Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke : Netanyahu Lures Trump Into War with Iran Alastair Crooke : Netanyahu Lures Trump Into War with Iran

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Alastair Crooke : Netanyahu Lures Trump Into War with IranSee 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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And with Ollie's in-app on-demand health screenings, tap real experts whenever you need peace of mind. Visit ollie.com slash crossover and use code crossover for 60% off your first box. freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one generation away from extinction it is not ours by way of inheritance it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation for for each generation for a It comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again. 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 society? slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Happy New Year to you, such as it is. Today is Monday, January 5th, 2025. Alastair Crook will be here with us in a minute on two very, very vital topics of the latest on the events in Venezuela and the latest on what Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing to lure the United States into a war with Iran.

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That's why they're buying more. Is it too late to buy or is it just the right time? the right time. Call my friends at Lear Capital to find out. Ask questions. Get the free information. There's no pressure. And that's why I buy my gold and silver from Lear. And right now, you can get up to $20,000 in bonus medals with a qualified purchase. Call 800, 511, 4620 or go to Learjudgeonap.com today. Oster Crook, welcome here, my dear friend, and happy New Year, such as it is. Before we start on Netanyahu and before we get to how close the United States is with war in Iran,

your take on the kidnapping of President Maduro. Well, I think that if you look to what has happened in Syria, you have the exact model. Indeed, the letter that Delci Rodriguez wrote saying that, you know, they want good relations with the West and the world. I mean, it has the footprints of the Giolani letter across it, very obviously. And what we now learn is that, in fact, this affair was being mediated by Qatar, just as the affair of the removal of Assad was being mediated by Gulf states. The Gulf states persuading Assad that he needed to break with Iran, he needed to break with Hezbollah, and move closer towards the West, and then all would be well.

quite clearly it wasn't. But this was the methodology and it follows really you know we've seen it with Witkoff and also with Trump's son-in-law Kushner I mean the business approach business approach to geopolitics

and really this is what went on in Venezuela it is effectively a management buyout you get rid of the CEO of the thing you wish to take over, remove the CEO, and then you do a management buyout, the army, the security services, etc., just as we saw in Syria, whereby, if you like, the army were bought off. They were miserably paid because the sanctions had reduced the army paid to absolutely incredible amounts of $7 a month or something. can't live on that. So they bought it out, and this is what we've seen. What we see is, therefore,

that Rodrigo's been in touch with Washington via Gata. Her brother has been doing the same. Also, both of them have long-standing connections with Gatari family, royal family. Let me just stop you for one second. Forgive me for interrupting. The person of whom you speak is the new president of Venezuela? That's correct. She was the vice president and now she's been sworn in as acting president. Okay. Please continue. Sorry for that lack of clarity. And so it's clear she has been in touch with Gatha. Now to understand the now acting president, Rodriguez, she has a backer. She has a back which is quite revolutionary. Her father was a revolutionary, who was executed and tortured.

And she has that background, but she also has had very close contacts with the business community in Venezuela, in Caracas, and also she has deep contacts with the oil and petroleum industry. She is, in fact, also the Minister of Petroleum. and has been formerly the Minister for Natural Resources, because also Venezuela has something like $22 billion in gold reserves also. So she has come in and quite clearly what happened was that the existing security services were stood down, and the bodyguard of Maduro, the former president, was Cuban. He had a Cuban bodyguard, not a Russian or anything else.

He had a Cuban bodyguard. They were all being killed. 32 of them are dead. Cuba has announced the deaths of the bodyguard. They were all killed in the abduction of Maduro. And I think other elements of the security service of Venezuela are also attacked. We saw the were attacks and some elements were attacked. And as you know, the Syria model has not worked very well.

We've ended up with ethnic cleansing and rivalries and literally a failed state in Syria. Now, what's happened in Venezuela at the moment is it's calm. I was speaking someone about an hour ago. It's still very calm there. People are in shock and they're still sort of digesting what's happened and they see the situation but the most important thing is the right the return there of a former interior minister under Maduro deistado Cabello and he has returned he is a sort of Budanov figure if you think of Budanov in Ukraine the former head of

the head of the Secret Service, the hitman there. He's been in Cuba for some time. He's very radical. He's very close to the Cubans. He was sent away by Maduro to Cuba, and now he's come back, and so far he is not saying very much. But he has huge support in the security, in the intelligence services, and it is not clear what is going to happen,

whether he will follow the line of Del C. Rodriguez, the acting president, or use his connections with the security forces. He is still, and you can hear it in his language still, I listened to him speaking just a few minutes ago. He has, he is a radical, he is a revolutionary. I'm not sure what his intention is, but this bodes difficulty for it. It's the same thing we saw elsewhere. You know, we have a ceasefire declared.

