March 25, 2026 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
21:54
Ian Proud : Why Europe Rejects Aiding Trump on Iran
Ian Proud critiques the U.S.-Israeli invasion of Iran as an illegal, unwinnable war driven by President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, highlighting a European paradox where leaders condemn Iran while supporting Ukraine. He details the failed strategic objectives regarding regime change and nuclear prevention, noting the catastrophic asymmetric response that devastated Gulf states and blocked the Straits of Hormuz. Proud argues that rising energy prices in the UK and Secretary Pete Hegseth's "negotiating with bombs" rhetoric mask an inevitable U.S. political embarrassment surpassing Vietnam, ultimately suggesting the conflict stems from flawed intelligence and reckless administration decisions. [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 hi everyone?
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, March 25th, 2026.
Our dear friend Ian Proud, the former British diplomat, joins us now.
Ian, a pleasure.
Thank you for accommodating my schedule, particularly this time.
Is there a consensus in Europe among either average folks or elites on the U.S. and Israeli invasion of Iran?
The paradox is there seems to be a consensus that this was a truly dreadful idea on the part of President Trump.
Nevertheless, that logic hasn't extended to thinking the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine is also a truly dreadful idea.
So they've yet to connect those two dots, which in itself is quite bizarre.
The same mentality that would welcome NATO in Ukraine condemns Trump and Netanyahu in Iran.
Exactly right.
Exactly right.
And it's completely paradoxical and makes no sense.
But European leaders and sadly our leaders here in the United Kingdom lack that strategic intelligence to see how ridiculous their position is.
Does the attack on Diego Garcia or the attempted attack on Diego Garcia by very long-range Iranian missiles affect the public or the government's perception of whether or not the government should get involved?
I get the impression that members of the public are completely against getting involved in this.
Everybody can see that this was a harebrained idea on the part of Trump being dragged in by Netanyahu into this illegal war.
Diego Garcia, unfortunately, is a long way from Clapham Common, so people are unable to kind of feel any direct pill from that.
But nevertheless, I think most British people think we should stay out.
And in any case, we have very little to bring to the party.
Yeah, Diego Garcia is, of course, an island on which there is, correct me if I'm wrong, Ian, a joint UK-US military base and the Iranians attempted to attack it.
Is it a joint base or does the US lease it from the UK or what is it actually?
Well, it's an American base.
There may be a handful of cleaners and technicians from the UK there, but let's be clear, it's an American base and the US leases it from the UK.
And this has also been subject to some sort of dispute between Trump and our glorious leader, of course, Keir Stahl.
Has Sir Kir indicated a wish to terminate that lease?
Well, he's made this deal, handing over the Chagos Islands, of course, as we know, and Trump has publicly criticized that deal, causing all sorts of difficulty with Stalma in the process.
An arrangement has been made to ensure that the Americans can continue with their base, their base, not our base, irrespective of this deal.
Apparently, let's see if that holds under international law.
Who would either control the base or own the island?
It's an American-controlled base with American military assets in situ and American personnel servicing those assets, you know, air assets, of course, which right from the start of the war in Iran, Donald Trump wanted to be able to use.
And of course, that request was initially refused, later rescinded that refusal by Keir Starmer as well.
Okay.
Okay.
Is it your view that Trump has lost control of the war?
Well, I don't think Trump's ever had control of the war, let alone whether he's lost control of the war.
It's always been clear from the very beginning that this war was unwinnable.
The asymmetric response from the Iranian side was entirely predictable, as we've seen.
They've completely devastated Gulf states who've been brought into this conflict and radicalized against U.S. military presence.
Apparently, they're now causing havoc in Israel.
And of course, the blockading of the Straits of Hormuz is having completely predictable implications for the global economy that even a schoolchild could have foreseen before Trump decided to go to war.
How could, in your view, the Americans and the Israelis have so misjudged the natural economic consequences of the war, the resilience of the Iranian people, the asymmetric nature of the positioning of their offensive weaponry, the power of their offensive weaponry.
