Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke: Trump Can't Seem to Make a Deal.

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Alastair Crooke: Trump Can't Seem to Make a Deal.See 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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There is a bit of a delay between my question, his answers, and our conversation. Before we start, thank you Alistair, before we start on whether or not Team Trump can make a deal to bring about peace and to bring about a resolution of the nuclear issue with Iran to resolve the special military operation in Ukraine. First the breaking news this morning. I'm going to guess you're not surprised that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced today that after a cabinet vote, the IDF will soon begin its total and full occupation of the Gaza Strip. I'm not surprised. I was expecting it. This is to come in many ways. I think that the attack on Yemen In many ways, I think that the attack on Yemen that happened just the other day, the big attack, continuing daily attacks in Yemen, I think was setting the scene for the next

stage. Because not only will there be a major attack in Gaza, but there's also the beginnings of a real conflict in Syria that is taking place. The Turkish Air Force is contesting, and Israel is sending more troops, and it's called up more for reserves just now. So I'm not surprised. I think we're, you know, everywhere we are seeing turmoil. I think this turmoil is going to get much worse. I think we could be on the edge of something much bigger in respect to Yemen and the missile

that was fired into the Ben-Gurion airport. So yes, I think we will see the next stages. And I think we're doing it into a sort of void, because I don't think there's a strategy the strategy in the White House about what to do about either Ukraine conflict and also what to do about Iran. Iran, of course, is the most obvious one at the moment. It has been threatened because of what happened with a missile striking Bangoran. So we are at the edge, I think, of something bigger. The United States military attacked and destroyed a detention center in Yemen and killed 63

people that were confined in the detention center. No apology, no argument that this was of some military value. Is there any purpose whatsoever to America waging war on a defenseless Yemen other than to please Benjamin Netanyahu? None. And furthermore, it's not working. I mean, it is quite clear that the Houthis, Ansarullah, are as strong and as determined as ever. They have more missiles, they have them ready, and I'm sure we can see a repeat of what happened just recently at Ben Gurion. No, it is not.

It was originally, I think, intended to be, if you like, a warning shot ahead of the attack on Gaza, a warning shot fired at Yemen ahead of the attack that is now unfolding on Gaza. But of course, Hegset, Pete Hegset, the defense secretary, said very clearly, we hold Iran responsible for this. Iran is the one who is responsible, and it will have to bear the consequences of what is happening. So we are here in Iran. I mean, essentially, I think what we're seeing is that Trump has really trapped himself in a box on Iran. Because, as you know, I've been following the JCPOA for many years, more than a decade. And what we're seeing is a repetition of all the old formulas that we've already

seen have been tried and discarded. I bringing in, in uranium from overseas of some form of also the attempt to try and do further inspections, technical limitations. Also, the whole process of the JCPOA trying to look at new ways of doing it. We've been through all of those, we've done those. And it didn't work and is regarded in much of West, of if you like, much of Washington as being not a success, but a failure, the old JCPOA formula, the warmed up Obama one. So it's understood that this is a sort of box. And it's very hard to see the way out of this. I mean, I think the only way out, possibly, but I don't

think it's going to work and I don't think it's going to be done, is that Trump would actually should go back and his team should say, look, we're approaching this in the wrong way, just simply trying to go rehash old history. What we should be doing is saying this should be an arms limitation affair, an arms limitation system, a negotiation, such as happened with JFK in the wake of the Cuba missile crisis with Khrushchev.

And he spoke then, JFK had his contacts directly with Russia. And out of that, after the missile crisis was resolved by the Americans taking the first initiative, then it was possible to talk to the Russians about strategic limitation of weapons. Well, here we have the same. This is basically should be a weapons limitation exercise where the United States is asking Iran to do something it hasn't got.

It hasn't got a weapon, according to American intelligence, and it's trying to limit the possibility of that. Well, in an arms agreement, in an arms limitation agreement, then there has to be some sort of reciprocity because you have none. It's totally lopsided here because Israel has a triad of weapons and a triad of delivery systems, submarines, aircraft, and land-based missiles. And you're asking one side if you you like, to enter into an arms limitation agreement and not imposing anything on the other side. It's obviously not going to hold.

It may temporarily hold, but it won't last in the longer term. And the only answer would be for someone to say, I would lie and say, well, what about having Israeli weapons monitored by the A.E.A. and controlled as a first step to trying to move it back into a structure which is more balanced, a structure which would enable it to be treated as an arms limitation exercise and not as a one-sided imposition on Iran for something that the Americans say they haven't even got. How do you stop something that someone hasn't even got or necessarily wants? Isn't that the elephant in the room?

The acknowledgement, the public recognition, whether it's by Donald Trump or Steve Whitcoff or Marco Rubio or Pete Hegseth, it's not going to come from Benjamin Netanyahu, that Israel does have nuclear weapons. What moral basis is there for Israel to have nuclear weapons and its neighbor who it threatens every day not to have them? Well precisely, and because Israel has threatened the use of nuclear weapons before, during the Iraq war they threatened when Saddam Hussein's scuds were being used, Israel threatened the use of nuclear weapons.

