March 23, 2026 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
32:14
Alastair Crooke : Trump Loses Control of the War
Judge Andrew Napolitano hosts Alastair Crooke on March 23rd, 2026, to argue that Donald Trump has lost control of the war with Iran due to false Mossad intelligence regarding a collapsing regime. Crooke details how Iranian Mach 18 FATA-3 missiles have overwhelmed Israeli defenses while U.S. bombing campaigns inadvertently strengthened Iranian support by targeting civilians. He warns of a strategic Iranian plan to seize the Strait of Hormuz, force Gulf states to pay in yuan, and potentially attack water infrastructure within 60 days if sanctions aren't lifted, rendering any U.S. seizure of Kish Island militarily impossible. Ultimately, the episode suggests American military dominance is eroding as regional powers consolidate power against Western interests. [Automatically generated summary]
Tragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people.
Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government.
To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected.
What if sometimes to love your country, you had to alter or abolish the government?
What if Jefferson was right?
What if that government is best which governs least?
What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong?
What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave?
What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now everyone?
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, March 23rd, 2026.
Aleister Crook will be with us in just a moment on has Trump lost control of the war?
And does Iran really have missile dominance over Israel in the skies?
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Aleister Crook, good day to you, my friend.
Welcome here, and thank you for accommodating my schedule.
Before we get into the issue of Iranian missile dominance over Israel, do you think Trump believes his own propaganda?
Well, there's just new headlines, breaking headlines coming at the moment out, which says that Trump has decided in the light of productive discussions that are taking place with Iran to postpone the energy strikes for five days while I pursue talks with Iran.
However, this is just lie.
It's not true.
And the Iranians have said very clearly, there are no direct or indirect talks taking place with Trump.
The five-day pause, essentially, I sent this one word to someone in Tehran, and they came back and said, tackle.
That's what has happened.
Tackle.
So that's where we are.
I guess it's Monday.
The markets are down.
And I expect Trump wants to get them up again quickly.
So we now have the talks taking place, which are not taking place, and we have a five-day pause because probably also because, I mean, it was a dangerous game of chicken that was developing between Washington and Tehran in terms of the nuclear side of it, but also in terms of the ultimatum that the supreme leader had given to America and saying,
you know, if you don't do what I ask you, then there will be major escalation across the entire Gulf.
How did the Americans so radically, drastically miscalculate the shrewdness and the potency of the Iranian response?
I think partly, I mean, partly, first of all, they believed Mossad and Mossad have got this completely wrong.
They don't understand the nature of Iran.
They don't understand the nature of the Iranian system and structure.
I know this sounds incredible because we hold, you know, Mossad as supposed to be this sort of extraordinary intelligence service.
It is a major failure and one which they've passed on to America.
Iran was a house of cards.
You just had to give it a little push and it would collapse.
And that was what Trump believed.
Did he check it out?
Did he ask the right people in Washington?
No, he didn't.
So he has gone along with the story that Netanyahu and Mossad told him, supported no doubt by some in Washington who agreed with the analysis, but they just don't understand the nature of the Iranian,
if you like, the Iranian civilization, and they don't understand the determination of Iran leadership, the supreme leader, who's made an important announcement just recently to change the whole geopolitics of the region.
And they have missed that.
They've missed it.
It's an enormous failure.
And it's one from which it's very difficult to find an exit point.
So Netanyahu and company persuaded Trump and his most senior advisors that by bombing civilian as well as military targets, the Iranian people would rise up, overthrow the mullahs, and establish a liberal democracy.
I mean, if you put this in the form of a novel, no publisher would even accept it.
Exactly right.
Yes, that's what's happened.
It is a major intelligence failure, like Iraq.
You know, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that America was persuaded to go to war on Iraq on a false prospectus.
And now they've been persuaded to go to war on another false prospectus, that Iran was so weak and feeble that it could be expected to collapse.
And the reverse has happened.
What we see is that Iran has got a plan, a deeply laid plan.
It has unfolding various phases to this plan.
Iran's Deeply Laid Plan00:08:35
And it is one which envisages not just, if you like, some sort of a new agreement on nuclear things.
It envisages absolutely transforming the West Asia and Asia itself through their chokehold on Hormuz in order to crash the petrodollar and deprive the GCC of those excess savings that they have been enjoying since 1974 when we had the first,
if you like, the first rise of the great rise in the price of energy.
So this is a major strategic ploy that Mustaba has outlined in terms of that and saying this is what's going to happen.
