Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke: Europe In Mutiny

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Alastair Crooke: Europe In MutinySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, June 17th, 2024. Alistair Crook is here with us on Europe in Mutiny. But first this. You all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital, but I'm also a customer, a very satisfied customer. About a year ago, I bought gold and it's now increased in value 23%. So $100 invested in gold a year ago is now worth $123. If you have $100 in the bank, it still shows $100, but $100 in the bank is now worth 24% less. Inflation has reduced all of your savings,

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Protect your savings. 800-511-4620. Learjudgenap.com. Tell them the judge sent you. Alistair, good day to you, my dear friend. Before we talk about Europe in mutiny, maybe this is part of it, I don't know, I do want to talk to you about President Putin's peace offer, which was made since the last time you and I were together. Of course, it's being trashed in the West. How is it being received in Europe? Oh, very sort of disdainfully, really sneeringly.

For example, Mark Rutter, the former prime minister and the sort of candidate, a candidate for taking over NATO, was talking about Putin's foolish peace proposal. It shows clearly that Putin is in panic, and that's good news. And that was the reaction, and it was fairly typical across Europe. Absolutely dismissive of it, dismissive of it in its entirety. And that, I think, is very serious, serious news, because I think perhaps people are misconstruing what this peace process was. It wasn't necessarily, you know, it was based, if you like, on the Istanbul formula from 22, February 22. Right. But basically, I think you should understand it in a different context.

It is in the context, and I know you'll understand this better than most, of a just war, and about conflict and how you manage conflict. This is understood very well. I mean, this is the basis of how most of the East understand it, including Iran and Russia. And effectively, what he's done is he set out very carefully the history and how things have arrived where they have, introducing new elements like the telephone

call from Obama at one point. And then he said, you know, if you don't take this, really, this is the last chance. This is the chance that you have. And if you don't take it, and this was emphasized, I think, yesterday by Nari Ashin, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, you don't take this, then what you'll get next is going to be much worse. No details, but things are going to change. And I noticed that on Friday before this talk before the Foreign Ministry Board, there was a meeting of what I'd call the Russian War Cabinet. Unusual, late at night. And what was equally unusual is no mention of what was discussed. The fact that it took place is admitted, nothing about the subject or what it was. And I think putting all these things together with how he expected

the West to react to the proposals he laid out, I think what we're seeing is that he probably was talking with his generals and his advisors and saying, well, maybe now is the time to accelerate. Maybe now we're going to move to different tactics, a different stage of this conflict. But here, Europe, United States, this is it. This is your last chance, really, to get to come and talk on this basis. It can start anytime. If you don't take it, we're ready. And so quite the opposite to Mark Rutte's comment. Clearly, Putin is in panic. Putin, I watched his presentation. I mean, he is so much in command, so much a confident statesman. You don't have the slightest sense that this has not been very carefully thought through.

Not just to this, but, you know, being Putin, it's a chess player. He knows the next move and the move after that and the move after that already prepared. So I think this is, if you like, the last chance saloon. next move and the move after that and the move after that already prepared so i think uh this is if you like um the last chance saloon for the west to get something that could be more acceptable and i think they're going to refuse it here's um here's an english translation something about 60 seconds long, of the core proposal that President Putin made. By the way, if you read the New York Times, they cut out about half of this. But here's the core proposal. The West is ignoring our interests and at the same time, forbidding Kiev to negotiate, all the while hypocritically calling us to some kind of negotiations. It just seems foolish. Ukrainian troops must be fully withdrawn

from Donetsk and Luhansk peoples' republics, and from the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. And I draw your attention to the fact that it includes the entire territory of these regions within their administrative borders, as they existed when they joined Ukraine. Once Kiev declares its readiness and starts the genuine withdrawal of its troops from these areas. As well as officially notify about the abandonment of plans to join NATO, our side will immediately, literally at the same minute, follow the order to cease fire and start negotiations. Have you ever heard a peace offer before that says immediately, literally at the same minute, we will withdraw?

