Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke : Houthis' Advantage Over Saudis

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

Alastair Crooke : Houthis' Advantage Over SaudisSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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org. Undeclared wars are commonplace. Fragically, 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, September 28, 2006. Alastair Crook joins us now, Alastair. A pleasure, as always, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. I want to talk to you at some length about the Houthis on Saralah and their military and even political advantages over the Saudis. But before we do so, what is your take on the international reaction to the President of the United States last week? standing at the podium of the United Nations General Assembly and threatening to murder 91 million Iranians. I think, I mean, I could use a lot of words,

and I'm sure a lot of other words have been used about it, because it was an atrocious thing to say. But I think what the abiding sort of conclusion drawn by the world about this, was that the decline of the United States as a political entity, not just as a whole, but as a political entity, is accelerating and accelerating rapidly, and that means there is severe risk.

And I would say to you that looking around after what's happened in Russia, the hardening of position in Russia, the hardening of the position in Iran, The situation in the lead up to the midterms, the situation is critical, has become critical in all of these fronts and in the economic front as well. So we have three critical situations developing together. From all legitimate measures, it would seem that a threat of this magnitude strengthens the arrangement. Iranian government and further unites the Iranian people behind their government, as well as eroding American influence.

I mean, think about it, as you just pointed out, what influence does America have when the president has to sound like a bully? Worse than any bully you ever heard. Yes. Well, it is hardening the positions everywhere. I mean, that did harden the positions. particularly in Iran, where, I mean, it is the people that are behind it, and the people who see themselves described in these terms.

I mean, in these outlandish terms, are really becoming less and less willing to think that there's any negotiated settlement with the United States, or even that they would want a settlement with the United States. That is a big difference, not whether the sort of strategic calculation is that there's a possibility, but even if there was, would they want one? Because they have found the whole of the United States so wanting in this respect, so lacking in moral values, and so lacking in any empathy for the people of Iran. You know, you can't just veer from saying, oh, well, we support you and we want you to

take over the country one day and then talk about annihilation the next without thinking that this is going to have a huge impact on the consciousness of Iranians and of the whole region and indeed the whole world. I mean, in Russia too. I mean, obviously people, you know, on the one hand, there was the threat of annihilation made at the United Nations. But at the same time, in the days that the following on the weekend, I mean, a huge missile attack on Russia's elections, on the election day, on the polling booths, on the polling commissioners who were in charge of it,

on some of the school where voting was held. Now, it didn't have any real effect on the elections because most of those missiles were stopped. But if you're Russian, What do you think about the West and the United States that so proclaims democracy and its values, superior values, moral values, its democracy and freedom, that it chooses election day to launch the biggest missile and drone raid to date on Russia? Well, if you believe that the Ukrainian, missiles and drones are aimed or facilitated by CIA, and they probably are, why should Russia have anything to do with the United States? It is so ostentatiously now a co-belligerent in the most

dastardly ways. Well, I think it's worse than that. I mean, I think that's true, of course, that it's facilitated. It would have never happened if the CIA were not involved in it, of course not. But it's the Europeans that are really angering Russia at the state, really angering them. Because the Europeans have sort of hyped themselves up to think that somehow Putin has put himself in an escalatory trap. That goes back to April 22 when the narrative that they espoused, which is a false narrative, which was that Putin intended to seize Kiev in four days and most of Ukraine with it, and it failed. And then from then on, you know, that Putin had no alternative but to escalate and escalate and escalate.

And that gave Europe the chance to put pressure on Putin to drive him towards a ceasefire. Well, it's all imputed ideas that are not true. Putin never intended to take. He had a force of 40,000 men. It barely would fill a piazza in Rome, not take a city of 3 million. It was not like that. But they'd convinced themselves,

so they increased, increase, increase, ratcheting up the pressure on Russia with these, and now, finally, attacked it on its election day. And so what do you think Russians are thinking? you know if this goes on we cannot let it happen we cannot allow this to continue and so the europeans and i think you will recall from our dinner with lavrov the other evening i mean made it clear there will be consequences for europe they are extremely angry at europe for um facilitating for providing the missiles CIA may be facilitating the targeting, but ultimately the missiles have been coming from Europe.

