Judge Andrew Napolitano and Alastair Crooke examine US war losses, arguing Western mechanistic thinking fails to grasp Middle Eastern messianic motivations. Crooke cites Gershom Scholem on religious Zionism's drive for territorial expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates and describes Iran as a revolutionary society opposing Western modernity rather than a traditional state. He contends President Trump's economic pressure and special forces tactics are ineffective against an Iran refusing capitulation, while Israel demands the Khamenei dynasty's destruction. Ultimately, the divergent apocalyptic agendas of Israel and US economic interests suggest continued escalation invites catastrophic regional consequences without a fundamental strategic shift. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Iran's Ideology and Resilience00:13:20
Undeclared wars are commonplace.
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 Monday, April 27th, 2026.
My dear friend Alistair Crook joins us now.
Alistair, always a pleasure.
And thank you for accommodating my schedule.
Does the United States, does the collective West understand the collective mentality of the Middle East?
A question of understanding it, they're using the wrong instruments to try and understand it, I think.
We use a form of, I suppose you'd call it, you know, the scientific enlightenment, the kind of mechanistic thinking to try and understand the world.
And indeed, we in the West, there is much insistence on this mechanistic rationality.
which excludes a whole, if you like, sphere of other understanding, of other knowledge.
And so it's the mechanism as much as it's not just a lack of understanding, it is the mechanism.
And I've tried to explain that by saying that I wrote, in fact, about 15 years ago that this was really, It was no longer possible to understand the Middle East by this type of secular rationalism because the Middle East was becoming increasingly a ground of conflict between religious symbols.
Halakhzar on one side and the Temple Mount on the other, if you like.
But since then, Israel has changed.
Since I first wrote that, Israel has changed and has become a different place since the last election.
And it has become much more messianic, eschatological.
This is not a passing phase.
It won't change with the elections that are due sometime this year, because this messianism has been a very prominent element, fluctuating, but nonetheless, very prominent impulse in Judaism since Sabbatai Zevi in the 1660s and then Jacob Franks.
And some of that thinking, incidentally, flowed into the European Enlightenment through things like the Helfar Clubs.
And the Jewish historian and scholar Gershom Scholem has said that religious Zionism, which is what we have today and which is supported by 70% of Israelis, I mean, a substantial majority, operates.
As what he wrote some years ago, as a militant, apocalyptic, and radical messianic movement that tries to, that he says, tries to force the end.
And what does he mean by trying to force the end?
Trying to force redemption, a Messiah, the arrival of the Messiah, and redemption by demanding that the state engage in massive, Territorial control.
Well, we recognize this.
We see this.
This is what is called Greater Israel.
This is the territorial control that Israel is looking for from across from the two rivers, from the Nile to the Euphrates, and demanding that the state engage in this massive territorial control in order to try and create a conquest for the end of time reasons.
This is about the end of times.
Now, my point here is quite simple.
When we say, do they understand the Middle East?
No, because this is really double dutch in many ways to normal mechanical thinkers, rational secular thinkers in the West.
They don't really understand what they're talking about, and they can't understand what this is about redemption and Messiah's coming and the change.
But at the same time, if you don't understand that, you don't understand what's going on in the Middle East, in Israel particularly.
You can't understand it because our minds just close up when we're talked about that.
And there's no point then going to Israel and saying, listen, the solution to your problem is not redemption or an end of times, it's a two state solution.
And are you surprised when Israel says no?
And the majority of Israelis say no because they are thinking in a completely different plane from us.
So I think that's one sort of example.
Iran is another example.
Russia is another.
So, yes, you know, we have a problem with our lack of ability to sort of move out of this way of thinking and to see the world as having different facets to it, that it isn't just one facet, secular, mechanical thinking.
There are other facets that come into view if you look at the world in a different way.
It's all about attention.
What attention do you pay?
If your attention is totally focused on facts, on factual ideas, then you're missing a great deal of the understanding of what Iran is today, for example, and to understand that Iran is not a nation state.
It is something quite different.
It is a revolutionary society in many ways.
And if you're going to deal with Iran, Without understanding that, then you're going to deal with it through power politics.
We've seen this all this time.
Same with Russia pressure, pressure.
The only thing we will get a solution, we will force them to capitulate by pressure, economic pressure, military pressure.
