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Aug. 4, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
31:12
Alastair Crooke : Will Trump Attack Iran Again?
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Everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, August 4th, 2025.
Aleister Crook will be here with us in just a moment on will President Trump Attack Iran Again.
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And now is the time.
Aleister Crook, welcome here, my dear friend.
Thank you for accommodating my schedule.
As always, before we get to the subject at hand about which you wrote over the weekend, is Donald Trump going to attack Iran again?
I want to ask you about some of the latest developments.
Is there any credible evidence or credible allegations that Israelis are blackmailing U.S. officials over the Epstein affair?
I don't know how credible it all is.
This has to be wait and see what it is.
But I think there are shoes that are beginning to drop.
And there are, if you like, interviews which are by particularly by one Israeli, Alibin Masahi, which is, I think, going to be Menashi, which is going to be very important in this consequence, who says there is he's a former intelligence officer, more or less an Israeli intelligence officer.
He was the man who was the case officer, I think, for Maxwell during the time and describes how Epstein was involved, was introduced, and Gilane was introduced, if you like, to Epstein by Maxwell at that time.
And Maxwell was clearly working completely an agent of Israel.
He was recruited sometime earlier to provide weapons and support for Israel and has been an ally ever since.
So yes, I think more is coming out.
And I think it's going to clearly, Trump is under huge pressure.
He's like in a pressure cooker of all these points that are coming up.
And it's going to be extremely difficult for him.
And as a consequence, we're seeing quite erratic, I think quite desperate behavior on his part.
For example, the sort of the rather childish attack on Medvedev for his trolling of Trump.
I mean, Medvedev has been doing these trolls for some time.
Trump equally is very good at trolling other people.
So it wasn't really a great issue, but it led to Trump suggesting that two submarines would be redeployed or somewhere adjacent to Russia.
This is what he said.
I'll read it so the audience can hear it, particularly those who have the show on audio only.
This is the President Trump on Friday.
Based on the highly provocative statements of the former president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.
Words are very important and can often lead to unintended consequences.
I hope this will not be one of those instances.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Scott Ritter has said this is extremely incendiary, even idiotic for the president, A, to do it and B, to announce that he's doing it.
These are the most deadly, expensive submarines that the United States has.
Why would he tell the Russians where they're going?
And why would he even move them in response to nothing more than a tweet?
Well, that is absolutely true.
But I think, you know, I mean, the Pentagon must be pulling their hair out about these tweets.
And it wasn't just Trump, because I think something more important was earlier this month when General Kellogg said, well, you know, Trump should send the entire Ohio-class submarines.
These are the ones that are nuclear capable submarines.
Should send the whole lot of them and they should go up and down the sort of coast of Russia and we would see whether Putin is bluffing.
And, you know, this is, I mean, extraordinarily stupid in not understanding what is the purpose of these submarines, completely misguided.
But secondly, I mean, a really extremely important insight that comes from that is, you know, he said to expose whether Putin is bluffing.
It suggests that he has been advising Trump, that he believes Putin is bluffing, and that only that a little bit more pressure here or a few sanctions there, along with Lindsey Graham and Putin is about to fold.
And, you know, Putin has made this clear and clear.
They just do not seem to hear what he is saying.
We thought Witkoff was going to be there Yesterday, but it's been postponed till later this week.
I think he's staying in the Middle East or something for a few extra days.
But I mean, they do not seem, even if Witkoff gets the message and relays it faithfully back, which he probably does.
I mean, that was what he was saying.
You know, let's call the bluff.
Let's send the entire submarine.
But it's incredibly stupid because it's a misunderstanding of this whole process.
First of all, these American submarines are second strike warfare.
That is, after there had been a first strike by Russia, these would be sitting on the ocean incapable of striking back.
That is their purpose.
So the whole point about them is that they are covert.
They sit at the bottom of the ocean, just in case.
Okay.
And one of the things that they have to do, really, is be stealthy.
And their movements should not be obvious to the Russians.
Why?
Because the Russians are very skilled at detecting these submarines.
I mean, this is a warfare that goes on all the time, is that the Russians try and follow.
And that's why they sit and don't move so that there's no engine noise, there's no indications that where the submarines are.
Why?
Because Russia has killer submarines.
And if they can trace them and stay near to them, then if they change their alert station, then they will go and attack and destroy these Ohio-class submarines.
So to say you're going to, you know, they're going to sort of navigate up and down the oceans.
I mean, it's a complete nonsense.
The Pentagon must be pulling their hair out and saying.