And I think that if they are not careful, if the Europeans are not careful, very careful about what they're doing, their language, their rhetoric, their hyping of war with Russia may become a self-fulfilling prediction, it will escalate into something very serious. Do you have a handle on why the Russian animosity is greater against the Europeans than the Americans? Surely our host at dinner, the foreign minister, is fully aware of the nature and extent of American involvement? Of course he is. but there is still the sense, I think, in Russia, a sort of deep sense, because we cannot continue with a world order that is like it is,

where there are no values, where everything is, if you like, trashed. The legal system is trashed. The UN has been trashed. The norms of civilized behavior. All of this is trashed. All of this is trashed. pushed aside in the intent of the United States simply to preserve their hegemony, preserve their primacy, financial primacy, their political primacy. So all of that is gone.

But it means that unless Russia can somehow bring the United States back to a sense of how to do business with other powers, China, Russia. Iran. How do you do diplomacy again? And away from purely coercive means, coercive financial means, coercive language, coercive military. If you stick only

with that, then we are heading to something bigger. And so I think the focus why there is, if you like, still a focus coming out of Moscow, that the United States, despite all of the auguries which say it's not going to work. I mean, we heard Lavrov say, you know, we are still open and willing to talk to the United States,

and we are grateful to the United States for trying to pursue this track. But they can see that there are other forces against it that are trying to destroy it. But I think the bigger picture is the one that I've just tried to describe to you. The whole global order can't work. I mean, we do not have diplomacy anywhere. Everywhere it is coercion of one sort or another. Shake down of Gulf states to get them to give more money to America,

shake down of European allies, or it is the financial threats of a hedgeman. So I think they want to try and see if this is possible. I think in some ways that was what she's visit to do. to the U.S. was, I don't know if it'll succeed, it probably won't, but I think it was trying to say to Trump, you know, you actually have to try and deal with us and deal with us in a diplomatic way, and that involves empathy, understanding who we are, understanding what makes us tick, not just simply threaten and threaten.

So I think that's why they do it, but they are more angry. You're right. They are angrier with the Europeans because the Europeans go on promising longer range, bigger warhead missiles that they fire. I mean, the last ones were fired during the summer at beaches, at resort hotels, these ones are being fired at the election process. Isn't this what America stands for elections and election process? And yet, you know, that was the main aim. Right. Two thousand missiles to disrupt completely election. Did they think that would mean that Putin would go away

or that Russia would suddenly collapse? I can't believe they did do that. It was simply a further attempt to, if you like, to enable what they believe is the case that Putin has no alternatives and he's under pressure. and if they push harder and harder, then he will give in and say, yes, I agree to a ceasefire. And he made it clear. And Lavrov said there will not be any ceasefire in any format in the lead-up to negotiations. In other words, the negotiations will have to take place without any cease-far,

which the Europeans will probably now go and increase the pressure, thinking that just a little bit further, push, Putin a little further, and he'll have to give in and agree to the ceasefire. Actually, what it will probably do is it will result in Russia actually taking some sort of military action against European and NATO assets, carefully measured and done in a way that's calibrated, but nonetheless attacking NATO countries.

And then we will see what happens. Wow. Do you think that I was going to jump to Iran, but your last answer has tantalized me. Do you think that the Russian attacks will be on NATO military facilities or on manufacturing plants in NATO countries? We don't know, but it might be both. But, I mean, you know, there are bases in various places. there's a military base, the British have a military base in Cyprus. They've had military bases.

There were military bases in Poland and Romania and places like that. I think it will be very, they've learned the lesson from Iran. You use missiles. It may not be a nuclear missile. It may be an Eresnik or it could be another type of missile, but I think it will be aimed either at the manufacturing locations. The Russians have issued a list of all of the places where the missiles are being manufactured in Germany and Britain and elsewhere.

