zelensky did not go home completely empty-handed, that some promises were made for more money and equipment.
Now, how much it was, I've heard various figures.
I think we have to accept the fact that the war is obviously lost in Ukraine.
I don't think there are very many people who privately reject that notion, but they're going to sustain the facade that there is a Ukrainian government of some significance.
I think the other issue is a much more serious one right now, because everything strikes me in Washington as kind of being on autopilot.
We're sort of flying as a nation in the direction of a major regional war in the Middle East, and we're treating the Ukrainian disaster with the usual disinterest.
That arises when it becomes clear that you've lost.
All of it is bad news for the American people.
And what was even more striking to me than what you've mentioned is that last night the word Ukraine did not even come up for discussion.
I had hoped that perhaps future Vice President Vance would have at least asked about Ukraine and what had happened to the hundreds of billions of dollars.
And many millions of tons of equipment and ammunition that had been shipped over there.
But it never came up.
How dangerous was the Israeli assassination of Nazarela using 160,000 pounds of bombs to kill one person and a dozen or so people around him?
I think we need to understand that it could not have happened at all without us.
We have considerable ISR assets, Air Force and Army, Navy, engaged in supporting the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and its attacks on Lebanon.
So I think that's the first thing.
We have the capability to harvest very sensitive information, voice and otherwise, that the Israelis simply don't have.
And then we can laze these targets.
So I think we have to understand that when you see these kinds of successful operations take place, it's not an Israel-only operation by any means.
Was it dangerous to do this?
Not from the standpoint of Mr. Netanyahu.
And I think we need to understand something that clearly is not understood in Tehran.
I don't think it's understood in Moscow.
And that is that...
He's already told us who they are, the people in Gaza, the Arabs on the West Bank, and the Arabs south of the Latani River who are part of Hezbollah.
And in the meantime, he's also struck a number of very lucrative targets across Syria.
So this is a very powerful war that's underway.
And we're on autopilot.
We're just flying in the direction.
We're helping it.
We're enabling it.
We're pushing it.
And I'm sure you've seen the interview with, I think it's Colonel Jacques Beau who talks about the fact that we have been encouraging this behavior from the beginning.
And I think we have and we are.
So the American people aren't being consulted and there's really no debate about it because everyone in Washington is quite comfortable with what's happening.
Did the White House encourage the Israeli government to invade southern Lebanon?
It would appear that they have.
That seems to be widespread consensus.
Nothing is happening that Washington has not wanted to happen.
And that makes perfect sense, Judge, for the reasons I just outlined.
We control all the resources.
And we have access to and dispose over very considerable sensitive technologies.
So if we don't want something to happen, it's not going to happen.
And anything that does happen happens because we've allowed it.
But by what constitutional or moral standard do we wage war against Hezbollah?
We haven't declared war in Hezbollah.
It poses no threat whatsoever to the United States.
We don't have a treaty of alliance with Israel.
I'm wearing my constitutional scholar hat.
Well, we're in a strange set of relations with Israel that are analogous to some extent to FDR's relations with the British Empire and the Soviet Union before World War II.
Very few people are aware that FDR dispatched Harry Hopkins to Moscow in July of 1941 to offer Stalin virtually anything he wanted and anything he needed.
And we, of course, were not at war with Germany.
The bombing at Pearl Harbor had not yet happened.
We had a war ongoing for almost two and a half years trying to provoke the Germans into attacking our warships when we actively aided the British and Canadian navies.
in moving supplies to Great Britain.
So this is a similar set of circumstances.
And I think it also has potentially very grave consequences for us.
But as you point out, none of this is constitutional, but very little of what FDR did was constitutional.
So I don't think anyone is remotely interested in discussing constitutional law, What will the consequences to us be?
Will it be?
Russia coming to the aid of Iran.
Will it be American boys coming home in body bags?
Well, I think we have to reckon with some losses in the Middle East.
I don't see how we avoid them.
We know that we've had losses in Ukraine.
