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Jan. 12, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
25:25
Alastair Crooke : Should Trump Trust Netanyahu?
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, January 13, 2025.
Alistair Crook is here with us on Should President Trump Trust Prime Minister Netanyahu?
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Alstair, good day to you, my dear friend.
Welcome back to the program.
Thank you for your time, of course.
Is Israel an asset for the United States?
Decidedly, no.
Not only an asset, it's a huge liability.
Because for all these years, it's been taking America into wars.
Forever wars, they're called, but they've caused huge damage across the region.
Four, five regime changes that were all...
Instructed and ordered in this paper called The Clean Break, written in 96, and by a group that subsequently became the New American Century Group.
And they proposed all of these regime change, ultimately ending with Iran.
The consequence for the United States has been a huge damage to its reputation and to its moral standing.
It has no real moral standing anymore with these wars, particularly the war on the Palestinians.
Does Iran have a nuclear weapon?
I don't know.
I don't know for sure.
It might.
I see no evidence of that.
The fatwa, as far as I know, still holds.
But I don't think that if Iran decided to go for a nuclear weapon, which a number of many Iranians support that now, a majority supports moving towards an Iranian weapon,
given all the threats that are issuing from Washington and from Israel.
I don't think it would take very long for it to be assembled.
I suspect the component parts are already there.
It just requires for the fissile material to be loaded into the targeting, the bomb system.
And then you have a nuclear weapon.
So I don't think it would be very difficult or take long for Iran to do that.
It's a political judgment.
A very fine judgment that Iran is trying to make.
They know they're being targeted.
Israel is clearly preparing for a conflict with Iran.
There are exercises, there are practices, there are preparations going on for an attack on Iran all the time in Israel now, at a high level.
Intensely. And they don't know yet what will be the position.
No one knows what Trump will do or he thinks he's very unexpected.
He always comes up and can surprise people.
But clearly this is going to be an issue that is going to come up very, very soon before Ukraine for Trump and could become An extremely difficult issue for him.
His envoy, his Ukraine envoy, Kellogg, Keith Kellogg, said very clearly he called for a reviving of maximum pressure campaign against Iran, addressing the need for comprehensive measures to encourage democratic reforms in the Islamic Republic,
adding... These pressures are not just kinetic, not just military force, but they must be economic and diplomatic as well.
Adding, to change Iran for the better should be taken now.
Action to change Iran for the better should be taken without delay.
We must exploit the weaknesses we now see.
The hope is there.
So much to the action.
Well, I don't know how that sounds to you, Judge, but it sounds to me awfully like an invitation to regime change in Iran, either by military action or by imposing crippling and damaging sanctions on Iran.
Is General Kellogg the shadow Secretary of State?
I thought he was the emissary on...
Ukraine and Russia and here he is giving pronouncements on Iran.
Have I misunderstood something or is this just the nature of government where power expands?
I think the latter, to be frank.
And it was the audience he gave it to which underlines it so much because this was the MEK, the terrorist group that fought against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war.
And then subsequently committed terrorist acts and assassinations throughout Iran.
They are bitterly hated in Iran.
And this was the so-called national resistance organization or movement that he lectured in Paris, saying that we must exploit this weakness and that there must be change of Iran and action should be taken without delay.
So, I mean, this is a decision that is going to be facing Trump very soon because clearly the Netanyahu government is doing everything it can at the moment to try and get through some sort of hostage deal.
And one of his selling points to those that are resisting it, he's promising them all sorts of inducements to reach finally a hostage deal against Considerable opposition from the right of the party.
But one of the things he's suggesting to them, there are two things.
One, he says, listen, if you do that, you can put millions of new settlers in the West Bank.
I think this is, he's assuming that Trump is going to okay the annexation of the West Bank.
But that's what he's saying to Smotrich and Ben-Givier.
They're still not persuaded that this is worth doing a deal.
Are they so disenchanted with this deal, if it comes to pass, that they would withdraw from the government, thereby undermining Prime Minister Netanyahu's majority in the Knesset?
Or do they realize that, with the exception of an instance like this, they're still in the catbird seat?
I think they would be prepared.
These are zealots.
I mean, they're fanatical about creating greater Israel.
And so, you know, with zealots and fanatics, they may do that, even if it's self-destructive.
It won't be the first time in Israel's history that a group of zealots have brought destruction down onto Israel.
I think so.
But basically...
The other inducement that Netanyahu is telling them, but he says, listen, we must go with Trump.
We must go for the bigger prize that we're wanting from Trump.
It's an obvious hint that that prize is that they want American support for...
An attack on Iran.