It's like they misjudged just about everything.
They even thought, I know this is a long-winded question.
I apologize for it.
So do take it and run with it.
They even thought that after killing the Ayatollah and a weekend of bombardment, the Iranians would come out into the streets and riot and take over the government.
Well, this is all absurd, isn't it?
It is completely absurd, Judge.
And as to the first part of your question, well, clearly Netanyahu is a deranged warmonger, and President Trump is completely unable or unwilling to listen to any independent advice from within his own White House, even though there's a mix of, of course, neocons and people more interested in restraint, of course.
So as to the consequences, well, they were entirely predictable.
As I said at the start, Rubio said very early on, the USA had three key objectives.
First was regime change, which obviously wasn't going to happen and has not happened to this day and seems unlikely to happen.
So that has been an epic failure from Epic Fury.
The second was to prevent the possibility of Iran gaining nuclear weapons.
Well, that the jury remains out.
But if the war ends on terms that are acceptable to Iran, then that possibility remains open.
And to remove any possibility of Iran developing its own ballistic missile capability, again, EPIC fail.
So across the board, the three key strategic objectives of the USA have not been met.
And now Trump and Hegseet, who had a bizarre intervention in the press with Trump talking about the total annihilation of the Iranian military that clearly hasn't happened, are trying to spin EPIC failure as EPIC success.
Here's President Trump yesterday claiming that we won.
The war is over and we won it.
Chris, number 13.
I think we're going to end it.
I can't tell you for sure.
You know, I don't like to say this.
We've won this.
This war has been won.
The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news.
I mean, the New York Times, you read the New York Times, it's like we're not winning a war where they have no Navy and they have no Air Force and they have no nothing.
And we literally have planes flying over Tehran and other parts of their country.
They can't do a thing about it.
Like Vladimir Putin saying we have planes flying over Kyiv and they can't do a thing about it.
I don't want to liken the two of them, but this statement is divorced from reality if he thinks that the freedom in the skies equals victory on the ground.
Well, freedom of the skies hasn't equipped, which does exist.
I do believe that the USA can fly at will across Iran, but that's not the point.
It hasn't led to freedom of navigation of the Straits of Hormuz.
The Iranians have complete control over that and are able to decide tankers from which country do and do not pass that, increasingly allowing friendly, as they describe it, tankers to pass through.
So no freedom of navigation.
Frankly, freedom of skies is utterly irrelevant.
Have the British people suffered from the imposition of a toll gate, so to speak, at the Gulf of Hormuz?
We will all suffer from this through high energy prices.
Energy prices are shooting through the roof.
The price of petrol in the UK has gone up 20 pence per liter, about 30 cents, you know, to the gallon, to the litre, sorry.
So we're selling liters, not gallons.
Everybody's going to feel that economic shock from higher energy prices.
Europe is already feeling the shock from shutting off supplies of cheap energy from Russia.
Now we have the shutting off the Straits of Hormuz.
Trump has very kindly offered to sell us even more really expensive American energy.
Thank you so much for that gracious offer.
We're all suffering the economic consequences of this and will continue to do so even after the war finishes.
Well, here's Secretary Hegseth, who of course likes to boast and brag about killing people.
We will hunt you down and we will kill you.
This is an absurd statement, but we'll play it.
The United States negotiates with bombs, Chris.
Because we have a president of the United States that when he sends his warfighters out to fight, he unties their hands to actually go out and close with and destroy the enemy as viciously as possible from moment one.
And that's why we see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well.
We negotiate with bombs.
I mean, I couldn't imagine even Winston Churchill at the height of the war talking as belligerently as that, but you know, that's just my revulsion at his extreme use of language, a revulsion that is apparently shared by many, many American troops.
I don't know if you're aware of this.
And I would imagine when British troops salute a superior, they would say, good morning, sir.