And it's not only, it is a moral question, but it's more than that. It is also a question, this is the only logical way of proceeding, because we've done all this process of these other alternatives, and they haven't really brought much success. And if we go back to another JCPOA, an Obama-type JCPOA, which, by the way, Iran will not accept because they want improvements on the Obama JCPOA anyway. So if we went back to that, you know, it wouldn't, I don't think it would work in Washington and it certainly wouldn't work in Israel. The question is, has the team, has Trump and his team got the guts to get up and say, well, look, the way to deal with this and to move this on, let's raise the issue.

What about IAEA inspections in Iran and IAEA inspections on Israel as well, and start to match it up in a different way. Always when I've done negotiations in the past, different issues of course, but when the two sides are blocked, when there's no means of moving on politically at that level, the best thing is to move the negotiations to a different level and to look at them from a different perspective, to change the perspective,

away from changing, from seeing it as simply an imposition that has to be placed on Iran, to seeing this as something, a strategic negotiation between two states in order to end up with a treaty, an arms limitation treaty. I know it probably won't work, but it's also a way

of keeping things going because I don't really think, you've seen the Iranians' complaints about the talks as they are, that the American side keeps changing their view, humming and howling what they want to do, whether they want to do this approach or that approach. I mean, it's just not going anywhere, the negotiations, except back to what we've already seen in the past. There's nothing new on the table. Let me ask you one last question about Iran before we go over to Ukraine. You mentioned that at the outset of this

conversation Trump is boxed in. So Trump is impulsive, Rubio is a neocon, Witkoff is a building developer in New York City. Collectively do they even understand the Iranian mind? Oh, absolutely not. You know, I mean, when you come here, I mean, and I've experienced it this, you know, in these days and things. I mean, it's just like if you like another dimension, suddenly the veil slips down and you realize and you're in a different dimension. People think differently. They think it's, you know, it's a different dimension. People think differently.

They think it's a whole culture that is different from our own. And so, no, they don't understand it. They don't want to understand it. And so they are not looking really for ways of resolving it. It's just really about ways of putting, it's the old, old Western

way of putting carrots and sticks, putting sticks sufficiently enough pressure to make Iran conform. But Iran is not a utilitarian state like the West that, you know, well, of course they will do this because it's in their economic interest to do this. It's not like that in these states because they do even have a culture of sacrifice and of principles and of moral values and therefore, you know, this gets weighed up. And what is Iran going to do if a new G-Save POA is imposed on them? They're in their box too. I mean, why would Iran go on in this for another 10 years with sanctions? Look, we can't even have it with difficulty. We can communicate with you. And, you know, we don't see what's happening on the other side. I've seen a lot of the media that is apparent here, all sorts of media, and it's vibrant and it's creative and it's very energized. And we don't understand.

It's not just a sort of passive negotiation that you do in business and you say, well, of course they'll have to accept it because, you know, otherwise they'll go on. And the other thing is, of course, they've had Syria to see. Look what happened with the sanctions on Syria. It destroyed Syria. It completely destroyed the way of living. People were going hungry, were starving in Syria.

Of course, that's not the case here in Iran. It's not like that. But nonetheless, what would be the way out of this? Where would this lead to? Does it have, you know, if you're going to persuade Iranian negotiators to accept all of these restrictions, what are the vision does America or Trump have for the next? Where is the way out? It's not, it's just more sanctions to shut the sunset clauses, to make it permanent. And that might suit the interests of Israel,

but I don't see why it suits the interests of the United States of America. white suits the interest of the United States of America. What did Trump accomplish, if anything, by claiming that the Russians lost a million troops fighting in Ukraine and by unleashing General Kellogg with a NATO-generated proposal that's dead in the water. Why would these things have happened while his negotiators are trying to bring about an amicable resolution of the special military operation? It happened because his team has not done the homework, has not done the preparation.

There were some basic assumptions under the Kellogg proposals. One assumption was that Russia is very vulnerable to sanctions and would be very affected by imposition of sanctions. The second one is that Putin has lost a million men, as Trump said in early January. And the third assumption was that it is, if you like, a frozen conflict. It's a stagnated conflict. All of those assumptions are absolutely wrong, and we know that.

We've been talking about it. Many of the people coming on your program have said how clearly these things, each one of them was wrong. But it led Trump in January to say, you know, Putin is ruining his economy. I mean, his economy is in collapse. And, you know, I'm doing him a really big favor by by going down this road. He didn't. What he did was trap him because the policy of Kellogg, the model of Kellogg was based on Korea and it was based on Korea which did have first thing, C. And then the idea was when you've done a ceasefire, oh, we can have politics.

Negotiations can come next after that. And actually, the negotiations are still coming and they're still unresolved. How many years later after the ceasefire was agreed? Nothing has changed on that. So Putin said very clearly, no, we have to have the negotiations. We have to have a political framework. And possibly if that works and we can see our way forward, then yes, then we can perhaps think about a ceasefire.