It's simply being decided not to report those publicly and to dismiss the allegation that Americans have been killed in Ukraine by finding cover stories for them.
I think things in the Middle East will be different.
It'll be harder to provide those cover stories, harder to conceal.
And the reason is very simple.
This ruthless war of extermination is going to be confronted soon by overwhelming deadly force provided first and foremost by Iran.
Also augmented and extended by Russia, and I would argue eventually the rest of the Islamic world.
But we've always said this, and you, Judge, have had these discussions with others on your show.
No one in the region wants a war with Israel in the United States.
The only people that are interested in a war in the region consist of Israel and primarily us.
That's it.
No one else really wants a war.
And this has now attracted the attention of everyone in the Islamic world.
We've been listening to lots of harumphs and harumphs and threats, most of which have gone nowhere from Turkey.
But that is changing now.
And the Turks are making it very clear that the catastrophic destruction of Lebanon is not something they're going to stand by and tolerate.
They've got three or four million refugees on their territory at the moment.
They can't take any more.
A million people have left Lebanon.
More than 7,000 people in Lebanon have been killed, and these are hardly Hezbollah fighters.
We're seeing action in Iraq, action in Syria, action in Yemen, and Egypt and Jordan continue to reach a boiling point.
Precisely when that will boil over and change the governments is anyone's guess, but I think that's inevitable.
We're on the march to a regional war that always has the potential to go global.
The Russians are well prepared to fight now.
They're stronger militarily than they have been in 30 years.
And the same thing is true, unfortunately, with China.
The Chinese don't want any sort of confrontation.
And they're undoubtedly sweating bullets over the Straits of Hormuz.
But the Israelis are determined to hit those Iranian oil facilities.
And I think we're going to see that once that occurs, It will bring in the rest of the actors who are actively opposed to Israel.
Tell me about Jordan.
The population of Jordan cannot be in sync with the king.
The king used the Jordanian military to help Israel defend itself the other night.
I guess it was last night, Israel time, when Iran sent 200 missiles there.
I'll ask you about the missiles in a minute.
But is the king of Jordan on thin ice because of the overwhelming, nearly unanimous view of the public over which he claims to reign that Israel is the enemy?
Well, remember, the majority of the people serving in the Jordanian army tend to be Bedouin in origin.
In other words, people from Bedouin origins, much like the king himself.
But he's got 11.2 million Palestinians living in Jordan.
And they are very anxious to help their brothers on the West Bank and in Gaza.
So they're fuming.
When does this change?
I know that the Iranians undoubtedly have agents on the ground in Jordan, probably pushing levers there in the hopes that the Jordanians will rise up.
Push the government out of business and take the reins of power themselves.
I'd be very surprised if that was not also the case in Egypt.
In both cases, however, both sovereign leaders are entirely dependent upon the military.
As long as the military does not take them into custody, remove them, assassinate them, they will stay.
The question is, where does the military stand at this point?
I know from firsthand discussions, people just returning from Egypt, that the Egyptian military is ashamed of themselves and embarrassed that they are doing nothing against Israel.
I suspect you have a similar attitude in Jordan.
Chris, do we have the clip?
It's not on today's list, but do you still have the clip of King Abdullah of Jordan addressing the United Nations?
He'll look for that, Colonel, and then I'll ask you what you think of it.
He was harshly critical, harshly critical of Israel at the UN, and then he used his military to defend Israel when the Iranians attacked.
What happened the other night?
What type of weaponry was hurled by Iran at Israel?
What got through and what damage was done?
As far as you are able to understand, just 24 hours later.
Right.
Well, most of the weapon systems were medium-range ballistic missiles, as I understand it.
These are not hypersonic, most of them.
How many of them ultimately penetrated or simply attracted attention from the air defense systems, the Arrow 2, or the Iron Dome, or our own Patriot systems?
I don't know.
But I do know.
That some number, and I don't know how many, hypersonic missiles were used and they all penetrated the air and missile defense system.
No question about it.
Did they reach, I don't remember the name of it, it's a major Israeli air base in the middle of the desert.