And if you don't agree with, you know, if you don't agree to it, and if you pursue your ultimatum to me, that you're going to attack all the energy system of Iran, we will react and we will escalate against all the structures in the Gulf states and in Israel, not only just their energy,
but all the infrastructure, including water purification structures.
And if necessary, we will move from ambiguity to something closer to nuclear deterrence.
So it's a very important shift.
There's no doubt we're dealing with a new style of leadership.
Very important to see this.
The statement, which was short, 12 minutes or so, the first part was what you'd expect.
It's Nauruz and it's in Iran.
That's a new year.
But the second part laid out his ultimatum.
And he said there's going to be a new regime across Hormuz, which is there will be a specialized channel for agreed vessels to pass in that narrow strip between Kesem Island and Larak,
and that they will only be allowed to pass if they're not dealing, if their cargoes were not bought in dollars, but were bought in Juan, and if they pay a fee.
And I think several states have already done this, and Pakistan is one.
And I think it paid a fee of about $2 million equivalent.
But I think the fee may be something different.
They're in the process of sorting this out.
And that's the only way.
And this means for the Gulf states, either you now have to deal with Iran to get passage through Hormuz, both inward and outward.
And secondly, because only Iran can guarantee the security of your vessels passing through the straits.
Here's what President Trump posted about 45 or 50 minutes ago at 7.23 in the morning Eastern Time, Monday, today, March 23rd.
I'll read it and then you tell me how absurd you think this is.
I am pleased to report that the United States of America and the country of Iran have had over the last two days very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.
Based on the tenor and tone of these in-depth, detailed and constructive conversations, which will continue throughout the week, I have instructed the Department of War to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five-day period, subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions.
Thank you for attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump.
You're telling us that that's profoundly untrue.
Completely untrue.
And just to confirm it, I mean, not only am I saying it from contacts in Iran, but there is a formal statement out by the Iranian government, which underlines there have been no direct or indirects and there are no direct or indirect talks with Mr. Trump.
And they don't intend to have any, by the way.
Why would they?
Why would they if there's a few subterfuges that Witkoff and Kushner engaged in in June and again in February?
And if there were to be talks, which I very much doubt, I mean, the talks would be on the basis of Iran's demand, the new Supreme Leader's demands, which he laid out in the statement that I said he just made, which was complete with American military withdrawal and economic withdrawal from the Gulf area, from all of the Gulf.
I mean, from West Asia, essentially.
And then all sanctions lifted and with a timeline, 60 days.
All sanctions on Iran must be lifted within 60 days and full compensation for the damage done to Iran to be paid.
Those are the three explicitly said by the Supreme Leader in this last day or so.
And so that is the thing.
And he says, you know, if that isn't done and you continue to attack us, then there will be extraordinary damage across all spheres in the Gulf states.
And, you know, electricity will be gone.
And then also water will go.
I mean, we will go fully.
So his escalation, Trump's escalation by saying 48 hours or we're going to knock out all your power plants has been met by a counter ultimatum that has been issued by the Supreme Leader and the government of Iran.
I mean, the incrementalism that we saw a little bit with his father doesn't seem to be there today.
They are looking for a rapid, systematic change of the West Asian situation of the GCCs, then saying to the GCCs, you've got to learn to deal with us if you want to do business and you want to continue.
And the aim is to undermine and to end the, if you like, the petrodollar and dollar hegemony in the area.
And part of their requirements, not listed by the Supreme Leader on this, is you've got to give up your data centers and all the elements which are connected with the United States.
If you want to use, do business through the hormos, you have to get rid of all of these elements, including Microsoft and Amazon and all these elements that you're using.
They have to go too.
You have to disabuse yourself.
And in such case, then we will secure it.
If you want to go for greater security, you better look to China for your security in the future.
Wow.
Backing up everything you've just said, Alastair, the BBC reported minutes ago, I'll read it.
It's not very long.
Iran's Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has quoted an unnamed Iranian source as saying there is, quote, this is exactly what you said, Alastair, no direct or indirect contact with Trump, close quote.
The source says, after hearing that our targets would include all power stations in West Asia, he, meaning Trump, backed down.
Exactly what you've just said.
Missile Defense and Drones00:15:29
How effective as a military instrument has the American and Israeli bombing campaign been?
Well, to judge this objectively is not easy because there's so much lying and disinformation about it, particularly censorship on the American side, on the Israeli side, and to an extent on the Iranian, but much less so.
But what I would say is that it's not, I mean, still, U.S. aircraft only very seldom penetrate into the airspace of Iran.
