Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke : The Saudis' Dangerous Predicament

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Alastair Crooke : The Saudis' Dangerous PredicamentSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, 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? 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 21st, 2006, Alastair Crook will be with us in a moment on the Saudi's dangerous predicament. But first this. Today's headlines aren't just bleak. They're an indictment of a government that has abandoned the Constitution. You are witnessing the direct result of the Federal Reserve's relentless war on the value of your dollar.

For centuries, gold and silver have been the ultimate shield against the state's favorite tools. monetary expansion and runaway inflation. To protect your wealth is to protect your liberty. And you can do that with gold and silver. I own both and continue to buy. Because J.P. Morgan is now lying gold at over $6,300 an ounce. And Bank of America is suggesting silver could reach $300. That's great news for precious metal investors.

Don't wait for Washington to fix a mess they created. secure your freedom today take possession of your precious metals or diversify your IRA by adding gold and silver call 800 511 4620 to see if you qualify for up to twenty thousand dollars in bonus medals that's 800 511 4620 or go to lear judge nap dot com I'll stare good day to you my friend welcome here as always thank you for accommodating my schedule before we get to the latest latest on the Saudis and an incredible piece that you wrote analyzing their predicament. I want to ask you about the general mood in Europe today among the general populace and among the elites about Russia. Are the elites still fanning the flames of Russophobia and does the general populace buy it? Not so much Russophobia, it's planning the flames for war.

Every day, the statements are coming out, the UK, from France, from Germany. Germany started conscripting young people. Now in Britain, they have advised people living in Britain to buy water, tin goods, prepare. We've had people going on television to say war is. coming and it's unfortunate but some of you are going to die in the process but that's the price you have to pay and to remain unoccupied and we it's really reached sort of you know volume 11 on this so it's going crazy um people i mean they're ratcheting up here very market really pushing it There are even videos of sort of European leadership after their conference.

Parading in military uniforms, well, military jackets. I mean, they look ridiculous and are ridiculous in this way. Because, I mean, actually, no, Europeans are not buying this. They're not buying this fear. But it's certainly being pushed very, very hard. And, you know, what's happened is we've seen it's not just in Europe this time. First of all, President Trump signed off on the sanctions from hell bill inherited from Lindsey Graham. He has 30 days to implement it in theory.

But, I mean, he signed it straight away. It wasn't, you know, it might have been that he left it to one side. No, he has signed it straight away and straight away there were sanctions imposed. on a major Russian bank. And then we hear, of course, of the huge attacks on Moscow. All of them, Moscow, I mean, most of them were completely foiled by air defenses. So if you lived in Moscow, you didn't notice. But today was the last day of voting for the Duma.

And so clearly, Europe who provide the missiles, And now Zelensky's actually gone to the trouble to describe the missiles. And clearly America knew this was happening. It was an attempt to destroy the Russian elections on the last day. It didn't work. It failed. The elections went through. They passed off successfully.

Putin's party did well, not quite as well as the last time. But it was all very normal. It was what you would expect the outcome to be. So it didn't succeed, but someone is pushing really hard for this. And then the attacks on the refineries. Washington has said, don't go on attacking the refineries because you're destroying the capability to produce diesel, because Russia used to be a supplier of diesel. It isn't anymore because of all these attacks on it.

Who's controlling this? What is, I mean, what is the purpose here? I mean, it seems Europe is sort of pushing to try and start a war. I mean, they are going on and on about it, push Putin into reacting against a NATO state, and they assume that Article 5 of the NATO treaty gives them. complete is like a sort of magic amulet that no one would dare attack them because there's article five but article five actually isn't automatic it requires consultation before anything happens it's treated as if there's automaticity it isn't so i don't know quite why would they

why at a time of shortage of diesel even in the united states Does someone in the United States authorize a major attack on one of the refineries in Russia, when Trump has already said, you know, stop attacking these refineries because you're only contributing to the diesel shortage in the world. I don't know. Do we have an idea what's behind the bellicosity of the European leaders? I mean, did they somehow think that this is going to make them more popular, assure their maintenance in office, stimulate their economies? None of these things would happen if there were war.

If there were war, they'll be decimated by the Russians. Of course, you're absolutely right. But these people are desperate. I mean, they are desperate. And when, you know, your whole economic structure is collapsing, the program that you put in. I mean, you know, when you see what happened with the German elections, the two state German elections, I mean, there was one in one province. I mean, it looks as if the CDU, the government party, got less than 5%, so cannot even have a member in parliament. Then in Berlin, they lost to Der Linker, the left-wing party, completely devastated in both these elections, completely utterly humiliated.

But still, Mertz says, I'm going to stay on, and we're going to go on with the project of building a strong army, which will only, you know, will only aggravate Russia even further. a German army again come being pushed forward. I think they are so desperate that they know, you know, the only thing they can do that the Europeans have not been prepared for any shortages, not being prepared for diesel shortages, gasoline shortage. Probably rationing is going to come, you know, at least partly that is going to come. The air fuel position in Europe, there's a half a million,

barrels of shortages coming up in October for the last quarter. So it is going to be the hardship is coming and the Europeans have not been prepared. They haven't allowed prices to gradually rise, which would contain demand. So it's going to come in at a cliff edge. And we're going off the cliff edge and suddenly you start seeing in parts of France the truckers are signing, lining up in long lines to try and fill up at the local filling station. So it's all going to come. And so the only thing they can do is create fear.

