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May 28, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
31:19
[SPECIAL] Max Blumenthal : My Weeks In Iran.
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Hi there, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, May 29, 2025.
That is not an AI image of Max Blumenthal.
That is Max Blumenthal after a three- or four-week hiatus during which I missed you, Max.
Our team missed you.
the fans missed you.
People are saying, I'm glad you're home safely.
You spent a fair amount of your time in Iran.
What are your general takeaways, politically, economically, culturally, militarily?
General takeaways are difficult to offer because the situation is so multilayered and complex that Traveling to Iran for two weeks raised more questions than it answered.
But there are certain components or issues that are directly relevant to negotiations between Iran and the U.S. that were obvious.
Number one being the economy has suffered under maximum pressure, under the sanctions, which...
And so everywhere I went, I mean, this is kind of an easy one to untangle.
Everywhere you go, people ask where you're from.
There are very few tourists there.
They're very happy to see Americans there.
There's no hostility toward American individuals.
There is deep resentment of the U.S. government for imposing sanctions.
And everyone is suffering because of the inflation rates, the weakening of the currency, and the negotiations through currency into a kind of rollercoaster ride, where at first, as negotiations began on a positive note in Oman, Iran's currency strengthened, the rial strengthened against the dollar for the first time in a while.
Then it would plummet again when Trump would make some kind of bellicose statement or attack Iran during his speech in Riyadh.
Because pessimism would set in.
Trump would also manage to reduce oil prices when he would say, oh, a deal is within reach.
And then he would say, Steve Witkoff, his negotiator, would go on ABC's This Week, as he did two Sundays ago, and say, Iran must end all enrichment of uranium.
And then oil prices would go up because investors would say, hey, there's not going to be a deal, so we're not going to get more Iranian oil.
Another takeaway was that Iran has survived maximum pressure.
It survived a very intense color revolution backed by the West and its enemies.
The Masa Amini woman life freedom protests left over 50 police officers dead.
It was actually very violent in the final stages and it did not dislodge the leadership.
Iran has done close to $200 billion of trade under sanctions in the past year.
They're producing domestically a very robust military industry.
They have a nanotechnology center.
They have their own Silicon Valley.
They have a very thoughtful military concept for handling all sorts of threats.
And so they can continue to go forward without a deal, talking to people in the streets, talking to diplomats who are close to the negotiations.
Talking to journalistic colleagues, there is a general sense of pessimism about the deal because of the nature of the government in Washington.
It is a Zionist-controlled government, and it doesn't understand how important uranium enrichment is to Iran's sense of independence, its sense of dignity, and its national development.
I was able to go to the Tehran Nuclear Research Center.
This is an active nuclear reactor in Tehran with a small group of journalists and academics.
And you get a tour going in there in a small museum of all of the applications of civilian nuclear technology that was produced at that facility.
And they produce radioisotopes that are used by As many as 1 million Iranians for cancer treatments and other medical applications, like for example, PET scan fluid that you need to detect cancer during a PET scan or just radiation therapy.
They also use it to sterilize medical devices.
To rid agricultural products of mites and other bugs.
It's used for so many applications.
And they have all these nuclear research centers around the country where thousands of people are trained.
And when you come into that center, that reactor, you'll see a tribute to all of the nuclear scientists who were assassinated, murdered by Israel, including Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who is considered the Oppenheimer of Iran.
Actually, during a briefing after the tour, With the spokesman for the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, who is a veteran diplomat named Behrouz Kamovandi, I met a young man whose father was a top Iranian quantum theorist.
Who had been murdered in front of his home by a Mossad agent.
So the idea that they would stop enrichment would mean that all of these deaths took place in vain, that Iranians would lose access to nuclear technology that's supporting the medical sector, agricultural sector, and they want to diversify their energy sector, which is heavily reliant on oil.
And there are two-hour blackouts every day now.
So there's pessimism.
As long as the U.S. keeps up this red line of nuclear enrichment or the U.K. does the same, and yet there is great pressure, grassroots pressure from the population for a deal.