And Zelensky listed all of those drones and missiles and gave them their names when he, after the attack on the election day, and said, But here are all the missiles we're using against Russia. I mean, this is a provocation that Russia just cannot ignore. Here's jumping to Iran. Here's Foreign Minister Araji yesterday being asked whether diplomacy between the United States and Iran has failed. Chris, cut number two.

Has diplomacy failed, Mr. Foreign Minister? To be honest, we do. We have no reason to come back to diplomacy and engage with this administration once again because of their behavior in the past two years. You know, in 2025, they offered negotiation, we accepted, and we engaged into negotiation, and then in the middle of negotiations, they attacked us. Eight months later, in 2006, February, again they offered negotiation, again we accepted, and again they attacked us right in the middle of negotiations.

Then they offered after the war, they offered negotiation for a deal, we accepted, we had three months of negotiations, and it took only two weeks for them to violate a deal which they had signed themselves. So if you ask us, there is no reason why we should go back to diplomacy, but I'm still trying diplomacy, because I think we shouldn't miss any chance for peace. So who will outlast the other as their eyeball-to-eyeball? Who blink? Well, over the weekend, Trump effectively set fire, burnt down any possibilities of diplomacy with Iran because he said two things. I reject entirely the Iranian proposals.

He said very clearly, I reject entirely it's garbage. I think he used the word. And then they added to this also. So the memorandum of understanding, the MOU, that's gone. I don't accept that at all. So there is no, if you like, he is set fire and burnt down the very, you know, instruments by which negotiations might be taken forward. So the consequence of this is quite clear.

Iran is not going to sit back and wait until after the midterm elections and Iran being bombed by the United States. No, they are going to escalate, and we saw big escalation overnight in days with a number of vessels being attacked increasing sharply. I think we were in something of a hiatus

because I think the Chinese and Iran was sensitive to their desires not to see an escalation during Xi's visit to Washington. But now that is over and now there is a period and now there is a very important date coming up that we should not neglect, which is the 30th of September. On the 30th of September, all American forces are supposed to be out of Iraq, fully and completely. That was the agreement that was made by the Iraqi government with the United States and the resistance forces, the Iraq. Iraqi resistance forces are holding the government to that and saying, you know, if you don't do that, then we will not cooperate with you at all.

That is the basis of the agreement. So we have to see. I think America is saying possibly that the force is already out. Well, maybe, but at the same time, they're holding the financial resources. They are not out of Iraq. The problem is they are out in New York. And so everything that the Iraqi government want to spend has to have a green light from the U.S. Treasury before they're allowed to spend it. So, I mean, I don't think that it's likely to be over.

But the 30th of September, I think, will mark an important date where we may start to see things escalate across the region. I want to ask you about Ansarala, part of which is the Houthis, because you wrote an extensive and detailed. piece about it. Did Iran dispatch Ansarala to attack Saudi Arabia or is this in response for what Saudi Arabia did to Yemen? Oh, it was very clear what started this round of conflict was that there had been a long-standing truth. Now, I know that it will not be believed very much in Western circles. but the Houthis do have a very strong sense of morality. Their whole, if you like, history is based on the sense of morality.

And so while the truce held, they have not been going fully into an attack on Saudi Arabia at all. But when Saudi Arabia broke the truce by attacking Sana'a airport and preventing an Iranian aircraft landing there that was to take a delegation to the funerals of the Supreme Leader. That changed everything. It broke the arrangement. It changed it. And the Houthis went on the attack and the conflict with Saudi Arabia opened up. The Houthis say, I have no direct confirmation of it, that Trump authorized their breaking of the truce in order to stop the Iranian aircraft landing at Sana airport. So I don't know, but that was the start of it, yes. No, Iran did not order them to do it.