Well, maybe actually, if you understand Iran a little better and understand the ideology and the philosophy that underlie it, You'll understand that that will actually have the opposite result and make them more determined and more resilient in their refusal to accept your proposals and the plans and what you would like to see,
i.e., a surrender by Iran.
Let's go back to the United States and Israel for just a moment.
Aside from the financial connections, what do the U.S. and Israel have in common?
The United States is secular, and at least in theory, Embraces the Enlightenment.
Israel is, as you said, messianic, run by religious fanatics, and is only interested in the end of times.
They think another Messiah is going to come.
These are opposites.
These are polar opposites.
Yes, and the interests are not the same, therefore.
The interests of Israel are quite different from the interests of the United States.
The United States really has no desire to see, if you like, an end of times coming to the Middle East because this could be catastrophic.
For the United States economically, but catastrophic for its reputation and bring about the destruction of its military reputation.
So it's not in the interests of the United States simply that completely different.
They are thinking in a different way and they have different interests from the United States.
So, I mean, there's an important implication from that because, you know, people have talked about earlier times in America and how people have said to Israel, you know, you must restrain what you're doing.
You can't go on with what you're doing in the Palestinian areas or in Syria or in Lebanon.
We're going to go back to the old idea of calling for restraint on Israel.
But if you understand what Gershom Scholem was saying, you know, that they are, it's a messianic movement that is trying to force the end.
Why are they going to agree to restraint?
Because American interests are not their interests.
They don't share American interests.
In fact, you know, it's quite clear they don't give a damn about America.
You know, Trump is doing their business for them now extremely helpfully.
And he is doing exactly what they want and giving them a free reign to attack Iran for no good reason.
But quite clearly, from this, I mean, you know, they don't care.
And furthermore, even though, you know, we pretend it is different, they actually don't care about the Gulf states either.
In the idea of, you know, a coming, you know, apocalyptic era.
What are the Gulf states?
It doesn't matter to them at all.
It matters about how to force the end and demand and get territorial control so that redemption can proceed.
So, you know, to go back to the old Republican idea of, you know, cutting off Israel a little bit here and saying now you must be restrained in respect to Iran and you must not continue the war in Lebanon, it's I don't think it makes sense.
It doesn't make sense because it won't work.
Our mutual friend and colleague, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, is of the view that if the Israelis recognize the legitimate needs of the Palestinian people and recognize them as an independent state, all will be well.
You're saying that this recognition is inconceivable.
Inconceivable.
How can they do this?
It wrecks the whole idea because the whole idea of religious.
Zionism is that it is for Jews, not for Palestinians, not for the Goyim, not for the Gentiles.
It is a state for the Jews that defines it.
And that's why we've had all this trouble over these years, special privileges for one population over those who share the land with them.
And so the solution, if you like, when you're talking about this type of thinking that we've described religious Zionism, is that the non-Jews should be removed, other than those that come and.
You know, work for us.
Slaves are allowed in this, but only slaves that have no soul.
War Against Globalist Wokeism00:02:36
Getting to Iran, the people around Trump, I don't know that I've heard the president say this, you know, he says one thing one minute, the next minute, next thing, the opposite another minute.
But the people around Trump have said that they want to undo what happened in 1979 when the Shah was overthrown.
Was the overthrow of the Shah a national revolution or a civilizational revolution?
It was a revolution against modernity, not against science, not against technology, but it was a revolution against Western modernity.
Its economic elements, its moral elements, its lack of community, its individualism.
It was a revolution.
Against our modernity.
And they were looking for a new economic, if you like, thinking.
And that was provided by Mohammed Bakasada in his Our Economy, which tried to put economics back onto the plane of morality.
And it was provided, the thinking vanguard revolution was provided by Saeed Qutb, which had a huge influence on the Islamic world.
Because it came in the context of forced secularization of this period, this enlightenment thinking that people should be disembedded from religion, disembedded from their community,
disembedded from their family, and they should just become units, if you like, that were unaffected and that could then take part in the sort of globalized world, if you like.
Humanity would be normalized into this setting.
And it was a war against this.
And in fact, I mean, in many ways, it should make Americans more appreciative of Iran because it is, in a sense, precisely was, in a sense, it wasn't couched in those terms.
They didn't even exist properly at that time.
But it was a war against wokeism in many ways, of the globalist, woke, if you like.
Rejecting Negotiation with Iran00:14:22
Paradigm that was existed.