It's the place from which the jets that bombed and killed Nasrallah came and to which they returned.
Did the Iranian missiles reach that military base and do any damage there?
Well, they reached the base.
I think it's an Atima air base.
At the same time, there were claims made that some F-35s were damaged or destroyed, along with some F-16s.
We have no way of confirming that, and that also seems unlikely, I imagine.
the Israelis probably launched most of those aircraft in order to ensure they were not on the ground when the missile attack started.
And remember, the Iranians, This was another attempt to demonstrate, I think, Iran's precision strike capability in a way that would awaken some concern in Washington and Jerusalem.
It hasn't.
In other words, this was another...
And I think they're going to be hit very, very hard by the Israelis in response.
The Israelis do not believe in symmetrical warfare.
Everything they do is inevitably asymmetrical.
In other words, if you want to kill the flea, you use a jackhammer.
You don't use a fly swatter.
And so I think Putin and Xi...
I don't see any evidence for that.
Israel has failed thus far to achieve its objectives in Gaza.
It's also failing in its objectives against Hezbollah, although that has now just started on the ground.
How serious it is, I don't know.
And then they have not achieved their objective in Iran, which is to destroy that regime and remove Iran as a great power in the region, period.
So those things are unachieved, and I think there's no evidence that there's any willingness under any circumstances in Jerusalem or Washington to contemplate any sort of talks or negotiations over anything until those objectives are secured.
The two principal American diplomats slash bureaucrats negotiating or dealing with the Israeli government on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis for the United States, Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein, are bellicose and in favor of war, are they not?
That seems pretty clear.
I don't see any evidence to the contrary.
So they're not representing the supposed interest that exists, if it exists at all, inside the Beltway in Washington for a negotiated outcome.
On the contrary, they are completely aligned with what I just described.
So I think the Iranians have wasted time, money, and resources.
They should prepare for an all-out assault, which is coming.
The same thing is true for Hezbollah.
They're concerned, I think, is over.
But they'll have to figure that out on their own.
We're going to play the clip from the King of Jordan.
You tell me if this is sincere or if this is consistent with the behavior of his military the other night.
Chris, while we're playing this, can you find the comment, it may be here and I just don't see it, by President Biden yesterday saying that whatever the Iranians did, In the absence of global accountability,
repeated horrors are normalized, threatening to create a future where anything is permitted anywhere in the world.
Those who continue to propagate the idea of Jordan as an alternative homeland.
So let me be very, very clear.
That will never happen.
We will never accept the forced displacement of Palestinians, which is a war crime.
For years, the Arab world has extended a hand to Israel through the Arab Peace Initiative, offering full recognition and normalization in exchange for peace.
But consecutive Israeli governments, emboldened by years of impunity, have rejected peace and chosen confrontation instead.
Trying to accomplish by speaking out of one side of his mouth and shooting weapons out of the other side, if you'll pardon the awkward analogy.
Well, he sounds like the man who beats his wife periodically and then is subsequently remorseful and says, I will never beat my wife again, and then proceeds to go back and beat her.
This is eloquent, but irrelevant.
Unless he, General Sisi in Egypt, take the reins and assert themselves against Israel in some fashion, everything he described happening will happen.
In other words, He will watch as millions of Arabs are driven out or killed from Gaza and ultimately the West Bank.
If nothing is done, then the same thing will eventually happen to Hezbollah unless Iran intervenes to come to its assistance.
And you have to know that behind the scenes, the Arabs in Jordan and in Egypt are talking privately with the Turks and saying, you know, historically, we live in your sphere of influence.
Yet, you are all talk and no action.
Why do you expect us to impale ourselves on Israel if you are unwilling to do anything?
Remember, Iran is a Shiite power.
The Persian Iran that we talk about is an outsider in that area.
They don't view the Iranians as natural leaders inside the Islamic world, but the truth is, thus far, it's the Shiites who've been leading and the Sunnis who have done Almost nothing.
It's a very strange set of circumstances.