And all of the messaging, you hear it all over the place.
I mean, not only is Iran weak and it's been degraded, but you also hear, and this is what Kellogg was hinting at, he said, you know, one little push, one little push, just one F-35 over Iran and probably the regime would collapse.
It's so weak, it's so corrupt.
It would collapse in a thrice and then be a revolution.
And then we could have, I mean, it's really almost disgusting to hear it.
Then they say we could then have a democratic government in Iran.
I mean, you know, the language of democracy has just become so degraded and so tarnished.
What is the moral argument?
There is no moral argument to this.
It is entirely the argument that America, this is part of the deepest structures of the United States politics, is Israel.
Israel and the foreign policy on Israel are not things that can be discussed in public or haven't been until very recently.
It is the deeply bedded sort of structural element to America's foreign policy, which is...
Effectively untouchable by the unipater and by Congress.
You do that at the risk of losing your job and your career, even if you're a congressman.
So it's always been that Israel must have the edge, must have the overall edge over any and every state in the region.
And really what we're facing now is really America and Trump will have three options.
They could be sequential or they could be separate.
They're not mutually exclusive.
But one would be to threaten Iran and impose really cohesive, cohesive diplomacy, really harsh sanctions in short, rather like we saw happening to Syria, to facilitate a new round of negotiations.
Or it could be to greenlight an Israeli...
A preemptive strike in Iran and bear the consequences, or to join with Israel in striking Iran directly.
And this is what Iran is facing, and this is the deep discussion that is going on with Iran.
When you hear language like this, you understand that the option, the idea that you signal to Trump, look, we're ready to do a nuclear deal.
I mean, with this coercive sanctions, with this aim to create democracy, to overthrow the government.
I mean, it's obviously hinting at things like the Caesar sanctions that really eviscerated the Syrian economy.
It did not even have an economy.
It was all removed and was left.
People were hungry.
We're starving and living on, you know, a few dollars a month.
I mean, that's what, you know, you're going to sell that to the Iranians?
Oh, yes, yes.
Now, but you've got to do what we say.
And these are the sanctions, because this is the point.
At the end of the day, it's Israel which will determine what are the conditions for a nuclear deal.
Just as they tried to do and just as Netanyahu managed to persuade Trump then to ditch the original deal because it was too generous.
So we know what this all means.
It means a harsher deal with more, if you like, siege put on the civilian population of Iran, trying to drive the economy into the dirt so that they overthrow the government in due course.
I don't think you can sell that today in Iran.
In fact, I'm sure you can't.
But when you go to the second, I just want to say, if you go to the second ideas, that they can sort of just wait out Trump talking to Putin and then do a deal on the back of that.
Fine. But it's contingent on Trump succeeding in doing a deal with Russia, with Putin.
And I'm a little bit skeptical of that.
I think you may find that the third option is what is likely to happen is possible.
I'm only saying possible.
But I think Iran may decide to reestablish its power, its deterrence, its capabilities, its military capabilities to be able to negotiate.
And that is the aim, to negotiate from a position of strength.
Having demonstrated in Israel that they're no pushover militarily, that they're not an easy win.
Quite the opposite.
And that what they could do to Israel could be terminal.
And that therefore they want to do this so that eventually Trump gives up and Kellogg gives up this language, oh, well, we must, you know, we must have really coercive sanctions.
And a policy framework for it, because it's not acceptable anymore.
Iran has changed enormously from the time.
Now, the big question, the really big question, maybe you know the answer, I certainly don't, is I believe in Trump's intentions.
He doesn't want a war.
He doesn't want a war with Iran.
I'm quite convinced in a way with that.
The question is, really, does he understand the situation and where this could lead if he goes down this route of coercion?
Here's the danger.
Here's the danger, in my view.
The president-elect has little personal understanding of all of this and will rely on the people around him.
And he has surrounded himself with arch-Zionists.
And for the most part, neocons.
And they want war.
I don't think he wants war, but I do think he understands what he doesn't know and is likely to abide their advice, and that's dangerous.
However, sometimes he acts on his own, like when he posted a clip of our friend and colleague, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, referring to Netanyahu as...
A deep, dark son of a bitch.
There were many other criticisms in there.
The essence of them was that Netanyahu and the donor class in the United States have led the United States into its disastrous Middle East wars.
What is the message sent by the president-elect posting this very articulate and very strong and very passionate piece by Jeff Sachs?
I think it's a warning to Netanyahu, which I think is well-merited.
Don't take me for granted.
Don't think that you can just, you know, maneuver me into a war, maneuver me here or there.