What is General Kellogg telling the President Trump that President Putin is bluffing about his steadfast determination to prevail in the special military operation in Ukraine?
What is he bluffing?
They claim he's bluffing about.
Yeah, because the bluffing because he thinks he's weaker than people assume him to be, and we know him to be.
And that he's bluffing because really, you know, a bit more pressure and he'll give in to Kellogg's ceasefire program, which of course is completely against Russian interests.
So, I mean, this is what it is.
But I don't think it's going to be, first of all, you know, Medvedev isn't in charge of the nuclear defense system anyway.
And this is quite something separate.
But I think what will happen, my guess is what will happen is, you know, everyone in Russia can read what's happening in America.
They are not stupid.
They follow the news.
They follow what's going on.
They know Trump is becoming extremely erratic in his statements and in his tweets.
And he's under huge pressure.
And they know that.
And they understand this is almost existential pressure that he's probably under at this moment.
And so they're not treating this, I think, as a sign that, you know, even though there are other signs, like another general has spoken rather stupidly and said, we can take Kaliningrad, that is the enclave in the Baltics by the Baltic Sea, which is Russian territory.
Pure Russia has been since the Second World War.
We can take it quickly and easily.
And then we have other statements, apart from the tweets from Trump saying, you know, well, you've only got a few days until the 8th of August.
And after that, you know, this is when the ultimatum runs out.
But I don't think they're taking this that seriously, because as I say, what the Russians, I think, will do is they monitor all these things.
They will be monitoring.
Are the Ray submarines moving?
You know, if so, they'll be very interested because he will follow them and try and locate them.
And also, they will look at all the forces in Europe and the forces in America.
What alert state are they?
Are they going up to a different alert state?
Are they going up to sort of near war level of alertness?
Well, the answer is no.
They're not doing that.
They are, and, you know, I'd be surprised if they do it in August, because, you know, putting all the ground forces on, you know, on high alert during August, they get a lot of brickbats from the troops who said, thank you very much for ruining my summer holiday.
Call back to duty.
There are a few people I know who have been called to, you know, to be recalled, but it's not, they're just one or two.
But I think, you know, the Russians will look to our, first of all, they'll make their own decision on what is the basis for our alerts status.
And so I think it's very unclear.
And I don't think myself that really, in any case, Trump has the intention to start a nuclear war with Russia.
And I don't think they think so either.
And we have Putin, who is a very cool-headed man in Moscow.
And what did he say?
He said something very sensible and very, look, he said, the problem in this tension is simply exaggerated expectations.
You know, you have to get the expectations down to what is realistic and what can be done.
And he really, and then, you know, and he said, secondly, we're open to talks.
We're prepared to negotiate.
But it's not a good idea to do this in public.
And it's not a good idea to do it by an exchange of tweets.
And I think what he said was very sensible.
And of course, Witkoff will be going there.
And Putin will no doubt tell him again that, you know, what is the problem is WAS goes back to the expansion of NATO right up to the borders of Russia and your intention to put missiles there, intermediate range missiles.
That's the problem we have to address.
Not a question of who's going to be in Kiev at the moment.
That needs to be resolved.
But the main thing is the bigger question.
And so nuclear does come into it in the sense that the Americans have now started basing some nuclear weapons, some tactical nuclear weapons in Britain in RAF Lakenfield.
And they've also put them into position around Europe.
But I think this is part, and this goes back to what I think, you know, Kellogg let the cat out of the bag.
He is briefing Trump.
Look, Putin is bluffing.
We only have to call the bluff and he will collapse and we will get what we want.
What else can it mean when he said, let's put all our submarines up there and let's see Putin's bluff.
I mean, that's what it means.
And, you know, this is a complete misreading.
The Russians know, we know that that's the case.
And I think they are waiting to see.
You know, we'll wait till we see what happens when Witkoff comes.
But they know really that Trump is cornered.
And the problem is that he cannot escalate.
He cannot escalate and put pressure on Putin in the way General Kellogg would like pressure put on it by increasing the weapons or more missiles or something, because there's no inventory.
The armories of Europe and America are empty.
At the most, they can perhaps sort of hand him a few, if you like, missiles of Patriot missiles that will be expended, eight, seven or eight.
They will be used within a day or two and are finished and over.
And after that, then you go to Tomahawk missiles, which is what was discussed.
We know from David Ignatius in his column that this is being discussed in the White House until very recently, hasn't been agreed, but is being discussed, which sounds, you know, again, as if, you know, the people advocating for pressure and escalation against Putin are still in the course.