But we have to tackle the underlying clauses of this. And what Kellogg did was cut that ground from under Trump's feet so that he goes into this and he demands a ceasefire. And Putin has been saying since June of last year exactly the conditions he would only agree to for a ceasefire. Did they not listen? Did they not hear? Did they not do the calculations on Russian losses? Did they not look afresh at the economy? It seems not. It seems as if they just stuck in the sort of, if you like, the post, the new end of Cold War world

of the existed end of history. It was the liberal world order is going on forever and will be the model for the future. And so they based it on the idea that America just has to put enough pressure on Putin and he will agree. It's the same model in Iran and have people thought it through and worked out a strategy. What was the strategy for getting Putin to agree to the ceasefire?

They went to the ceasefire talks first in Riyadh. They had no idea about how to actually implement. Oh yes, talk about it later. Just agree a ceasefire. Let's talk about it in the details. And as I've said to you before,. Just agree a ceasefire. Let's talk about the details. And as I've said to you before, I've done several ceasefires. They're complicated, detailed things to work out. You don't just say let's do a ceasefire, 30-day ceasefire, let's start tomorrow and as soon as possible. Oh, we can work out the details later. Ceasefires mostly don't work. They collapse quite quickly.

Why do you suppose, other than as a bargaining chip, why do you suppose the United States continues to supply Intel and military aid to Kiev at almost the same level at which the Biden administration was supplying it. In fact, in some cases, it's at a greater level. Well, this is a Kellogg idea that he's weak and he can be pressed and enough pressure put on Putin that he will change his position and will agree to the ceasefire. In fact, it's a reverse effect because what has happened is the complete, if you like, of strategy underlying this proposal of the ceasefire, the complete lack of it has affected general Russian opinion. I mean, the elite opinion, the policymakers opinion, they policy makers opinion, they say

look, you know, it can change from one minute to another Trump strategy, he doesn't have a plan. He is ignoring what we have said all along is that we have to have a clear framework of the problems. What are the problems? They are architectural problems, structural problems. That's not even being mentioned by the problems. What are the problems? They are architectural problems, structural problems. That's not even being mentioned by the team. I mean, what sort of staff work is being done on this? I don't see any. I just see a sort of rushing into it. Now, I do see a difference,

and I just want to make that clear. I think that on the internal side, in terms of the change of the new, if you like, rebalancing of the American economy, Trump has had a vision. He has a team that has put work in it for several years. I don't know whether it will work. It may or may not. But I do think there was a vision there, whereas he went into his foreign policy side, these two crucial foreign policy areas, with no strategy and no teamwork. I mean, they should have been a very careful preparation and working out of a strategy for how to deal with Russia. Unless this is sort of a good cop, bad cop, Witkoff the good cop, Kellogg the bad cop,

I just don't understand why General Kellogg is still out there because he is not taken seriously at all by the Kremlin. And the most important thing is that the Kremlin does not see that Trump deals with us. They don't see, they see, okay, you want a ceasefire and you talk about it, but why don't you stop the intelligence sharing? Why don't you stop the weapons? You don't even say clearly that if there were a ceasefire, America would stop the weapons supply, would stop the intelligence sharing. Even that is left obscured in the Kellogg, people are waiting to see, you know, is Trump able to get a grip of his own constituency, whatever that is, it's mixed populists and also hawks in his constituency, in his team, until we see him actually showing that he

has got control of his own team and is prepared to influence it. We still don't see the same thing in Gaza. He hasn't said no. He hasn't said no. So the Houthis will go on. And the same in Iran. Iran will see the same old proposals from, you know, from 2013 being put on the table again,

and they will say, you know, is this serious? What does he have in mind? Because we know it's not going to lead anywhere. It's just the old box. We're going around and around like rats in a box. On the same issues, it's not going to get anywhere. So where does it end up? Does it end up with a military conflict?

Well, probably it might. Last question, you're in Tehran. Have you had a chance to put your finger on the pulse of the perception of the Trump administration in the Iranian capital? Well, I mean, I won't claim that it has been that I'm really just beginning the talks rather than sort of ending them. But I think what I just told you is a fair reflection of what is happening. They know that these are just going around

the old issues that have been discussed, removing enriched uranium to Russia and things. I mean, we've done that. We did all that. We've done inspections. We did all that. We've done inspections. We've had limitations on centrifuges. All these things have been done. And here we are all this time later, the same process. And, you know, I think they're waiting to see, is Trump capable of saying no to Israel? Because, as you know, and I've said before, ultimately, it's not about 3.67

enrichment, 20% enrichment. It is basically the divisions in the United States in the Pentagon between those who are restrainers and don't want to see a war on Iran and those that are Israeli firsters and are advocating as Netanyahu is for a strike on Iran. Alistair, thank you very much my dear friend, much appreciated. Safe travels. We look forward to seeing you next week. All the best. Thank you very much, Judge. All the best to you. Thank you. With many thanks to my producer, Chris, and to Al Steyer for all we had to do to make that work. It took many hours to get the internet to the point where we could have a meaningful conversation. Coming up at 10 this morning, Ray McGovern. At one this afternoon, Medea Benjamin, the head of Code Pink, why do the Republicans want her

investigated? At two o'clock, Larry Johnson, and at four o'clock, always worth waiting for, Scott Ritter, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. MUSIC