It was expressed then in the demand for secularization rather than DEI.
It was in a different economic sense.
So now we're in this difficult period.
And Iran, by the way, I mean, because it's quite some news, have changed the terms of the negotiation.
And they are fundamentally challenging, if you like, the principles of the negotiation.
I have been saying this for some time that the purpose of what the Iranians fundamentally of Iran is to blow up the paradigm that has existed for the last 74 years, the paradigm of siege, the paradigm of locking Iran in by tariffs, by all means possible to make them weaker and poorer.
And so they're breaking that.
And so they've come now and they said, we're not going to discuss the nuclear issue.
There was never an intent to meet with Witkoff and Kushner.
I knew in advance that that was not what Arachi was going to Islamabad for.
He wasn't going there to meet them.
He was doing exactly the opposite.
He was going there to tell the Russians and the other people and others and the Omanis.
That actually, they no longer are willing to negotiate with America on the nuclear issue.
I mean, this is a bombshell, I think, for Washington.
They are not prepared to discuss that.
They are going to limit the discussions simply to the question of the war, of Hormuz, of the other fronts that Iran can open.
And it's going to be, at this stage, unless America changes it, going to be more of an economic war.
And Ghaliba has just put out a message recently and said, No, Mr. Trump, you are wrong.
We have big cards to play.
We have Hormuz, we have Bab al Mandab, the one that controls the Red Sea, and we have pipelines, and we can control those.
And so we have plenty of economic pressure that we can impose.
And it seems that.
President Trump is very taken with the idea that somehow Iran is about to have a huge economic crisis because by April the 26th, yesterday,
all its tanks would be full of oil and that therefore it would have no revenues and would have to demand that America meets it and it would be ready to capitulate before Trump.
If that is the plan, it won't work because Iran is not in a position and is not ready, I believe, to capitulate to America.
And I don't think America has the means to force that capitulation.
So, what are we going to see now?
Are we going to see an increase in bombing?
I'm not sure that after what happened with Isfahan and the disaster that occurred.
To the special forces element that was sent in on Good Friday to try and recover the uranium from Isfahan that was supposed to be in a tunnel near there.
And it was such a mess.
And I think Joe Kent has been saying very loudly, and this has got through to Trump, I believe, he's been saying, listen, you're going to end up like Carter if you go on with special force operations on the ground.
So perhaps those are not being contemplated.
And there's going to be a meeting, I think, in the White House to discuss the consequences and the reaction to this message.
Because the message is what Arachi left in Islamabad for the Pakistanis to send to America.
They don't intend to discuss the nuclear issue for the foreseeable future.
Maybe later on, after we've come to terms on hormones and on economic matters and on the American blockade.
And on sanctions on Iran.
This is going to be the field of conflict.
What is Trump going to do?
I think there are, I don't see a way through this, frankly, at the moment.
I can't see an easy way through it because there are barricades that are very formidable barricades.
The first one is, Trump wants a nuclear agreement.
You know, he said this all the time.
I want an agreement.
They can't have a bomb.
But more than that, more than that, Trump has always wanted a better JCPOA to emerge to prove to the world that he was better at negotiating it than Obama.
His jealousy and his feelings to Obama.
Mean that he wanted, he's always said, it was a terrible agreement that Obama agreed with them on the nuclear issue, and I want a better one.
So, this is one barricade how do you get through this problem with Trump, especially given Trump's propensity now for saying things that are not true and then reversing himself?
In other words, his mental state.
I mean, what would happen?
You know, even if there had been talks and Vance had come back, the vice president had come back and said, look, here's a deal on nuclear issues.
It's not going to happen.
No.
But what if he'd said that?
Trump might have just said, no.
I mean, you know, it's not good enough.
It's got to be better than the JCPOA that Obama achieved.
So you have this roadblock.
And then you have the other roadblock, which is Israel.
Because, as we've discussed just now at the beginning, what does Israel want?
They want the war to continue.
They don't think they have got an achievement.
The worst outcome, I mean, it's in the Hebrew press today, the worst outcome would be a provisional agreement or a sort of prolonged ceasefire.
And that Israel would not accept that and will not concede that because it.
Netanyahu will not be able to get through elections on that basis because he's being castigated for achieving nothing as a result of this war, which he imposed on the United States on behalf of Israel.
And so he's got nothing to show for it.