Good afternoon, sir.
American troops saluting a superior or saying, Epstein.
Yeah, well, I mean, I hate to disagree with you in anything, Judge, because I agree with you on practically everything.
But calling Hegseth a superior is a logical and emotional leap that I don't feel able to make right now.
My observation would be that last time a maniacal corporal was in charge of war policy in Europe, we all know where that ended up.
Right.
Right.
He was a house painter.
Well, we apparently are stuck with Hegseth, at least for the short term.
The president likes this dramatic, bombastic behavior.
How does the British Minister of Defense, how does the British government, how do the Europeans react to Secretary Hegseth?
Well, that assumes you have great statesmen in our offices of defense, you know, across Europe.
And of course, you know, we don't.
Healy, our defense minister, is a man so insipid, he couldn't frighten nervous toddler at a soft play area.
I think people are figuring out what to do and they don't know what to do because they are caught between not wanting to support this illegal war in Iran, but wanting to continue the proxy war in Ukraine.
So it leaves everybody in a complete dilemma.
And the worst defender of this has been Mark Rutter, the NATO Secretary General, who is basically positioning himself as, if you'll pardon my expression, Judge, you know, Trump's butt kisser in chief.
It's quite a remarkable situation.
So desperate is he for the proxy war in Ukraine to continue that he'll disregard any violations of international law happening in Iran.
Is the British government supporting the Ukrainians militarily in some respect?
Well, yes.
I mean, we helped them develop their flamingo long-range boost missile, effectively.
You know, we helped them with particular operations.
We helped them with spider web, the thing, the attack on the bear bombers out in Siberia, you know, last year.
You know, we helped them in all manner of military regards and have done right since the start of the war.
In addition to the billions that we give them every year in aid, which I quite frankly spend on believing the cost of living crisis caused by these.
And you haven't mentioned MI6, which even American CIA veterans claim is more audacious than the CIA.
So it seems.
You'll understand why I'm not able to talk a great deal about my former colleagues in MI6.
But yes, I mean, we're knees deep in this, Judge.
Absolutely knees deep.
And we don't know how to get out.
Meanwhile, our economy is going down the pan and we're poorly led, either by the Labor government or the precursor Tory government.
This will get a little laugh out of you, a cartoon of Trump on the psychiatrist's couch and the shrink says, the Iranians you've been talking to for two days, are they in the room with us now?
No one believes him.
I shouldn't say no one.
The consensus in the West is that there are no serious negotiations going on, that the Americans are sort of typing away at their cell phones, hoping that someone will receive their messages and reply to them.
Why Iran Rejects Conditions00:05:07
I mean, why would the Iranians agree to the three conditions that you mentioned were Trump and Netanyahu?
They're not Netanyahu's conditions.
He wants to disembowel the country.
They're Trump's conditions.
Why would the Iranians agree to them?
Well, they've got a stronger hand of cars in the negotiation.
They don't need to agree to them.
And this 15-point plan, apparently, the US side has now put forward, apparently it's going to lead to significant sanctions relief for Iran.
That's one of the conditions in this 15-point plan, apparently.
So, this big, wonderful gift that Trump keeps talking about is actually going to be an economic gift to Ivan, who will somehow emerge from this war that the United States has utterly and totally won, according to Corporal Hegseth, but nevertheless leaves Yvonne economically in a better situation than it was before the war started.
Completely to decide upon the terms of how trade flows through the Straits of Hormuz, undented.
President Trump ridiculed and mocked Prime Minister Sir Kir Stormer for his steadfast refusal to get involved militarily.
I don't know what Trump wanted.
Did he wanted the British Navy to be in the Straits of Ormuz?
Does he want British paratroopers to join the 82nd airport?
I don't think he was ever specific, but the Prime Minister was specific in saying no.
I'm going to guess that the Prime Minister's decision and articulation of that decision was popular with the British public.
I think it was.
I don't think the Brits want any part of this.