It's rather like the COVID pandemic. Fear. You remember, perhaps you won't. But in Italy, I mean, we had all these pictures that were presented to us of army, Italian army, trucks coming from one particular city that were said to be full of bodies and coffins. Turned out there was none in those trucks. The truth was there was one empty coffin. It was purely a project of fear.

And that's what's happening in Europe. But this can go very badly wrong because Russia may decide that it's had enough of its refineries being attacked, of thousands of drones fired at it during its elections and may take some sort of action. They will have to calculate it carefully because, as I say, you know, America is part of this escalation too, the sanctions, the sanctions from hell, the attack on the election process in Russia. Russia have to take it seriously. They can't just brush it aside and say, oh, well, I'm sure it's nothing. Right. Moving over to the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, Alistair.

On Thursday evening, this is three days ago. Apparently, the president of the United States gave instructions to his military to prepare for an attack on Houthi bases in Yemen. Yesterday, on Sunday, he called it off. What's going on? What is going on is that I think that the military, the U.S. military, have understood exactly that the attempt by Saudi on its own to attack the Houthis, to suppress, if you like, the Houthi assault on Saudi Arabia was a dismal failure. It was a collection. They mounted a collection of tribal militia of al-Isla and Satarak forces to try and combat the Houthis. And there was no overall commander. There was no coordination.

There was no logistics. And they were completely routed by the Houthis. on the ground and their mercenaries and their troops are fleeing and from what we hear is that actually the Houthis have been talking they've been talking for some time with the tribes in Yemen and now there's a big shift towards supporting the Houthis I mean even from tribes that were on the other side earlier they are switching and switching to support for for the Houthis. If not only because they can see that Saudi isn't going to pay them anymore,

it's got no cash to pay these forces that they've set up to try and combat. So I think when the Pentagon looked at that, they probably looked at it and they said, well, you know, the Houthis actually have gone into the most inaccessible parts. They've occupied the mountainous area where they can cover the Babalmande, the straits by artillery. They don't even have to fire expensive, you know, ballistic missiles. They can cover it by artillery.

They're in the high area. And in the rest of Yemen, I mean, this is, you know, the Houthis are sort of nomadic people. They move quickly. They're light on their feet. They're like lightning. They move here, there. What would be the targets that America would?

would attack. There aren't sort of big structures of infrastructure. They already have tried to sort of attack Sana'a, the capital of the Houthis there. But what are they doing? The same thing in Tehran. They're attacking civilian infrastructure. It's not stopping the Houthis. And so I think the conclusion was, you know, that actually if a United States did did attack, they would come out badly. It wouldn't go well for the United States because the Houthis would undoubtedly destroy more of the energy infrastructure of Saudi Arabia.

Destroy it with their missile capabilities. They shot down one Saudi F-15. So their air defenses are capable. They have missiles, cruise missiles. They have drones. They've been damaging the infrastructure. They could leave Saudi in a very bad state. They've hit the airport in Riyadh with missiles, destroyed its fuel supply there.

And then the other question is, you know, the other side of this equation of what's happened is with this decision by Trump, which was telegraphed in advance, but now confirmed, he's not going to rush to MBS is, Mohammed bin Salman's rescue. He's not doing it. This is a huge humiliation in terms of Saudi culture that, you know, everything, you know, MBS had Trump on side. This was his security. This was his basis for going ahead.

He had that on side and suddenly it's clear and it's clear to all the rivals, all those people in his own family, You recall the Ritz Carlton episode where he literally imprisoned them in a hotel and hung them upside down until all the money came out of their pockets. They were just literally humiliated. Some of them have disappeared. Some of them have been humiliated. And there are the tribes that have been largely dispossessed of their income. So what's going to happen?

Well, there's no money. I mean, the sort of reserves that were built up. So no one's getting paid at the moment. Money, contracts, building sites, nothing is being paid. There is no money to pay anything. There's no money to buy people out. There was a big reserve built up of cash, but most of that has gone on these big projects,

like the neon hotel and these other projects, and there's none of that left. So bin Salman is on. his own there with everyone looking and wondering, you know, this is the end of a colonial structure. The colonial structure is collapsing in the Gulf. And the Saudis are the linchpin of that. Why, you may ask me, why doesn't he just do a deal with the Yemeni, said? Well, I think the answer to that is he's just too embedded in the United States'

structures. He can't do it. He's always been wholly embedded with U.S. presidents with the U.S. military structures down to the last element. They run state for him, and he just cannot do it. He cannot make a deal with the Houthis. But the consequences are huge. I mean, Saudi is not selling oil. It doesn't have money. It's been trying to. It's not allowed to sell its treasury. been trying to tell shares. But even those, their his allies in the Gulf, don't want to buy them except at a huge discount because they don't believe, you know,

they're not sure that Saudi will be there as we know it tomorrow or the next day or next month. So there's a great reluctance even from sort of Gulf allies to come and help him out. So we're seeing a huge shift here. This is really, you know, the question is going, all of these post-colonial states are hanging by a thread because Saudi and its connections with Israel

and its use by Israel as an Israeli platform over many, many years, have been the sort of the pivot for the whole Gulf region. So they're watching, everyone is watching that. And at the same time, I mean, we must ask ourselves and look, I mean, Iran is mobilizing a million people into the self-sacrifice battalions of a thousand people each, a million. Well, you know, I look at that and I see, you know, this isn't to sort of defend against some expeditionary force from the United States coming and landing on the other side of the Hormuz. I mean, I don't think that's even possible. I don't think it's likely to happen. I don't think they can go.