And Trump will have nothing to show for the war in the elections that his party, not him personally, is facing.
In six months.
Exactly.
So, how do we get through this period?
I'm not sure.
I mean, you know, it's clear that, I mean, whatever's going on in Trump's mind, we don't know, but he needs, and the Republican Party needs to get out of this quick.
I mean, needs to just stop it.
I mean, this is the message I think Joe Kent has been saying pretty forcefully to the world.
No, we need to get out of this in some way.
Do a deal on Hormuz if you want and get out.
But the two questions is, The two hurdles to this, I mean, what Kent is saying makes sense, but one hurdle is Trump.
He wants something that appears to be a win, a quick win.
He wants, for example, Iran to hand back 430 kilos of enriched uranium.
Here it is.
And he can hold it over his head like a footballer at the end of a match.
Here's the trophy.
I've won it.
I've won it.
But he's not going to get that.
He's not going to get capitulation.
The Iranians are not going to beg him and ring up and say, Oh, we're begging you.
We want to start negotiations.
They've just refused them.
They refused them in Islamabad and they're going to refuse them for the next stage.
So he's not going to get that.
And Netanyahu's not going to get that.
So what is the prospect?
Well, maybe it will be military escalation.
I don't know whether that's going to happen.
Many have forecasted.
Would have come during this period.
I was inclined to think so too, but it seems that there are various pressures internally within the Pentagon and elsewhere.
Is this psychological pressure or are they real pressures?
I don't think we know.
Are they real pressure or is Trump going to opt for more pressure?
Because this has been always, you know.
The answer.
Double down.
Double down.
Pressure, more pressure.
So we'll bomb your facilities, your energy supply lines.
We'll bomb your power stations, et cetera.
But of course, if he does that, Iran will then visit exactly the same on the Gulf states.
And the Gulf states, I think, are desperate.
Here's Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, sounding fanatically defiant.
I wonder what your thoughts are on the realism of this coming to pass.
Chris.
Israel is prepared for the renewal of war against Iran.
The IDF is ready both defensively and offensively, and the targets have been marked.
They are waiting for a green light from the United States, first and foremost, in order to complete the elimination. of the Khamenei dynasty, the initiator of the annihilation plan against Israel, and the successors of the successors of the Iranian terror regime's leadership.
In addition, the goal is to return Iran to the age of darkness and stone by blowing up the main energy and electricity facilities and crushing the national economic infrastructure.
The terror regime in Iran specializes mainly in the internal suppression of the population through the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, as well as in energy blackmail by threatening to inflame global oil prices.
It is down for the count.
Its leaders are hiding in tunnels and are struggling to communicate and make decisions.
Its skies are wide open and all its national infrastructure and strategic facilities are exposed to attacks.
Yet it declares that it is winning because just like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, it does not care about the heavy price paid by the population.
The main thing is personal survival, which is not guaranteed either.
When the attack resumes this time, it will be different and deadly and will deliver devastating blows to the most sensitive places.
This will be in addition.
To the massive blows that the Iranian terror regime has already suffered so far, which will shake and collapse its very foundations.
Like he's trying to out Trump Trump with that language.
Well, I mean, he's, I mean, what we started with, that was pure apocalyptic messaging, messianic and apocalyptic.
He wants to visit complete destruction on Iran.
It doesn't, he's not, and this is where the interests of Israel and America diverge.
He's not, there wasn't a word in that which was suggesting that Trump should move towards a negotiation or some sort of agreement with Iran, just the opposite, because that is the interest of a scatological movement like Iran, and it is totally at odds with that of Trump.
And what he's doing is he's inviting America to go to its own destruction, to commit suicide.
By attacking and trying to destroy Iran completely.
That's what he's inviting them to do.
It is certainly not in the American interest.
On the contrary, it will bring about catastrophic economic consequences and it will bring about a catastrophic failure militarily, which will reverberate throughout the region and the world from Russia to China to the BRICS countries.
Alistair, thank you for a truly brilliant analysis, cultural, geopolitical, even military.
Catastrophic Military Consequences00:00:25
Thank you very much, my dear friend.
Thank you for your time.
As always, we'll look forward to seeing you next week.
Thank you.
Thank you, Judge.
Coming up later today at 9 this morning, Larry Johnson, about all of this and about the attempt on the life of President Trump on Saturday night at 10 o'clock, Ray McGovern at 1 30.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.