It's favored by all sectors, according to Iran's top pollster who I spoke to, Abraham Mosanyi, because of the pain of sanctions.
They would love to make a deal.
And they would love to have better diplomatic relations with the United States, but the obstacle is in Washington and Tel Aviv.
Is the issue the level of enrichment?
And I realize that Wyckoff has been on both sides of this.
At one point, he said 3.8, 3.9.
That's when everybody rejoiced.
And then, of course, the neocons and the Zionists and Trump's inner circle, maybe Trump himself, got to him and he said zero.
Would the Iranians ever accept zero and lose the modern miracles of medicine that you just described that come about from the peaceful use of uranium enrichment?
Would they ever agree to that voluntarily?
I highly doubt it.
I mean, it would mean just a complete sacrifice of their own independence and sovereignty.
It has given them a competitive edge over many of their regional rivals.
And there are discussions about exporting nuclear technology or engaging in a consortium with the UAE and Saudi Arabia to historic adversaries that could actually start to foster more peaceful relations.
So the nuclear industry in Iran really is essential to its national competitiveness.
Cannot believe that they would ever, even under this reformist government, which is more conciliatory to the West than anyone would have expected after Trump ripped up the JCPOA, following the JCPOA delivering no sanctions relief, very little sanctions relief.
And then returning Iran to maximum pressure and the assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani.
This government has been so conciliatory, and yet that really does appear to be a red line.
It just seems like they are not willing to go that far.
Now, the level of enrichment definitely could be up for negotiation.
And when you talk to Iranian nuclear experts, they'll say that the only area...
Where they will stop enrichment is at weapons grade level because that is about honoring their obligation to the nonproliferation treaty, the NPT, which, by the way, Israel does not honor.
But everything below that they believe should be permissible.
There's no international treaty or international law that forbids them.
From enriching up to 90%, which, by the way, was the level of enrichment at the nuclear facility I visited in Tehran when it was developed under the Shah with U.S. assistance.
They went down to 20% just because they couldn't keep it up.
But 20% will allow naval propulsion.
You know, the propulsion of submarines, that's not illegal under the NPT, so why should they give that up?
But then Marco Rubio has said it needs to go down to below 3.67, and there are all these different criteria.
But I think they'll be flexible there.
But zero, impossible.
What is the moral or legal basis for reducing this number far below?
What the treaties to which Iran is a party require?
Just to please the Israelis?
Well, the Israelis won't be pleased with anything except what Netanyahu calls the Libya model, which would mean blowing up all of Iran's civilian nuclear facilities.
Because the issue isn't nuclear weapons for Israel.
The issue is regime change.
And the weaker Iran is and the less it can produce energy.
The less scientific capacity it has, the more likely it is that regime change will take place.
Israel wants Iran to totally give up its deterrence.
But there is a camp in Iran, a very strong camp.
You could even call it a dominant camp, the principalist camp, which argues that Iran should have the right to a nuclear weapon.
And I can sympathize.
With what they're saying, because you look at the Libya model and what happened with Muammar Gaddafi wound up sodomized with a bayonet by Al Qaeda mercenaries backed by the US and France operating under NATO air cover.
And then you look at what happened with Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader who developed not only A robust ballistic missile program domestically, which Iran also has and cooperates with, but also the ability to deliver nuclear warheads to US territory in the Pacific.
And what did he get?
He got a meeting from Donald Trump to discuss peace, to discuss an armistice treaty for the first time in 80 years.
So the model is very clear.
And the reason that I think the US wants to take Iran down to very low enrichment levels, if it's not going to force it to 0%, is to prevent it from having breakout capacity, to be able to produce a nuclear warhead in a given time if it feels threatened on an existential level by Israel and the US.
Is Iran, from your communications with politicians, military journalists and academics, is Iran ready, willing and able to resist an Israeli and American-backed?
Well, I unfortunately didn't get any communication with any active military personnel.