And, you know, perhaps a more weakened Trump, who is now, you know, more worried and more concerned about sort of the domestic situation, his own position domestically, is more prone to these sort of influences and feels he needs to, you know, project toughness.
I don't think he can project toughness against Russia, which is why I think possibly a strike on Iran may serve his interests where he wants to seem tough.
And Iran might be the place where he can do that and spin the narrative to suggest, you know, what he's doing is, you know, finishing off the job with Iran and we are now making the world safe for Israel.
Does Iran already have a nuclear weapon?
Well, well, they're going to, they are deliberately making this obscure and I think it will stay just as the Israelis make it obscure.
Their position, I think, Iran's interest is to make it obscure.
And they're quite content really with the American narrative that everything was obliterated on the 22nd of June in those strikes on Lantaz, Fordo, and Isfahan.
That was fine.
Therefore, they say, well, then, you know, what's the point of IEA coming back to Iran?
We don't need them.
They're hugely unpopular in Iran.
We don't want to see them again.
And since you say we haven't got a nuclear program now, what's the point?
So it does serve some purpose.
But nonetheless, they are preparing.
The view in Iran that I understand in the sense is that they understand that Russia thinks it quite likely that there will be escalation by America shortly in the next period, whatever that means.
And that that escalation, that the difficulties of escalating against Russia, because I say there's not that sort of inventory or that sort of capability anymore, and Russia is winning, obviously on the fronts, that then they may turn to Iran, which is why Iran is busy flat out preparing for another possible conflict in the near future.
But if it happens, it will be pure theater.
It will achieve nothing.
And this is what I wrote about using Ted Postel wrote the sort of technical side of it.
And then I just translated that into political meaning.
But I mean, he's saying that effectively, with Iran, very likely, in the opinion of both the United States and Israel, has 408 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium, that they can bring that up to weapons grade enrichment so easily.
They don't need Fordo.
They don't need Isfahan.
They don't need NANTAS.
They don't need huge 10,000 centrifuge enrichment programs because, as Postel said, the secret of this is that once you reach a certain level, it's very easy to get up to weapons grade.
And he says you could do that in no space at all, have 178 centrifuges.
That's all.
Not thousands, not 10,000, 178, which would occupy the space of a small apartment in Rome or in any other capital.
A tiny apartment, 78, it wouldn't use that much power.
And in four to five weeks, you'd have enough enriched uranium at about 90% or just under for one atomic bomb.
So you have one or two or threes.
How is America going to find it?
It will be a needle in a haystack.
Do they need a bomb that?
Do they need to, well, the Americans claim that the Iranians would need to test the device and that would set off seismic registers.
Is that true?
No, that's another shibboleth because Postel exposes that.
Look, it's not me.
Postel is, you know, the foremost technical person, but he doesn't do politics about it.
But I'm saying what he says.
And he says, no, you know, all it would take to do a bomb, you need about 18 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, probably hexafluoride form and uranium-238.
That would take about four weeks to achieve that.
Then you turn it into uranium metal.
You could do that in a facility of only about 150 square meters, i.e., you know, just a tiny bigger than a garage, perhaps, but that's all.
And then he said, you've just got the components.
So you'll need, if you like, about 18 kilos of uranium metal and a reflector to concentrate the explosion.
And you assembled it.
And he said, you know, it's not high-tech.
This is garden shed stuff.
It's very easy.
And he said, you know, when we built Little Boy for Hiroshima and dropped it on Hiroshima, we did no tests.
We knew it would work because, you know, the mechanics of it were very simple.
You just have to assemble the components and it'll work with confidence.
You didn't.
So we never tested it when we dropped that on Hiroshima beforehand.
We didn't need to because we knew it would work.
And so, you know, no, the testing wouldn't tell that whether they had to wait for a test is irrelevant.
Now, this is what he's saying.
It would be very easy.
So what does this mean?
It means to bomb Fordo again, to bomb Isfahan, to bomb Nantas, a waste of time because, you know, the bird is flown.
The coupe is empty.
They've gone.
They can now take that 408 kilograms, which he said, you know, it's very easy to move.
You could put it in the back of a pickup, even a donkey card and take it out of Fordo or Isfahan or wherever it was.
And take it to a little apartment and you can start the process and build a bomb.
But, you know, the problem is, and why I think nonetheless it may happen, is not because it would do anything to change the nuclear paradigm, which is now that Iran has real deterrence.
I mean, you know, mutually assured deterrence, if you like, whatever you want to call it, but because, you know, it's a narrative which would be much easier for Trump to pretend that something significant has happened.
Oh, yes, you know, we've discovered they still have some.
