Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke: Trump in a Hurry; Putin Patient.

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Alastair Crooke: Trump in a Hurry; Putin Patient.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

you I'm here for judging freedom. Today is Monday, March 24, 2025. Alistair Crook will be here with us in just a moment on Trump in a hurry and Putin very patient. But first this. Markets are at an all time high. Euphoria has set in, the economy seems unstoppable. But the last administration has buried us so deep in debt and deficits, it's going to take a lot of digging to get us out of this hole. Are you prepared?

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for your free gold ownership kit and special report, $4,200 gold ahead. When you call, ask how you can also get up to $15,000 in bonus gold with a qualifying purchase. Call 805-11-4620, 805-11-4620, or go to learjudgenap.com and tell them the judge set you. Hi there Al Starr, welcome here my dear friend. I don't know if you hear the echo that I do, but StreamYard is acting up a little bit. Is the United States safer or stronger today because of all the bombing and killing the bombing in Yemen is totally tied to the question of an attack on Iran. It was made very clear by Mike Walsh just last Sunday when that was just after multiple airstrikes,

as he put it, taken out top Houthi officials, making very clear that this was all about Iran, and that's what he said at the time. This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out. And the difference here, and I'm underlining this because this is the new policy that is clearly coming out of Washington. And the difference here is one, going after the Houthi leadership,

and two, holding Iran responsible. So effectively, America is not any safer, because what we are doing is setting up, if you like, the context and the platform for a strike on Iran. And of course, it's no coincidence when he talks about having gone after the Houthi leadership, because the idea that Israel was so successful in killing the Hezbollah leadership has a strong hold in segments of Washington, that they believe this is a new answer. We don't have to destroy the oil, the gas capacities of Iran. We don't have to destroy the nuclear one. We can decapitate Iran. And having decapitated it, they feel it could be just like Syria. Syria is the other model that has an important impact on the consciousness of Washington at the moment.

Look, there was no revolution. There was nothing happened. The HTS, led by Jolani, just walked in and the shop was empty, unlocked, abandoned. They were free to just go in and take it. And I think there is still that sort of sense in Washington that Iran could be the next Syria, that could be this long fall, uprising by the Iranian people, that Washington seems to see much more clearly than those living in Iran, but this uprising may take place and then Israel and America will walk into Iran

that will be taken over by new management, which will be normalized with Iran and be pro-America. This is the imaginary outcome that people are looking for. The thing is that it's widely believed. It's widely believed. And I think one of the things that Colonel McGregor said on your program, which is so important and absolutely I concur with, that first of all, the Arab states are completely cowed

and will not really push back at all. Syria isn't in a capacity, Lebanon is in a weak position, certainly the Gulf states will not push back. Secondly, that it is viewed in the region that if US and Israel act in a combined way. They are invincible. I disagree with that, but I agree with Colonel McGregor that that's an underlying principle of American policy at the moment. And the last one is that the world will just go along with it if they do decapitate Iran,

take out its IRGC leadership, its religious leadership. What threat to American national security, what conceivable threat to American national security does Iran pose? This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. You know when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself? Talking to someone who understands can really help. But who is that person? How

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copay. No insurance? No problem. Now get $80 off of your first month with promo code space 80 when you go to talkspace.com Match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com save $80 with code space 80 at talkspace.com Of course it doesn't it poses a presumed threat to Iran to Israel and Iran's

Is suggested that Iran's ability or capacity, if they ever decided to move to a nuclear weapon, is threatening to Israel. And I mean, one of the things that is so striking in this period, and I'm sure, I mean, this has been the subject of many people on your show, is that all of the team are absolutely in lockstep. What is the prime policy of the Trump administration? Protect Israel. Israel first. I mean, for me, I mean, it was extraordinary at the end when the head of the FBI, Cash Petel, said, what's his first priority? Israel. What is the FBI saying that for? That's his first priority, Israel. But all of them speak in lockstep, unconstrained support for Israel.