I mean, where would they launch from? How would they arrive? What would be the transport? Who would supply them? How would they fight? What would be the purpose of it? So I think in Washington, the Pentagon, everyone came to the conclusion, you know, to pursue this, to go on with war at the Houthis,

which they have effectively won against Saudi Arabia, it seems pointless and actually would end badly, and much worse, because it might widen and become a much wider regional war involving Iraq. And if I was Bahrain or Kuwait, seeing the Iranians mobilizing a million men, I would be very frightened indeed, I'm sure they are. Two questions.

Is the Western image of Saudi modernization, wealth, professional government, myth or reality? And second, how is the Houthi severe damage to Saudi Arabia affecting Israel? Well, the answer to the first part is very clear. I mean, this is the way the West looks at Saudi Arabia, and I'm sure Vice President Vance and the president see it as this wonderful example of modernity that it is, you know, reforming the country. It is leading Islam towards a different outcome. But that's the myth. The reality is very different. Saudi is a pillar that rests on one person, one family, one family that is gerrymandered the succession so that they can become king. Don't forget, Salman changed the succession. It's supposed to go from brother to brother to brother, and he changed all of that.

He has alienated most of the family. It rests on a very fragile pillar. And if unless they can, they're seen as the source of oil wealth for Wall Street, for the petrol dollar, the Washington. If that cannot be sustained, then what is that to Saudi Arabia? Nothing. There's nothing there beyond that.

So I think those are, are the myths. What does it mean to Israel? I think, first of all, Israel is being affected by the fuel crisis, for sure. We don't, I mean, they don't publish it and they don't sort of make a show of it, but the economy is being affected and it's being affected by inflation. Inflation is everywhere, is now gone global. I mean, the crisis that was coming has come.

It's arrived. Inflation everywhere is going up because everything moves by diesel in Europe and everywhere in America. That's the delivery system. That's the trains often. Boats survive on diesel. So everything is going up. Prices are going up everywhere. Aircraft airfares are going up.

from our to R, trying to buy an airfare now, you'll have to be very, very quick because otherwise it's going to be double very shortly. So, yes, Israel is going to be affected, but in a much more substantial way, much more substantial, because Saudi was their pivot on which the whole structure of their Gulf project, the normalization of Israel, the Abraham Accords, all of this policy, which was to build, if you like, these Gulf states in such a way, build the Gulf states in a way that ultimately they joined Abraham Accords, and they would bring Islam, Saudi Arabia could bring Islam to normalize with Israel. That's all looking very distant now, all looking as if that is gone. This was the bedrock of Israeli policy, the big gamble to isolate, defame and undermine Iran

and to base everything on Gulf states and Saudi Arabia as the means to assimilate itself into the Middle East, into the region. that is visibly shaking before their eyes. Do you think that Trump and his advisors understand the analysis you've just so nicely put forth? No, I don't think so. So, you know, for them, I mean, MBS was a great friend. They went there and they were fated and they had great banquets and red carpet. I think they've been completely taken in by the myth, and they've never done the work. They've never tried to look at things and to dig deeper and understand how Saudi was established,

how it was based on this puritan group of Wahhabis from the desert, who were absolutely zealots. They were worse than Cromwell's Puritans in imposing. They went down and killed people in Mecca. They went to Kervala. I think they killed tens of thousands in Kerala. They just raised the region in the name of fighting any sort of innovation or anyone who disagreed with their austere Puritan form of Islam.

Even the Saudis, even if you go to Jeddah and all those parts, I mean, they couldn't stand this. I mean, they've always been opposed. So, you know, the idea that these were the leaders of Islam was entirely mistaken. Did they know that? Did they look at the history? Somehow I doubt it. Alistair, a great conversation, as always, my dear friends. If anybody wants to read more about it, the piece at Alistair's website.

which the website is Conflicts Forum, the piece of Saudi Arabia's potentially destructive credibility trap. Thank you, Alistair. All the best, my dear friend. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you very much. Bye for now. Bye-bye. Coming up later today, a busy and full day for you at 9 o'clock from Moscow, Larry Johnson, at 10 o'clock Scott Ritter, at 2 o'clock Jenin Yunus. She's the lawyer defending my representing Max Blumenthal against the federal government of the United States of America, which stole his electronic devices. And at three o'clock, Professor Jeffrey Sachs,

what can we expect from Prime Minister Jeanette Tineau when he addresses the UN later this week? Johnson-Napolitano for judging freedom.