I'm not going to be maneuvered any longer by Israel.
The United States has its own interests.
You have interests, but maybe the two are not the same.
And maybe they diverge, in which case I pursue American interests.
And I think really this is the real issue, both in Ukraine, which people don't touch really very much, and also with Iran.
It is how far out on a limb can Trump go in respect to the deep state.
These are the most basic.
Russia and Iran are the most...
Basic, if you like, load-bearing structures of American foreign policy.
And he has to do a deal.
And he's got to do a deal because he wants to get his key nominations into the domestic area and into the China trade.
He's got to get them in.
So the first thing is he has to do a deal and say, look, I'm going to have these three nominations or other nominations.
I mean, we only have to look what's happened to Tulsi Gabbard in the last few days.
We understand.
And he's had to pay a price.
The entry price into this discussion was to appoint all these Israeli firsts.
So that's just the entry price.
Then there has to be the negotiation.
And we know that the deep state is saying to him, yeah, okay, you can do the domestic things.
We won't give you everyone, but we can give you some of these nominees.
But with the others on foreign policy, we will have our way.
We will have our way over the National Security Council and other nominations.
So there has to be a change.
And I think that, you know, before Trump can really do a deal, either with Putin or even with Netanyahu about Iran, I mean, he has to get that deal done.
And it's not done yet, and it may take a little time until it's done.
But there's going to be a trade-off.
The deep state are going to have their interests.
Will they give up on Russia?
Will they give up on Iran in order to allow him to have more nominations?
It's going to be a very delicate balance, I think.
So we don't know what's going to be the outcome.
Here's the $64,000 question this morning, Alistair.
Should Donald Trump trust Benjamin Netanyahu?
Absolutely not.
Netanyahu has always had his own intentions.
Don't forget that, you know, series of six or seven regime changes that were demanded were presented in a document.
To Netanyahu.
It was commissioned to him, and this was the advice to Netanyahu, that we need started with Iraq and then went through Libya and it went through Sudan, Somalia, and the last one on it was Syria and then Iran.
And we're still on that track.
It hasn't gone.
That's what I mean by these deep structures.
Can he trust them?
Look, there are many ways that Netanyahu can start it.
If he wants to pull Trump in it, What about an assassination in Tehran of a senior, either IRGC or religious leader in Iran?
What would happen then?
Of course, no one believes for a moment that Iran will not retaliate.
In fact, I think there's a possibility, I can't guarantee you at all, but I think there's a possibility actually that Iran is going to preempt this by taking military action themselves.
To demonstrate deterrence in order to get into a position where they can negotiate with Trump, not from weakness.
We're going to put all these coercive diplomacy and sanctions on you, and then you're allowed to squeak at the end of that.
They're not going to have that.
So I think it's just possible we may see...
Iran actually taking the initiative.
That's seemingly what the IRGC commander said on Saturday.
He said preemptive, true promise free is going to happen.
Is there any diplomatic significance to Netanyahu canceling his plans to fly to the US this weekend in order to be present at Donald Trump's inauguration?
Well, I don't think he was invited, actually.
Well, that wouldn't stop him.
Apparently, I think, apparently, he's very busy planning for Iran.
That's what they say, why he can't go.
I mean, there is this negotiations about whether they can...
He's desperately trying to...
He's desperately trying to get a...
The negotiations for the hostage release going.
And there seems to have been a message from the Trump administration that Israel must avoid opening new or old war fronts in the region because Trump does not want to deal with a new war in his first aid and wants to focus on American domestic issues,
which is what we discussed earlier.
We know that.
And Netanyahu's trying to do this without losing his government, but it's touch and go.
There's a lot of propaganda.
Oh, it's all been agreed.
Actually, it's only been agreed between the negotiators in Doha, but it hasn't yet been agreed by Hamas.
So it's not agreed yet.
It may be agreed, but even then, it's still going to be controversial.
Does it bring an end to the war in Gaza or just a ceasefire, which Hamas have always said they will never accept for Israel just simply to go back and start the war again?
Alistair Crook, a pleasure, my dear friend.
Thank you for allowing me to pick your brain, and thanks for your willingness to go across the board on these issues from American domestic politics to Iran, to Ukraine, to Israel.
All the best, my dear friend.
We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
Thank you very much.
Yes, thank you.
Coming up today at 8.45 this morning, a new guest.
Whose work I've admired and who's a colleague of many of our on-air colleagues, Professor Glenn Deason at 845, Ray McGovern at 10, Larry Johnson at 1130, Scott Ritter at 1 this afternoon,
and Matt Ho at 3 this afternoon.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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