I'm sure that, maybe I'm not sure, Zelensky should be kicking himself for not having accepted the peace offering that they negotiated in Istanbul three years ago. Oh, clearly. A lot of people would be alive if he'd done that. Yes. But I would say, you know, this is the sort of in that tradition from the East that you put it out publicly. You know, this is the situation and this is what's going to happen if you don't accept the situation. This is the last warning you get. And after this, and so I do expect new things will emerge. I think there will

be new elements in their approach. I suggest there's probably going to be an acceleration of the conflict now. So it's going to be a very dangerous period because already we're in a period when the West is escalating into Russia. I mean, it says it's nothing to do with it. It's Ukraine. But of course, everything that is done in the terms of sending cruise missiles deep into Russia requires,

if you like, NATO technicians, NATO experts to set the machine, to set the missiles up, to feed in the targeting material, to manage it in flight, to turn it around the sort of radar systems and take it direct to its target. That's all done by NATO. It's nothing to do with Ukraine. When they talk about, you know, Ukraine hitting into the strategic depths of Russia, it should be rewritten as NATO hitting into the strategic depths of Russia. And now we're going to have a riposte of some sort, I believe. Did anything noteworthy come of the meeting in Birkenstock, Switzerland over the weekend of all these countries, Sons, Russia and China? some of the Europeans who were there, even the Europeans were saying it was really a sort of war summit. I mean, it was not about peace.

It was, you know, setting out terms that were clearly impossible to achieve. Complete integrity of Ukraine on the 1991 borders, and then some really minor issues about preserving Zaporizhia and nuclear station and the swapping of children and so on. Nothing of any substance at all. So it was really, the first day was mostly the precursor for Zelensky to sort of talk about his ideas and his future. But no, nothing came of it, and no serious players, no serious actors, China and others were present. Mostly just the European protégés were there and a few others. There were, I think, 90 odd. Twelve people refused even to sign this

water down in summary, but it achieved nothing. Here's President Putin's comments. Now, I don't know if these are comments on the weekend events and Switzerland or comments in general, but in my view, and of course I'll be happy and do want to hear yours after we play it, is a brilliant and gifted explanation of the Russian mindset, which the West fails to understand. military ideological confrontation, the global community had a unique opportunity to build a reliable and just order in the field of security. This did not require much. A simple ability to listen to the opinions of all interested parties and a mutual willingness to take them into account. Our country was determined to do exactly this kind of constructive work. However, a different approach prevailed. The Western powers, led by the United States, believed that they had won the Cold War and had the right to determine how the world should be organized. Doesn't that get right to the heart of things, the Russian observation, conclusion, and I suggest your view and mine, truthfully and accurately, that the West, the United States, believes it has the right to determine how the world should be organized.

You're absolutely right. And Putin made it fairly clear. What is going to make any future talks more complicated, problematic, is first of all, he also set out. And up until now, that was manageable. But after what he's now said, he said very clearly that Zelensky, and he went into a great deal about it, Zelensky is not the president. And he went through the constitution of Ukraine to show what was the constitutional position and what role martial law would have played in that to show that there was absolutely nothing that provided for him being able to extend his presidency. The constitution does provide for simply for the Rada, that's the parliament, to continue under certain circumstances or to have a suspension of

elections. But there's nothing that touches on the presidency. So first of all, from Moscow's point of view, who do we talk to? Who is there to commit on this process now? So this is going to be, they're not going to go back on this. I mean, Zelensky, as far as they're concerned, is over. It's not clear who, where power lies. Maybe it lies with the presidency of the Rada, the parliament. It's not clear. It probably needs to go to the Ukrainian constitutional court to say who is entitled now to commit Ukraine in any peace negotiation. And the other thing was just what you were saying, which is so important to understanding. The failure after the Berlin Wall fell, the failure then, at that time the Cold War had come to an end and the failure then to draw up, if you like, an understanding of the interests of the Atlantic world compared with those of the heartland, the Russia, China, the Asian heartland, to do a sort of Mackinder-esque type of negotiation. Mackinder was a great 19th century strategy that said it's always the heartland versus