And there was an excavator burrowing away at Isfahan because they did, you know, they didn't drop the buck bombs on Isfahan.
They only used tomahawk missiles to close the entrances because it's so deep they knew they couldn't get to them.
But, you know, they've had a, they've opened one in a week with an, you know, they have excavators and bulldozers in Iran, surprisingly.
And they can open these tunnels and go in again.
And so he says, you know, there'll be no point to this, but, you know, but nonetheless, it can be presented as a great victory, you know, headline busting stuff.
We've done it.
We've really sealed it off.
Now we put it back for decades or more.
And of course, it would be untrue.
You've referred to this as a kabuki show, which is a similar phrase that you used to refer to the last time Trump bombed Iran.
This would just be for show.
It wouldn't be for any serious military or geopolitical purpose.
No, and it would probably be agreed because of the danger to Israel.
And the Israelis are so, I mean, now they all is coming out.
How accurate, how precise, and how they were unable to defend themselves from the Iranian missiles.
I mean, we know that they were very accurate.
And we know that the Iranian missiles, I mean, you know, they fired one at Qatar after the attack on their nuclear facilities as a warning.
And Trump said, oh, they didn't hit anything.
They hit precisely that huge radar dome, which contains America's international communication system.
It's completely destroyed, no collateral damage, just that building, just that latest, hugely expensive radar and communication system was utterly destroyed.
So, you know, that sort of accuracy is a game changer.
It changes everything because they can hit precisely a target and not cause collateral damage or civilian damage.
They can hit the headquarters of Mossad or MI6 with Reshin, and it will be hypersonic.
We will be unable to stop it, and it will be precise and accurate.
So in order to avoid that, they will probably, I would guess, Trump will try and negotiate with the Iranians.
Look, we'll come in and we'll bomb a bit at Isfahan and Nantas and so on.
I mean, please let our aircraft come in and do the job.
And you can make some gesture afterwards, bomb something not so significant in Israel.
We'll call it a day.
Once and done, it will be great.
Perfect little war again.
Like he said about, you remember on the 13th of June, Trump said, you know, this is what we want.
It's got to be perfect.
A little war, just like this, and then we'll call a ceasefire after it.
So I think that's possible, but I don't think that that means that Iran will agree to it, because public opinion has changed enormously in Iran.
So I don't know that this will be the case, but nonetheless, I still think that bombing Iran, even though it would be kabuki theory, might be more appealing to the White House than really trying to do something about Russia.
And what happens if all those tomahawk missiles fired at St. Petersburg and Moscow are shot down by Russian air defenses?
It would be a humiliation.
He'd have nothing left except to go to the nuclear element.
And I don't think, I mean, because if he goes, it would be maybe risky.
Some people call it Armageddon or something, but it would certainly be Armageddon for his base.
They would not like this at all.
I mean, the idea for most Americans, I believe, please correct me if I'm wrong, the thought of entering something or even risking real nuclear war with Russia would have no support other than a few neocots.
Last, last question.
Where is Iranian public opinion today, vis-a-vis Israel, vis-a-vis an Iran nuclear weapon, vis-a-vis the US?
Iran sees itself as being slowly encircled, that the United States has, in facing the difficulties in Russia, has now focused on trying to encircle Iran in the north with Azerbaijan and Armenia in the south to through the Kurdistan, through Balochistan, trying to put pressure, trying to extend and put pressure on Iran.
And they see real efforts in the Middle East to try and weaken Iran through, if you like, targeting the Shi that the Sunnis are being used, particularly ISIS, to target the Shi in Lebanon with Hezbollah, in Syria, but in Iraq as well, trying to put pressure.
Now, some people feel that maybe the Iranians will not respond to that.
But my sense is the Iranians are feeling very confident, very confident.
They have a united country all backing it.
And I think, you know, even though Shi are different and Arab Shi is different from Iranian Shi, Iran is the mothership for Shiism.
And that's about half the population of the Middle East.
I think they are very sensitive to what the Americans are doing, particularly in Lebanon and particularly in Syria, where people are being massacred for being Shi' or Christian or Alawite.
And so it's a very delicate and sensitive time in the Middle East.
Aleister Crook, thank you, my dear friend.
Thanks for a broad discussion of all these issues bubbling up here Monday in the West.
All the best to you.
We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
Thank you so much, Judge.
Of course.
Bye-bye.
And coming up later today at 10 o'clock this morning, Ray McGovern at 11:30 this morning, Larry Johnson.
At 2 o'clock this afternoon, our old friend, Chief Dennis Fritz, what does the military think about what General Donahue threatened?
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