Here is President Biden yesterday afternoon.
Tell me if you agree with him, Colonel.
A few words about Iran's missile attack on Israel today.
At my direction, the United States military actively supported the defense of Israel.
And we're still assessing the impact.
But based on what we know now, the attack appears to have been defeated and ineffective.
And this is testament to Israeli military capability and U.S. military.
I'm also a testament to intensive planning between the United States and Israel to anticipate and defend against the brazen attack we expected.
Defeated and ineffective?
Well, certainly it was not defeated per se because it was not designed to kill large numbers of people.
But at the same time, it turned out to be ineffective.
I think that's arguably true.
Strategically, I'm sure the Israelis breathed a huge sigh of relief.
You're talking about the capability to launch 100 missiles an hour for 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, 96 hours, with deadly accuracy.
This is Iran's capability?
Yes.
And that has not happened.
And as long as that does not happen, I think the Israelis are going to take advantage of the opportunity.
They'd be fools not to, and they're going to go after Iran with a vengeance.
There's a struggle inside Iran right now between the new regime, which is actually moderate in its outlook, and wants to align itself with what we consider to be normalcy in the world and normalcy in the region.
People in Iran who are on the other side of that argument, the so-called hardliners, they're saying, you're fools.
You've lost your minds.
That would be the Ayatollah and his crew.
Well, I would think so.
But I don't want to name names that impute things to people without knowing precisely who they are.
But the bottom line is.
Bottom line is they very definitely are standing around and they're saying, what, are you crazy?
The Israelis and the Americans are coming for you.
They are going to destroy you.
Why are you holding back?
Why are you holding back?
What is President Putin doing while this is happening?
Is he talking to the new president of Iran saying, be restrained?
Or how can I help?
There is some evidence that the former chief of defense, defense minister, if you will, Shoigu may well be on the ground in Iran, along with the current Russian Prime Minister and thousands of Russian technicians and military advisors, trying to put together and maintain this elaborate air and missile defense network, along with probably other weapons systems that have been provided.
So I think the Russians are there, and they've told the Iranians, we will stand by you.
But at the same time, I think Putin has always been predisposed to advise caution and restraint.
Now, that's actually worked thus far very well, I would argue, in Ukraine.
It is Ukraine that is dying.
It is Ukraine that has bled to death.
It's the American military establishment and its equipment that has failed miserably to successfully halt any Russian advance.
But the situation in the Middle East is quite different.
So giving that advice is probably not necessarily the right advice at this point.
At the same time, you have Xi in China.
He does not want the Straits of Hormuz to be closed.
And he's worried about the destruction of the oil facilities in Iran and access to those straits.
I mean, why would the Israelis allow business as usual through the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz?
If they're at war with Iran, I think it's pretty clear that they're not going to hold back.
And that's why I'm saying that that battle in Tehran is being fought out as we speak.
And I don't know what the outcome will be, but I think ultimately the hardliners are going to win.
What has Netanyahu, who it is obvious now never wanted peace, exploited October 7th?
Well beyond its initial meaning as an instrument with which to expand the borders of Israel well beyond, never mind 1967, but where it is today.
What has he done to Israel by this belligerence, to the country that he leads?
Well, the Israeli economy is in ruins.
There's no question about that.
It'll take a long time to recover from all of this.
That's not terribly important as long as they swim in a sea of American cash.
You know, if you look at the credit ratings in Israel, Israel's credit rating is tied to ours.
We essentially underwrite Israeli economic strength, power, and stability.
We underwrite their currency.
underwrite everything.
So as long as this continues, I think the Israeli population is certainly 80 plus percent behind what Mr. Netanyahu is doing.
That's another matter entirely.
But I think what he's doing is something they strongly support.
They want to rid themselves of the quote-unquote Arab problem, the Palestinian-Arab problem.
They want to get rid of it.
They want to rid themselves of the quote-unquote Hezbollah problem.
Now, we can sit here.
We can go back into the past and we can debate how it got this way and how the Israelis shot themselves in the foot several times, cultivated the emergence of their own enemies.