There was another group of journalists and academics, mostly from the West, that went to the Iranian Aerospace Center that I also went to.
It's sort of like the air and space, a cross between the Air and Space Museum and Washington.
And the rocket museum in Huntsville, Alabama, and something totally unique to Iran.
And there they show you the development of Iran's ballistic missile program, which it developed almost completely on its own without any foreign assistance, as well as its drone program, which is heavily reverse engineered from captured U.S. drones, its air defense systems, which are also domestically produced and are And it's space program.
Iran has sent several satellites into space, which now have military applications.
And so this is something they're also not willing to give up.
The other group that went there actually got to speak to a spokesman from the IRGC, but I didn't get that level of access to be able to ask questions.
And of course, I mean, he was a spokesman, so he wasn't going to answer a question like, when does True Promise 3 take place?
But I was able to glean how important long range hypersonic ballistic missiles that can change direction in order to avert the Iron Dome system in Israel and deliver these weapons to Tel Aviv in seven minutes.
How important that is to Iran's deterrence, along with its...
One of the most powerful drone programs in the world to the point where they're actually exporting drones to Russia, Russia, which had refused in the past to assist Iran on its ballistic missile programs.
What is the phrase you just used, true promise three?
Well, we watched and discussed on your show True Promise 1 and True Promise 2. Those were the two military retaliations by Iran against Israel for attacking its sovereign territory.
And True Promise 3 was promised, I think it was after the killing of Ismail Hania inside Tehran.
And then there was an Israeli attack.
On Iranian territory, where they claim to have taken out several S-300 air defense systems, and True Promise 3 never took place.
We rolled into these negotiations between Iran and the U.S. and Oman, and I asked two seasoned Iranian diplomats who have detailed knowledge of what's taking place in the negotiations about True Promise 3, is it off the table or is it on the table?
When will it happen?
And what they simply said was, yes, we are willing and able to execute this if we reach an impasse in these negotiations and Israel begins to threaten us again.
Trump stated yesterday, he seemed to state it reluctantly, but he stated it, that he called Netanyahu and told him not to attack Iran while the negotiations were going on.
Is that realistic, that the Israelis...
would disrupt an American negotiation with Iran by waging an attack while the negotiations are in Rome.
They're not in Iran, but while the negotiations are going on?
Well, U.S. intelligence has twice leaked scenarios in which Israel...
And they did that in order to send a warning to Israel or to disrupt these plans.
I mean, it's pretty clear what's going on.
Trump made it clear.
And this is unique.
I mean, we didn't see this kind of language from Obama's team to Israel when Israel was trying to disrupt the JCPOA.
But one other scenario that I think we should consider is a false flag.
And I think everyone will blame Israel if there's some kind of attack, I don't know, on a U.S. naval ship or U.S. naval installation, some kind of U.S. or possibly Emirati oil installation in the Persian Gulf, which Trump was considering renaming the Arabian Gulf.
I think we'd have to point the finger at Israel.
This is actually the plot to a serial...
So this is something we should all be looking out for.
And I think Trump is rightly concerned that Israel would do this.
What I don't think Israel can do based on my...
They don't have the capacity to do it.
This is public knowledge.
Iran has been reinforcing those facilities and building deeper and deeper underground.
Let me take you to Gaza.
What is your understanding of the current state of Food, water, medicine, and fuel getting into Gaza, bearing in mind that a retired IDF general called it staged starvation.
Interesting.
I mean, it is.
It's staged starvation, and we can see the logic playing out now, the sinister logic.
What Israel aims to do, as the Wall Street Journal reported, is to occupy 75% of the Gaza Strip.
That's everything from the north, from like Jabalia, down to the Netzarim Corridor in the center, past Darabala, and push as much of the population as possible towards Rafa in the south.
Because what's south of Rafa?
It's the Sinai Desert.
And that's the last stop before ethnic cleansing and total victory for Israel.
And so in order to lure the population south, what Israel has sought to do is, first of all, destroy Unruh.
The United Nations program that has fed the Gaza Strip since 1949.