And of course, Israel needs desperately an attack on Iran, not because they're threatened by Iran, not because they think that there is a nuclear weapon in Iran, but because the divisions in Israel have become so acute and so angry and persistent that they believe that the only thing to bring people together, as always in these conditions when the country is so deeply divided, have a war, raise the flag, bring everyone around together, find a way of coming together again by supporting a war, in this case a war on Iran, together with the wars on Syria, the war on Yemen, and the war in Lebanon. Here's Mike Walsh, the president's national security advisor, making a thumbnail version of the

explanation that you just gave, out of the talk shows. Chris, cut number eight. We've seen the death and destruction that they're doing through its proxies between Hezbollah, the Assad regime, the Houthis and what have you. If they had nuclear weapons, the entire Middle East would explode in an arms race. That is completely unacceptable to our national security. I won't get into what the back and forth has been, but Iran is in the worst place it has been

from its own national security since 1979, thanks to Hezbollah, Hamas, the Assad regime, and its own air defenses being taken out by the Israelis. Does this make sense? I mean, you and Ritter and Colonel McGregor, as powerful the Iran military is, and how sophisticated is A, their offensive weaponry, and B, their Russian-supplied defensive weaponry? And here you have the president's national security advisor saying they're weak and the time to strike is now. The only thing he didn't say was as a favorite and Netanyahu.

It's driven by two things, I believe. The first one is there is an agreement that a decision, in fact, there is a delegation, your old friend, Ron Derma and the head of security in the Atomic Energy Head from Israel are going to be in Washington this week arguing that there is no time to be lost. Why is there no time to be lost?

There is no time to be lost because in October later this year, the snapback provisions of the JCPOA, the UN resolutions could all come back into force under if there is such a resolution is tabled by one of the participating, if you like, members of the JCPOA. There's a small provision for reconciliation, and then the resolution has to be tabled within 30 days. After that, it is mandatory on all UN nations to impose the sanctions on Iran, all the sanctions, all UN members. And that is the deal.

That's why they're talking about spring. This is the deadline. It has to be spring because it's going to take that long to get through to the process and then have a snapback. Snapback is automatic in the process. It was put in this way so that Russia or China couldn't veto it. So that's one element of it. I think the other element of it, which is defining our politics at the moment, is that of Russia. Why do we see, if you like, this administration in such a rush to get the ceasefire and a deal

with Russia? I mean, it really has been surprising to me. They didn't really even do a proper job of defining the ceasefire. I think it's going to be done much better with by experts this week in Saudi Arabia. But they didn't do they just rushing ahead saying we must go, we must go. Is this just to put pressure on Putin or is it a form of we're going back to sort of the Kissinger triangulation? That they want to deal with Russia so that when they instigate pressure or attack Iran, because Iran, as you know, Trump has given Iran an ultimatum of two months to come to terms with this. And he said it's all going to happen very quickly. This is down to the final moments with Iran, he said.

We can't let them have a nuclear weapon. Something is going to happen very soon. So I think, you know, in a sense, what's going on between Russia and the United States and Ukraine, people have their eye looking over their shoulder at what's likely to happen with Iran, either Israel acting on its own, which America doesn't want, or indeed with this team here. And we see that America has been preparing. They're doing exercising with B-52s in the region. They're flying them jointly with Israeli aircraft, they are preparing. And we know that the and I wrote about it in my paper, how the Pentagon is preparing serious plans.

Pentagons always have plans for everything, of course. But this looks like a much more serious plan to take it, including having nuclear weapons, having nuclear weapons still on the table. So the man who said during his presidential campaign his goal is to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, is financing slaughter in Gaza, is about to invade Iran, neither Gaza nor Iran pose the remotest threat to the United States and is in a hurry to bring about a peaceful resolution in Ukraine. I don't get it. I think he thinks this is a piece through strength. It's a piece done by killing. It's sort of Jabotinsky plus, the iron wall. It's Jabotinsky plus. It's not possible.

It's not possible to do this. Excuse me, someone's banging my window. Just one second and I'll come back. Sure. Well, Alastair will be back with us in just a minute. What I'm scratching my head over this morning is how Donald Trump can be so impatient in his dealings with Vladimir Putin, but gives Bibi Netanyahu everything he wants and is willing to attack Iran. All taken care of, Alastair? Alastair Hussain All taken care of. So sorry for that interruption. I'm alone in the house and they wouldn't stop bringing the bell at me. Look, I think what they're envisaging is, you ask me, I think actually that this is very much against the United States, not only just this sort of blind positioning of saying,

positioning of saying, you know, we totally, we're all in lockstep on this. Iran is, Israel is our main policy and we are going to pursue this. They see this as the possibility, if you like, to decapitate and dismember Iran. And then the whole thing, the whole region will be submissive to Israel. It will be under Israel's sort of tutelage and that that's a solution, a peaceful solution, and then will follow normalization. They still think Syria will normalize with Israel, Iran then after being decapitated will normalize and Israel will be secured. I mean this is, don't ask me if I think that is reasonable because I just don't think it will happen, I think it will explode.