No, Iran does not have that sort of relationship. The Houthis very much respect what happened, the Iranian Revolution, and they've taken much of their model. from Hezbollah, but they are not proxies of either. And this was very clear from Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, when he sent an official to work with him, he said, whatever you do, you don't tell them what to do,

you don't instruct them, you don't enforce anything, that has to come entirely from the Houthi. And the Houthis have a stronger revolutionary, if you like, culture almost than Iran. Because according to them, the Imam, the leader or religious leader of the Houthis, who has always claimed a direct dissent from the Prophet, therefore has real legitimacy in the world, was only chosen not because of divine connection, nor was it a herringyism. reditory one like the Ismailis with a secular person, but it came from anyone who had taken up arms against tyranny in the world. That gave the Houthis legitimacy. That gave them their religious

legitimacy was that they were prepared to take up arms against tyranny anywhere. And so they have a very strong internal culture of that type of revolution and that's why they have cohesion and that's why the whole country falls in and falls behind the leadership when they go to war and i think now the war is spreading to those three provinces um that were formerly Yemen but which um Saudi Arabia seized well wealthy rich provinces that the Saudis seized in the 30s, in 34, and have kept for themselves. And now the Houthis are starting to, as far as I can see,

starting the process of taking those provinces back. Whether it'll stop there, whether they will go further, let us see what happens in the region. That's always a possibility, because I try to explain that in many ways, You know, the Saudis have a very difficult task because when the Houthis decided that the truce was broken, they did a blitz attack across Yemen. And Yemen has a particular geography. It's a bordering of the Red Sea is mountains, mountains with caves, and it is just like the

other side of Hormuz. It's very similar. middle of the box, it's desert. But they've taken all the highlands of Yemen. They've seized them all in one day in an extraordinary raid across it. But what does this mean? You know, air raids are going to get them out of those mountains any more than air raids have got, if you like, Iran out of the mountains surrounding Hormoz. It's almost impossible to dig out, you know, tribesmen who've lived in those mountains that know them backwards, except by troops on the ground. And no one's going to put troops on the ground. I mean, I think America has been toying with, you know, maybe doing an amphibious assault from Eritrea or from Somaliland across the Red Sea. But I think that sends shivers up the spines of the Pentagon

because it sounds like Gallipoli all over again with the huge losses that the Allies took when they tried to cross the Bosphorus and to take Gallipoli. I mean, 44,000 died in that attempt to amphibious attempt. So there's understandable caution about trying to do a land operation, and air power doesn't help. So what are they doing? They're sending intelligence officers. Well, I can give you the intelligence sitting here. Yes, they're in the mountains, and the rest is desert. What are you going to do about it?

So why do you think President Trump three times declined requests from Muhammad bin Salman for military assistance against the Houthis? And how do those Trump denials resonate in the collective memory of the Saudis? I think that they reflect perhaps an understanding, and I have no solid evidence of it, but I think it reflects an understanding that how fragile, indeed how artificial that whole Saudi construct was. that was, after all, made by the British in the 19th century. And then later, all of these Bedouin shakdoms were turned into statelets, up and down the Gulf, the true show states were turned into the UA and so on. So I think there's a real sense of concern that if the Saudis, if the Saudis are supported,

first of all, will it, can they be supported in any effective way? There's a big question mark over that. But what happens if they start to fall? And then what happens to the other Gulf states? What happens to Bahrain? What happens to Kuwait? What happens to the UAE? If Saudi is perceived to be so weak that it fails,

then you have the whole regions in, war. So you don't just have two wars, one with Saudi Arabia and one in Iran. You will have multiple wars. And as I say, we have to watch out for what happens after the 30th of September in Iraq. I don't know what will happen. Maybe all the American forces will have gone. Will that bring everything to an end? We have to wait and see. So I think that was probably the reason someone said to Trump and perhaps he even listened and said, look, I understand, you know, if we, if we fully back Saudi Arabia and it doesn't work, we could actually be in a much worse situation than the mess we're already in.

Wow. Alistair, thank you very much. A great conversation. As always, my dear friend, deeply appreciate it. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. Thanks very much, Judge. Sure. Bye-bye. Coming up later today, if you're watching us live in 30 minutes at 9 o'clock this morning, Eastern, Larry Johnson, at 3 this afternoon,

Trita Parsi from the Quincy Institute, one of the country's foremost experts on Iran, and at 4 this afternoon, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Justice Napolitano for Judging Freedom.