We have a ceasefire in Gaza. But it was only phase one that was declared. There's no plan for phase two. And it seems it's the same thing. The plan for phase two in Venezuela was simply that the vice president would take over and all the institutions of the government would stay intact. And then the energy industry leaders from America who are due to come very shortly, I think, next March or something like that, there's going to be a big delegation from

the American industry are going to come and inspect their new sort of rights and property in Venezuela. And the plan was, you know, let it go. Now, I think, I'm told, but it's only speculative that, you know, the people who are listening to President Trump speaking at his news conference were a little bit shocked when he said, no, we're going to run the country. I don't think that was in the script. It may be, but I don't think so. I think the script was that Delsey Rodriguez, the acting president, would run the country, and there would be no Americans. He repeated that over the weekend, and then, of course, he sent out Secretary of State Ruby on the Sunday morning shows to try and walk it back. I mean, the government of the United States can't deliver the mail.

How is it going to run the government of another country? I mean, is the United States now regarded internationally as a rogue state whose word cannot be trusted and will just seize what it wants by brute force? I think more than that. I think it's not just, I mean, a rogue state is one way of describing, but it's, you know, there's something extremely hyper in his sort of, in Trump's presentation. And they feel that nothing is sort of certain any longer. that there was, I think it was Michael Wolfe said that his impression, he's written four books about Trump and knows it quite well,

was he said there was an awkward tension between grandiosity and dementia, in his view, about the tone of the speech. And I think around the world there is a sort of sense of what makes, because, you know, now we're talking about Cuba. Clearly Cuba is on the agenda. Ecuador seems to be on the gander. Mexico seems to be on agenda. Is this where we are going?

Because, you know, this is, I mean, Trump becomes the sort of horsemen of the apocalypse because we've got all these states sort of who could, you know, Latin America will be very fragile. We have militias. You know, I serve for three years in Colombia. I mean, I know FARC, what they're like, and I mean, you know, they cross borders, they live in jungles. We don't know what's going to happen in Venezuela.

But the bigger picture is really the impact, I think, are going to be on China and on Russia and on, clearly, on Iran. And whether it being led up to that. Before we get to Iran, it's interesting what you said about Michael Wolfe's observations of Trump. I've interviewed Michael. He's probably one of the American experts on Trump and his projection of himself. Here's an interesting contrast Trump two days ago, Trump four years ago. Chris, cut number seven. We're going to run the country until such time.

as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. Our current strategy of nation building and regime change is a proven, absolute failure. We will break the cycle of regime change. We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, in Libya, in Egypt, and in Syria. regime change takes chaos you've seen how that works over the last 20 years that hasn't been too good not a reckless interventionist globalism we're getting out of the nation building business we're going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place physically

he seems to be a shadow of his former self but he's 180 degrees from what he promised he be doing him what he said he would never do yes indeed that you're right and it is causing people to change their calculus um as i've mentioned china uh russia um but across the middle east too i mean this is not just a latin america is you know the center of this firestorm at the moment with all these states some of them quite fragile um and we know that particularly the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has had a long animosity towards Cuba. And, you know, the constituency in Miami and Florida is strongly opposed to Cuba. And as I say, all of their people were killed in that.

The bodyguards were dead. 32 of them are dead. And the sentiment in Venezuela is fragile. There are the, if you like, the economic interests, the economic, the landowner, the big interests there are probably with the vice president, now acting president for the moment. But there's also a strong nationalist sentiment that has been horrified. I mean, you know, the humiliation of a Venezuelan president. It's humiliating whether you're for him or against him. In any nation, you don't like to have your president hold out of bed and taken off and then Perp walked in New York to prison.

It's just humiliating. So what that's going to bring out? We have to wait and see you. I want to ask you one question about President Putin and Russia before we spend a little time exploring Netanyahu's latest gambits to talk Trump into invading Iran. Trump said last week that he spoke to President Putin, who told him that one of his country homes had been attacked by Ukrainian drones. Over the weekend, Trump now says Putin lied to him. Trump didn't use the word lie, but he says he now disbelieves what Putin said.

Our colleagues on this show, Larry Johnson and Scott Ritter, are convinced from their colleagues that CIA and MI6 were behind this of the attack, in fact, happened. What is this going to do to the relationship between Russia and the United States? Well, I think the way you've just asked it is, I have to say it, missing the point. The point is not whether President Putin was there or not there or whether it was directly targeted on that house. But beneath that compound or in that compound are deeply buried bunkers. We are command bunkers by which a Russian president would take care

of a war, a nuclear war from that bunker. That is the command center. And whether that was the target or the House, it's all on a compound, an exclusive presidential compound, the bunker as well as the House. Now, put this together with, first of all, the attack that was, I think it was in May or June, on the strategic bomber fleet of Russia, the attack by drones that were so much in the model that we later saw on the 12th of June. by Israel in the surprise attack on Iran. The attack on its strategic bombers, which were out in the open as per the assault treaty. Then we had, during further negotiations,

four long-range attack missiles, American long-range attack missiles, were fired during a previous set of negotiations, and they were fired at Varajna. And Varajnais was, where Russia has its early warning over the horizon radars. They are nothing, neither the strategic bomber fleet, nor the early warning radars, nor the bunker, the command bunker in the compounded Valdives,

have anything to do with what's happening in Ukraine. These are all to do about a nuclear war. And what is the message, therefore, that CIA is sending? We don't quite know what the message is, and I don't think in Moscow they are sure, 100% sure. But it seems to be saying, you know, if you're going to push back against us, Moscow, if you're going to push back about Iran, about Venezuela, or anything else, look, we can take you out. We can hit your strategic bombers. we can hit your radars and we can hit your command center.