It doesn't make any difference.
This is what they want to do.
And remember that if you can move into Lebanon, where they're headed now, you also exert considerable control over the water table and water resources.
Water resources in that region of the world are as important as gold.
And that would put them in a very strong position the deeper they go into Lebanon, and ultimately their operations in Syria are the same.
Again, this is why ultimately, and I say this ultimately, when all is said and done, we will watch Turks enter this conflict.
The Turks will not sit there and do nothing in perpetuity, and we will see Jordan and Egypt explode.
It's coming.
But it's coming very slowly.
Will the Turks turn off the spigot of oil, much of which goes to Israel, or are they more interested in the commercial desirability of continuing to sell oil even to a country that's adverse to theirs?
The destruction of Lebanon, which is ongoing, is pushing them in the direction of shutting it down finally.
And the pressure inside Turkey on President Erdogan and his regime, which is accused of all sorts of corruption problems right now, is enormous.
I think he's going to be pushed into these actions, whether he likes it or not.
What are we going to do?
I mean, I'm sure you saw President Netanyahu talk about the Israelis liberating.
government.
Yes.
And of course, that drew a lot of laughter inside Iran because the Iranians said, we may not like this government, but if you think we're going to align ourselves with the Jews and Israel against our own government, against our own country, you've lost your mind.
One wonders what that comment that he made was aimed at.
Maybe it was Iranian expats living in the United States.
Let me switch gears before we end.
The killing of Nazarallah, a cultural icon, a religious leader, a cult leader, if you will, but is it very significant militarily that he's now dead?
I think it's significant militarily only insofar as it stiffens the resolve and the willingness to fight inside Hezbollah.
Remember, his predecessor was also assassinated.
The problem with all of these assassinations is that they do not fundamentally change anything.
They tend on the whole to inspire those who don't want to negotiate in any case.
It tends to discredit anybody who argues for moderation.
It makes people in Israel and in the United States feel good because they've been able to find someone they don't like who is opposed to them and kill them.
It also opens up another can of worms, which is what could happen to us and what could happen inside Israel.
No one is immune to this sort of thing.
When you start this assassination program, there's always a danger that it becomes a tit-for-tat operation.
But it doesn't change anything strategically because ultimately all of these people are replaced.
I mean, somebody said to me the other day, what happens when you remove the Well, you replace them.
Somebody else comes in and takes over.
So you don't fundamentally change anything, but you do anger and you do inspire people to fight back.
And in this case, the replacement might be more strident than the person that was assassinated.
Well, you know, remember we killed Soleimani, General Soleimani, and we don't need to go back over that.
I thought that was a misguided act at the time and thought it was also, as you would point out, unconstitutional because we don't assassinate the members of other people's governments.
Well, all of that went by the wayside.
Has his force been any less effective?
I don't see much evidence for that.
Is Iran...
Of course not.
So killing him changed fundamentally nothing.
Colonel, thank you very much for your time, my dear friend.
You know, there's one last thing I'd like to say that people need to keep in mind.
There are many ways to define genius.
Both Goethe and Einstein said, genius consists of knowing when to stop.
The truth is that the Israelis are on the edge of the abyss, and we are with them, encouraging them to jump off the cliff and into the abyss.
However good they may think things look at the moment, whatever advantage they think they've achieved is temporary.
And over time, the massive...
The enormity of opposition to them in the region is only going to metastasize and grow.
So knowing when to stop is genius.
I keep looking for it in Washington, in Keith, and in Jerusalem.
I can't find it.
It doesn't exist.
You're certainly not going to find it in Netanyahu.
We know that.
Colonel, thank you.
Thanks for your time.
This is the largest audience you've drawn of the many huge live audiences Of course.
A great man and a very, very insightful series of operations about both Ukraine and the Middle East.
Coming up at 12 noon today, live from Ukraine, Patrick Lancaster.
At 1.30, Aaron Maté.
At 2.30, Phil Giraldi.
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