And they've declared them a terrorist entity.
They've locked their office in Jerusalem.
And they've starved the population.
And then they've set up through a series of shell companies to security, basically to...
I think.
And they're sending American mercenaries to do static protection for these concentration camp-style hubs that they've set up in Western Rafa, where they're luring people with the promise of food, starving people.
And then what they want to do is create this kind of conurbation there, where the population is stuck there in order to eat.
And then Israel begins to occupy everywhere north of them.
And that's the end of the Gaza Strip.
It's ethnic cleansing.
And these ostensibly American firms The Washington Post has said there's a mystery $100 million donor.
Israeli politicians are saying it's the Mossad.
What these groups are doing is they're bringing Americans into the Gaza Strip to participate in the crime of the century, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and using aid as the linchpin of Israel's sinister strategy.
I want you to take a look at testimony from an American surgeon from California who just spent time in the Gaza Strip.
I don't know if you've seen this.
It's articulate, compelling.
He's probably going to be a media star, and I'm sure the Israelis don't want to hear this.
But here is Dr. Feroz Sidwa at the United Nations.
Yesterday, Chris, number 17. My name is Dr. Faroz Sidwa.
I am an American trauma and critical care surgeon based in Stockton, California.
I come before you today to speak about the Gaza Strip, where I have volunteered twice since October 7th.
The Constitution of the World Health Organization states that the health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent on the fullest cooperation of individuals and states.
I've taken this to heart, and it is the reason I volunteer in conflict zones from Haiti to Ukraine to Gaza.
I did not see or treat a single combatant during my five weeks in Gaza.
My patients were six-year-olds with shrapnels in their heart and bullets in their brains, and pregnant women whose pelvises had been obliterated and their fetuses cut in two while still in the womb.
The medical system has not failed.
It has been systematically dismantled through a sustained military campaign that has willfully violated international humanitarian law.
Civilians are now dying not just from the constant airstrikes, but from acute malnutrition, sepsis, exposure and despair.
This is a man-made catastrophe.
It is entirely preventable.
Participating in it or not, allowing it to happen is a choice.
This is a deliberate denial of conditions necessary for life, food, shelter, water, and medicine.
Preventing genocide means refusing to normalize these atrocities.
It means refusing to dehumanize the Palestinians, to refuse to see them as calories counted or numbers of trucks moved.
We see now that this way of thinking has brought about a human dignity crisis with an entire people on the edge of survival.
Can any amount of public diplomatic or economic pressure, short of Donald Trump closing the military spigot, which, as you've said, he could do.
Well, no, nothing could change the policy short of starving Israel of the means to carry out the Holocaust of our time.
The Trump administration and Western mainstream media have no appetite for turning the screws on Israel.
I mean, why are we only seeing that testimony on social media or Al Jazeera?
I was sort of out of commission on social media for several days because I was traveling.
I had locked my devices and so on.
So I wasn't hearing anything about what's taking place in Gaza, about the horrors in Gaza.
All I could see was Western mainstream media passing through airports and they're not reporting on it.
They're not telling us about the nine of ten children of a Gaza doctor who were burned to a crisp and showed up at the hospital while the doctor was operating there.
About the young girl the lone survivor filmed walking through a burning house while her family was burning alive who barely escaped with burns all over her body.
About the 11-year-old influencer who was giving tips on how to survive the genocide until Israel deliberately targeted her home and murdered her.
We're not hearing these stories in Western media because Western media is run by Nazi collaborators who are collaborating.
With the Zionist regime that is responsible for this Holocaust.
Number two, Donald Trump not only does not have the will to enforce the ceasefire that he negotiated, his negotiator Steve Woodcoff is acting like Israel's lawyer.
As every other previous U.S. negotiator has, Idan Alexander was released by Hamas as the last American citizen, dual U.S.-Israeli national, as a goodwill gesture with the promise from Witkoff that Israel would be forced to allow food into the Gaza Strip.