the rimland, i.e. the Atlanticists on this. And there was never any agreement except informally, not written, but at that time, not an inch beyond the German borders would NATO go. And since then, we've had forever expansion, and we're in this process. And so Putin said at the end, and this is really significant, I think, about where the future is. He said, look, you know, this is not really about, you know, just Ukraine. It's about this forever expansion of NATO, the inability that we have not been able to come to terms of a modus vivendi between, if you like, the interests of the Atlanticists and

parts of Europe and those of Asia, Russia, China and other states that comprise, if you like, that heartland. And we have to have some sort of arrangement. Otherwise, this will go on and we'll end up in a major war. That is the negotiation. Ukraine will flow from that. Not Ukraine will lead into the wider discussion. And so I think it's very important because at the moment, that's not in sight, not at all. I mean, there's no one in the West that could manage or even think very clearly about such a negotiation. So he's saying, you know, it's going to be some way down the line before we can have that sort of discussion, in which Ukraine will be included as part of this process. But there has to be a new security architecture for Europe. And for, if you like, the interface between the interests of Russia, China, and if you like, the Central Asian part of the world, and Western Europe, the Atlanticist

element, some sort of understanding on missiles and on all those things that we've sort of scrapped over these last few years. The G7 meeting in southern Italy last week resulted in some sort of a security pact. President Biden signed what an American law is known as an executive order purporting to commit the American government to get $5 billion a year to Ukraine. Of course, this is an executive order. It's not a treaty. If Biden is reelected, it's valid. If he's replaced by Donald Trump or someone else, that person who replaces him could easily rescind it. But they also agreed to confiscate the interest generated by the seized Russian state funds in Western European banks. Under American law, this is clearly theft. How is this being perceived in Europe?

Well, Putin said it very clearly in three words. Theft is theft. Right. You know, there's no other words for it. And what is so extraordinary is the sort of cavalier way in which this is being managed. For example, first of all, the G7 have no authority to make that decision to confiscate the assets, because the freezing of the Russian assets in banks in Europe was the result of sanctions who were imposed by the European Union. So they are the people that are, if you like, in authority in this instance.

The second thing is that the interest payment is clearly attached to the foreign assets. They belong to Russia. I mean, the interest payment is on Russian assets. It's not on somebody else's account. So it's no different from the main assets. So it's illegal, clearly illegal to take those funds. And then they're going to try and use this tiny amount of frozen funds by 260 billion. I mean,

it's not chicken feed, but compared to make for America to make a loan of 50 billion. Well, you know, as anyone who's been in business, you can't make a loan with that sort of collateral, which is a tiny fraction of it. This isn't collateral at all. So ultimately, what's going to happen? And the big debate has been, who's going to guarantee in the face of the almost certain default of this loan?

The loan is going to be mostly given to the usual customers, the military, industrial complex to build weapons for Ukraine, theoretically. But what happens if there's no Ukraine. What happens if the sanctions on Russia are rescinded because one member state in the EU says, I don't approve to the rollover of Russian sanctions, which have to be renewed every six months to be legal. And if one state, Slovakia, Hungary says no. The sanctions fall. And then under law, all the assets, interest and principal, return to the Russian Federation. And the whole deal becomes, I mean, it's just a dog's dinner. Really a mess of lore in here. One of your two great pieces over the weekend is subtitled Europe in Mutiny. What did we learn about the UK, about France, and about Germany in the past seven days that causes you to come to this ominous conclusion? It took many of us by surprise, because we had these European elections. Quite often,

people don't vote in them because they're for members of the European Parliament, which is a pretty toothless institution anyway. It can't devise legislation that lies elsewhere, nor can it actually finally endorse it. But nonetheless, there were elections for those, and the swing prompted, first of all, France. Macron said, okay, that's it, we'll have elections, and we've got to have elections very quickly. This followed on Britain, not as a result just of the vote in Europe, but doing a snap election. France, Germany was completely, the coalition government, totally humiliated. They got, ended up, the Schulz's party got something like 14% of the vote. The Greens sank to new lows, as did the