So what you're seeing is damage caused by standoff munitions, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, either fired by the B-1 bombers where they're dropping glide bombs rather than actually going over into airspace and dropping.
Yes, they've done damage, but what I see from videos and everything else is they have not been able to damage what I've described to you before, I think, in previous talks, these deep missile cities that are dispersed across the entire extent of the country, right across the equivalent expanse to Western Europe.
They have built these deep levels and the missiles are fired from 90 meters underground through a direct channel silo straight up to the surface and out.
And automatically a new missile is loaded by a rotating drum that puts in the next missile.
I mean, I'm talking loosely about a drum, but they put it straight in.
But you don't see that.
All we see is talk about these movable launchers.
And that we've destroyed so many of these mobile launchers and this has been a great success.
Yes, there are mobile launches.
Some have been destroyed.
Much of what has been destroyed has been dummies and fakes that the Iranians put out in order to deceive the targeters.
But the actual big missiles have not been found.
And I think because they haven't been found, you've seen the targeting, the actual destruction, not on military targets, not on effective military targets, but on things like hospitals, schools, and residential areas.
The Iranians say, and we can't verify it directly, but more than 20 hospitals in Tehran have been targeted and several schools have been targeted.
And why not?
Because this is the Israeli modus operandi.
We know this so well from Gaza.
We know this from what's happening in Lebanon today.
This is what they do.
When they don't have a real military target, they try and demoralize the population by destroying hospitals and schools and other things.
So that's mostly what the damage is.
But what's happened is that it's actually consolidated support for Iran and for the Iranian state, not weakened it.
They are still out there supporting it, even in the areas that were thought might sort of slip across to sort of supporting the Kurds or something.
All have been out demonstrating their support for the state.
So that hasn't worked.
And so I would say two things.
One is it's not been as effective as claimed.
Secondly, that it's actually diminishing the stocks of intercept missiles.
And we've seen this very clearly, particularly in the Dimona, the attack on the Dimona town, not the nuclear site, where there are no intercepts coming from Israel.
They seem to have run out of their stocks of munitions.
And that also that the strike rate of America is declining very rapidly, partly because one carrier has had to be removed.
But even then, it's very the maintenance and the requirements to keep these aircraft making long-range strikes, standoff strikes, but it means they have to be refueled on their way to on their way to Iran to attack a target in Iran.
And this is taking a big toll.
So there is a real sense of a depletion of logistics on the American side.
We don't see it on the Iranian side because what we are seeing is actually not only are there volleys in every night, several volleys into Israel taking place, but now they have increased the nature of those missiles.
The sophistication is increased.
So the last, the FATA III, which are being used now, have a motor that comes into action as they enter the atmosphere so that it means it can steer and they can steer around any air defenses.
But there don't seem to be much air defenses at the moment.
So I would think I would say that Iran is in the driving seat in this situation.
It's not about, I think, to start negotiations with America because no one thinks that America will accept yet the conditions that are laid down.
And so we're going to see Iran will continue on their policy of keeping Hormos closed.
The Houthis have already said they may join in and close the Red Sea.
And so they are going to exert pain.
And no doubt that'll be reflected in markets, which is probably why we've had this sort of tacko statement by Trump saying, you know, everything, oh, we've had wonderful negotiations with Iran.
Completely untrue, but no doubt the market will be up again.
Are the Israeli skies effectively defenseless against Iranian missiles as we speak?
Yes.
Yes.
They have almost no intercept capabilities.
First of all, they're run out of interceptors.
But secondly, the interceptors that they have, which have had, are ineffective against hypersonic missiles being used by Iran.
In other words, they can bring down, if they have them, they can be used up to for incoming missiles from Iran, up to Mach 4.
But what we're seeing is the FATA, the FATA-2 missile and the Koram Shahr are flying at Mach 18.
So they're not capable.
And they are also directable.
I mean, they can steer and move around.
Actually, these are the type of missiles that the West does not possess.
And it doesn't possess any answer to this type of missiles.
I know that there is a sort of deep-seated sort of prejudice in parts of the West that thinks that, you know, what, Iran is technically ahead of us on certain areas of missile development.
Well, yes, just as the Russians have been ahead too.
The Iranian state is highly technical.
They have some of the best engineering and technical institutes in the world.
I think within the top 10, they have several of their institutes.
So, yes, they are imposing and they have succeeded in achieving missile dominance, not air dominance, missile dominance over Israel.