And then the following day, after Alexander was let out, Witkoff's son retweets a tweet from someone boasting that nothing was given to Hamas.
They were basically duped.
They were tricked.
And this resonated in Iran, where I was at the time, Iranian diplomats saying, we can't trust the Americans if this is the way they behave.
And once again, Hamas two days ago agreed to a ceasefire proposal put forward by the Americans.
Then when Netanyahu rejected it, as he always does, Witkoff said, Hamas's behavior is unacceptable.
He always blames Hamas because he has to change his own terms according to Netanyahu's dictates.
So none of this would have been happening for the past several months if Trump had just been able to enforce the ceasefire, but he's not.
And finally, we're dealing with a satanic society in Israel.
This isn't just my sort of glib conclusion.
This is a society with an endless capacity to slaughter children as a kind of hobby and starve an entire population without any political consequence for the leadership.
And this is borne out through a poll by Penn State University, one of the most comprehensive polls of Jewish-Israeli attitudes taken.
82% of Jewish Israelis support the forced expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel.
56% support the forced expulsion of Arab citizens 56% support, 56% support expelling all non-Jews from Israel.
47% believe the Israeli army should, quote, act like the biblical Israelites under Joshua in Jericho, killing all inhabitants of a conquered city.
I could go on and on, but just one more.
Just 9%.
Of Jewish-Israeli men under 40 oppose all genocide scenarios for Palestinians.
So that's who we're dealing with.
And to the extent that Israel is a democracy, they have voted for genocide and the brakes are off because there's no one in Washington or Brussels able to challenge them.
The Netanyahu regime just a few minutes ago, or at least CNN, is reporting.
That the Netanyahu regime just approved today the largest land grab.
I can't call it a settlement.
It's a theft of land in the West Bank in two decades.
Yep.
In two decades.
Before that, by the way, the largest land grab took place under a labor government in Israel, under Ehud Barak, during the peace process.
This land grab, authorized by Defense Minister Israel Katz, aims to prevent a Palestinian state by colonizing as much land as possible in the West Bank.
And that means that this will not be resolved diplomatically.
There's no diplomatic off-ramp with a society like the one that's been created.
Under the ideology of Zionism in Israel, it's going to be continuous warfare for as long as a Jewish supremacist state exists in the heart of the Levant.
And so we're looking at another Algeria solution, but it's going to be much bloodier than Algeria.
And a different scenario than Algeria, because the French colonists in Algeria had somewhere to go.
They could go home.
But many Jewish Israelis, they're not willing to go.
And they have nuclear weapons, which are not regulated or monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and which are pointed not just at their neighbors in the Middle East, but at Europe.
Nuclear blackmail, a settler colonial population driven insane by years of continuous warfare, and a government in Washington that is in thrall.
To Zionist ideology and pro-Israel money, it doesn't matter if the ceasefire deal was signed today for 60 days.
We are looking at, unless someone does something, unless something changes in the Western system, we are looking at continuous warfare emanating from this entity in Tel Aviv.
Max, you're as articulate as ever.
Thank you, my dear friend.
I almost forgot what it's like to listen to you.
It's such an education.
Thank you for letting me know.
I'm sorry we're still talking about this topic.
As you just said, it's not going to go away until Trump does something.
I don't know what will have to happen to persuade Trump, but something.
But thank you, my dear friend.
Were you detained at the airport this time when you returned to the United States?
were detained by American authorities at an American airport.
Yeah, had I been, I guess I would have...
But I would just advise anyone watching this, if you're traveling abroad, no matter where you're going and coming back to the U.S., to be vigilant with your devices and everything else.
Because I was detained and questioned coming back from vacation at one point.
So just be vigilant.
Learn about digital security and follow the gray zone.
Yes, follow the gray zone.
Thank you, Max.
God bless you.
All the best.
Glad you and your family are well.
We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
Thank you so much.
Thanks a lot, Judge.
Good seeing you.
A great man who's irrepressible.
And another one coming up shortly at 5 o 'clock, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.
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