other parts of the coalition. I mean, they'll soon have to, I think, face a vote of no confidence, and then there'll be snap elections. So the key motors of the European Union, France and Germany are in political chaos at the moment. I mean, really chaos, because it looks as if there's going to be big changes. And what did all of this do was effectively it ended this thing, this artificial marginal line in Europe, is called the Cordon Sanitaire,

which excludes all far right, as they call it, but they're not far right at all, but all rightist parties from participating in mainstream politics. It's an informal, it's not a legal agreement, but it's an informal agreement that only centrists are allowed to coalesce with leftists, but never with the right, and that this excludes the right

from politics entirely. No coalition, no informal workabout, no sharing of power. They were out of it. Well, first of all, Smoloni, who comes from a right party, has driven a horse and coached through it. And in France, we're going to see Le Pen's party probably form the next government in France. And we will see, we saw in Germany, the AfD, the Alternative for Deutschland party, and the other smaller leftist parties, the AfD, even after the huge campaign against Alternative for Deutschland, calling it a fascist organization, anti-Semitic, everything has been thrown at the AfD, and they still had a much higher poll outcome than the Scholz's party.

It was a disaster for German coalition, complete disaster. Is there any question that you mind how the British election is likely to go on July 4, or how much longer Chancellor Scholz can remain in office, or whether there will be a new prime minister in France? Well, in France, I think almost certainly, yes, there's going to be a new prime minister. And the right are forming these coalitions. They're breaking the cordon sanitaire. Groups want to, Les Républicains wanted to join with Le Pen, but then there was an internal fight. But they are in politics now. Le Pen will be the party that will, and her very young co-leader Bardella, who's certainly a sort of celebrity startup in France, is going to do very well.

In Britain, it's chaos, absolute. And again, the mutiny against the government. The British were so fed up with being offered Tweedledum or Tweedledee. No change. You know, the Uniparty in Britain, the same Uniparty. Don't tell me that George Galloway or Nigel Farage might be the next prime minister. Well, not yet. But listen, within a day or two of declaring himself as going to fight the election,

he was polling more than the government. The Conservative government, 150-year-old party, Farage's Reform Party, was outpolling the Conservative government within one day. Wow. So this gives you a sense of the anti-establishment feeling there is, not only in Britain, but across. And there were other places. The Belgian premier got all of 5% in his polling and resigned on the spot. It was patchy.

Other places, it wasn't so clear. Maloney, who is of the right, got the highest, and she has the highest. When you look at the G7, they're all completely in the doldrums. Maloney is the only one who has a poll rating near 40% in her own country. All the rest of them can barely get into double figures of approval ratings in Europe. It's

a huge anti-establishment. And they're going to, they probably still will control a centre block, because these are the legacy parties from the post-war era, the Christian Democratic parties that were set up to stop communism overtaking Europe in the post-war era. They may have a majority. And of course, they're so desperate that as soon as they all got back from the G7, they were meeting yesterday informally and say, right, we'll choose who's going to lead Europe for the next four years. So von der Leyen will be the head of the commission.

Someone from Portugal will be the head of the council. And someone from the Baltic states will be the new foreign affairs chief. So they're trying to cook it so that they can keep power. I mean, they're that desperate that they're trying to gerrymander. Theoretically, these appointments are supposed to be endorsed and appointed by, as yet, the new MEPs. We don't even know yet which MEPs are on the right or on the left because many of them have not declared which bloc they're going to join in.

But they want to preempt that and say, no, this is the leadership. And that gives you an idea of how sort of desperate things are in Europe at the moment. Desperate is the understatement of the day. Alistair, thank you very much for your time, my dear friend, and all of your analysis. We'll look forward to seeing you next week as well. All the best, my friend. Thank you so much. Of course. Coming up today at 9.30 Eastern Time, Professor Jeffrey Sachs at 10 o'clock in the morning, Eastern Time, Ray McGovern at five o'clock this afternoon. Larry Johnson, Justin Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.