It's been a bit of a national embarrassment, in fact, that's revealed the utter fragility of our armed forces.
It has taken a month for HMS Dragon to reach Cyprus, having gone in fits and starts along the way.
The Royal Navy hasn't been this small since 1650, two years after the end of the English Civil War.
I venture to judge that a wooden ship with sails could get to Cyprus faster than a modern-day anti-sort of missile.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
The British Navy ruled the seas for generations and centuries.
The Navy, the British Navy, the vaunted British Navy is now a shadow of its former self.
1650, Judge.
That's the last time that it was this small.
Almost 400 years ago.
Wow.
Gosh, how far we've fallen.
And we can't even sail one Type 45 destroyer to Cyprus in less than a month.
It's been a huge embarrassment.
President Trump has taken to mocking Sir Kir rather viciously, even aggressively.
I'm going to guess that the British press has its own share of mocking him.
Well, yes.
But unfortunately, throughout a whole political class on all the main sort of bits of the Unit Party, whether it's the Labour or the Conservative or the Lib Dems, we have no shortage of cartoonish characters that we can poke fun of.
It just so happens that Kirkir Starmer is the person who's currently prime minister for how long?
Goodness knows.
And he's the object of fun, but we have no shortage of comical politicians to make fun of in this country.
I'm going to go back to President Trump, if I might, again, because we have a new tape coming in in which the president is asked if Vice President Vance has been involved in the negotiations.
I think we'll both, I haven't seen this, but we'll both find it interesting.
Chris, you said there's a bunch of people from the administration who are negotiating with Iran.
There's been reports that the vice president is leading those negotiations.
Is that true?
Well, he's involved in them.
JD is involved, and Marco is involved, and Jared Kushner is involved, very smart guy, and Steve Woodcoff, smart guy is involved.
And I'm involved.
I'm involved.
Well, I'm going to be so big.
Oh, I don't want to talk about it.
Two weeks after that attack, had we not made the attack, they would have had a nuclear weapon.
They would have absolutely used it.
And they would have used it on the entire Middle East, including Israel.
That last statement is defied by 20 years of Central Intelligence Agency analysis articulated under oath before Congress by his director of national intelligence.
I'm going to guess MI6, which is always taken into account when the intelligence community makes these assessments, agrees.
Well, I should imagine that it does.
And, you know, Chas Freeman told me a few weeks ago that when he was U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia in 1992, the CIA was, you know, telling him then that Iran had two years to, you know, to perfect its nuclear bomb.
And that was kind of 34 years ago.
So this is just the standard trope.
It's a bit like Russia's going to invade Estonia next week.
It's your version of that that we have to do in Europe.
America's Vietnam Embarrassment00:01:31
Right, right.
And the ladies that rule Estonia keep saying that over and over again.
Where do you think the, how do you think the Netanyahu-Trump war will end, Ian?
Well, it will end with the United States looking terribly embarrassed, more embarrassed than since the end of the Vietnam War, more embarrassed than after the end of the Abark War, which turned into a complete quagmire and a debacle, which revealed all sorts of terrible abuses.
And of course, you know, the UK forces were along for the ride in that one, you know, too.
I'm not blaming it all on America, of course.
But this is even more catastrophically embarrassing.
You know, the inability to deliver any of the core strategic sort of objectives set out by Marco Bubi at the start of the war, epic failure.
And that will have political consequences in the midterms of that, I'm absolutely sure.
So, I mean, the question is, how much longer can Trump last in office?
Or will there be a palace where, you know, JD Vance and the Maybelline gang, you know, decide to take over the court?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you, Ian.
I know we scheduled this and rescheduled it, and you've been very generous towards us and gracious with your time.
Deeply appreciated, my dear friend.
We'll look forward to seeing you again soon.
Always a pleasure.
Thank you.
Coming up later today at three o'clock this afternoon, the great Phil Giraldi, judge Nepal Towna For judging freedom.