We've just given you a little sample to see that you understand this. And I think this is a very worrying message and I think the sentiment in Moscow that's coming out and I've seen this very clearly is it's Finnish. Negotiations are off the page. There's no point in having negotiations with Trump. It's just not believable. It's a completely point. We just now have to continue our path without negotiations.

Continue doing what we're going to do in terms of Ukraine and more widely prepare against whatever it is that the Americans are thinking about. And they realize, you know, the articles in the New York Times in these last days have spelled this out, that this was green-lighted by Trump, the attacks on the refineries, on the shipping, as a means of increasing leverage on Putin. It was all spelled out in the New York Times. Now, what their purpose was in putting it out there

is another difficult question to answer. But nonetheless, it's been done, and no one has pulled back from it. In fact, they've confirmed it. And Russia is handed over the, if you're, like the flight circuit board of one of the drones that was in Valdi, landed in Valdi, showing exactly what is the telemetry and the detail that was put into it by the operators to attack in Valdi. So there's no doubt. They gave it to the defense attach, the American defense attache in Moscow and had pictures of him receiving it. So they have it.

They know that Trump knows. Last subject matter, which is the one I thought we were going to address before the events of Saturday night. What is Netanyahu's latest lure to get Donald Trump to agree to attack Iran? Well, I mean, I won't go too far into that because it's happened and he's been lured. And the Israeli press are very clear and full of it. Trump gave a green light for an attack on Iran. Full stop. So it's there.

It's done. The green light has been gun. There's no doubt from right across the Israeli press. They're very clear. That's what has been given. I don't know that it has been sort of spelled out and sought out in details. But we see all the precursors for a war. for a war in Iran happening.

I mean, you know, suddenly after the, or just in parallel with Moralago, demonstrations break out in Iran, and the word goes out, you see Iran is on the point of collapse. There are demonstrations everywhere. It's just nonsense. It's partly it's the Mujidin al-Kak in one place.

It's the Balochis on another border. But they're armed. They're coming out armed. into this. This isn't ordinary demonstrators, because look at the videos, they're armed, and the videos are being adopted to suggest they want to the return of the Pahlavi's king. I mean, it's just fake.

Of course, there's some real economic hardship in Iran. There's no doubt about that. And where's that come from? The second obvious beginning to a regime change exercise, currency attack. So the Riyah is being attacked. Obviously, that's being organized out of Doha, where there are money exchanges, gold exchanges,

and in any case, Iran doesn't have any reserves that it can fight that sort of economic war. And then we have also the press. The articles in the European press saying, oh, you know, Iran has been, working with al-Qaeda, a non-sequitur, because al-Qaeda and Iran are bitter, hated enemies of each other, and that they're planning a new terrorist 11th of September type of attack in Europe and America. They have sleeper cells everywhere ready to go.

So all of those things are ready, and the last piece of it, because before, an attack, what else will you see? You will see this. In the press today, in the Hebrew press today, if they say, it's too late, it's too late. We've given a deadline for the complete disarmament of Hezbollah. Now we are going to attack it. And we have the permission of the Americans for that. And of course, it's always been, I know from decades ago, you know, one of the key components

of an attack in Iran is that they will simultaneously attack in Lebanon and within the Palestinian territories so that if you like that the attack on Iran cannot be destabilized by military actions of other sorts taking place so that Iran can concentrate on Iran and there's been a huge movement of transports going to Europe first of all from the United States and from into Britain and into the military base of Germany and then onwards to Israel. So clearly things are getting ready for that. And I think Hague says that, you know, oh, well, you know what happened to the Venezuelans? They were effing around.

They weren't doing what we told them. You know, either you do that, and Iran is effing around too. And you know what happens when you do that with this president? this president won't tolerate this and it will be action so much for the peace president alistair thank you very much we've been all over the board your analysis is so superb and deeply appreciated my dear friend we may have to come back to you before the week is out if things keep moving at this rapid pace if you can find the time for us thank you again my dear friend of course thank you sure coming up later today attend this morning ray mcgovernor at

10.30 this morning, Professor Jeffrey Sacks at 1130 this morning, Larry Johnson, at 1 o'clock this afternoon, our expert on Venezuela, Anya Parenthill. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.