Here's Prime Minister Netanyahu touring recent Iranian strikes and complaining that Iran strikes civilians.
Sort of the pot calling the kettle black, but here he is, Chris.
If you want proof that Iran endangers the entire world, the last 48 hours have given it.
In the last 48 hours, Iran targeted a civilian area.
They're doing that as a mass murder weapon.
Luckily, no one was killed, but that's due to luck, not their intention.
Their intention is to murder civilians.
Second, they are using, they fired on Jerusalem right next to the holy sites of the three monotheistic faiths: the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
And by dint of a miracle, again, none of them were hurt.
But they were targeting the holy sites of the three major monotheistic religions.
Seems strange to hear him complain about targeting civilians in light of what he's doing in Tehran and what he did, of course, in Gaza.
He also claimed in another clip that Israel has intercepted 92%.
This can't be true, 92% of Iranian missiles.
They've been borrowing from another state that claims these high rates of missile interception.
I think what is actually more sinister in what he said, because of course, as you can imagine, the last thing that Iran would target is Al-Aqsa Mosque or the Haram al-Sharif Temple Mount.
It's the last thing.
This is the symbol of Islamic civilization.
It's impossible.
It was forbidden.
They wouldn't.
But what we have heard, and there are talk, is that Israel has been tunneling under Al-Aqsa, and there has been suggestions that they might be preparing to demolish Al-Aqsa in order to, if you like, deliver a huge defeat on Islam as a whole.
I've got no evidence that this is true, that this is what is happening.
But when I hear him saying, oh, you know, they're targeting Al-Aqsa, really?
Why would they do that?
Of course not.
It's absolutely forbidden for any Muslim to attack Al-Maksa.
So when I hear that, I wonder who actually is targeting Al-Aqsa, if they are.
I mean, the Muslims targeting Al-Aqsa would be like Catholics targeting St. Peter's Basilica.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Wow.
Has Trump lost control of this war?
Yes.
I mean, I don't think, yes, I think so, because there is just no exit from this.
He's put himself in an extraordinary situation.
He's now threatening, you know, three elements of American forces to arrive in the region, to MEU, I think you call it, military expeditionary units.
And then there is the 82nd airborne, which I'm told is about to be deployed.
And there is a suggestion that he's serious about trying to use military force to shut Hormuz or to take Cog Island.
But I mean, this is, I'm sure your military correspondents on this channel have told you Unteen times that this is crazy.
You know, that you cannot do that.
Just look at the topography.
Just look at what sort of landscape you're dealing with.
You know, the Iranians control the Hormoz Straits.
They have fire control over it, artillery control, because there are mountains just behind the straits.
They have 270-degree arc control over the straits.
They have undersea drones that can be used.
They have unmanned surface drones.
They have submarines that can fire anti-ship missiles.
I mean, you know, this is this, and that's not using, you know, main missiles and ballistic missiles fired directly from Iran.
So how are they going to, where are they going to land?
Cog Island is the other end of the Hormoz Strait.
It's not near the actual straits, the narrow passageway at the mouth of Hormoz.
It's down at the other end.
I visited Cog Island once, and it's a small island, about 21 kilometers from the mainland, i.e. within artillery range.
And it's flat.
It hasn't got any protection.
I think it's 20 kilometers or something in extent, a tiny little piece of land.
How is that going to change?
How are they going to keep it?
Yes, this is the main base by which Iran exports its oil, mainly because of the depth there in the sea is deep, and you can have a number of supertankers to be loaded at the same time at Cog.
So, yes, you could cut their pipes there, but how would you keep them under control?
Who is going to resource it?
How are you going to sail an amphibious force up Hormuz to Cog Island?
How are you going to land them?
Where would you land them?
And what will be the consequence of just plonking down large numbers of Marines in a barren area?
It's sort of mountainous and very rugged.
There's no forests or cover at that point.
In a country that has an army that is more than a million armed men.
It's ridiculous, it seems.
The Impossible Amphibious Assault00:00:35
Alasterer, thank you very much.
Thank you for this extraordinary analysis and exposure of what's going on.
All the best, my friend.
We'll look forward to seeing you again soon.
Thank you so much, Judge, and to you too.
Bye for now.
Bye-bye.
Coming up later today, if you're watching us live in 27 minutes at 9 o'clock this morning, Larry Johnson at 10 this morning, Ray McGovern at 10.45 this morning, Professor Jeffrey Sachs at 3 this afternoon, Kyle Land Salone, judging the Paul Channel before judging freedom.