I think the second thing, and I want to underline that, the second thing is it will be the end of Trump's effort at normalization with Russia, with Putin, because for sure the sentiment in Moscow, if there is an attack, as seems quite likely on Iran in the next period, if there is such an attack, many people will say, listen, they had an agreement, they walked out of an agreement. Now they want to destroy Iran. Isn't there a message in this for us in Russia? Does it means we can't trust the America is agreement incapable. And we saw over this week, there was a very important statement by Putin about the future when he addressed the union of a businessman, very senior businessman in Moscow this month. And he said, effectively, he said, look, this world, we're not going back.

All of you businessmen have to realize sanctions will go on. He said, whatever happens in the negotiations, we're not going back to the world. You must live in the expectation that sanctions will continue. Look what's happened in the past. You know, when we had the, when we had sanctions put on us and then they were lifted in the 80s, then they came back in another form.

Restrictions and pressures on Russia will continue in the long term. And that is not a problem. It is an opportunity for us. We must orientate towards a more self-sufficient economy, have a small element of export led going to the BRICS, and we must concentrate on the payment and the financial systems in BRICS. And he was a very serious talk to them. And he said, you know, don't think that, you know, this is this normalisation with America is going to happen rapidly. It's not.

We are in a new world. Sanctions are permanent. They will continue. We have to reorganize and reset our mentality to adjust to that. And that means that we've got to keep going. We must not be dependent on oil and gas. I mean, it's an adjunct to our economy. But what matters now is industrial production, the internal economy, to go have a sufficient, he's going back really to the 19th century economists, Sergei Ovity, who

was a prime minister in Russia, and Friedrich List, who both argued against the Anglo model of an open globalized economy completely and said, you have to have an economy that is largely self-sufficient and self-sustaining because if you go to a service consumer economy, you'll end up unable to give employment to your own workforce. This is what's happening in America. Let me take you back to Iran. Do not Russia and Iran have some sort of a

defensive agreement or pact or stated differently? Would Moscow just sit back and allow Tel Aviv and Washington to destroy the offensive weaponry in Iran and kill civilians? Well, this is precisely what I was saying to you with a sort of kissing triangulation. Then it was, you know, trying to take Russia away from China. And why they're hurrying to get an agreement on Ukraine is to sort of detach Russia from Iran. Now the and they and Trump has suggested that Russia would play a role in bringing about either a new agreement or stopping anything. Actually there's nothing specific in that security arrangement with Iran about it's not a defensive pact, it is a trading pact.

I looked at it and it says that Iran has the right to peaceful nuclear energy, but it doesn't warn it against it or anything like that. People have been saying that, but I've looked at the paragraphs. It doesn't say that. And I don't think Russia would give up Iran under pressure from America because Iran sits in the middle of the North-South corridor. This is Russia's main trade corridor for the future, the North-South corridor. And Iran sits in the middle of the East-West corridor, which is basically the Central Asian corridor for economic development.

It's self-interest of Russia that it connects it to Iran, not some sort of willy-nilly thinking about, you know, a sort of concert of states, it's self-interest that is important. Now, well, I mean, the point here is that in the memorandum that, in fact, the memorandum that Trump signed at the time when Netanyahu visited Washington and Trump talked about the Gaza and you know the new casino world of Gaza. At that time he signed the memorandum. It had all the elements in it from

the Pompeo-Bolton memorandum. That Iran is not to have allowed the capacity not just to move or not move to weapons but mustn't have the capacity to move two weapons. Secondly, it can't be allowed to have its defensive system. Its missiles must be removed. And thirdly, it's not allowed to continue with its foreign policy. All that was not is not made explicit. It's always resolved. Oh, it can't have the nuclear weapon. But what Trump signed as the policy paper in that memorandum is that Iran should be completely disarmed and left naked. I don't know why. I don't know why Iran would ever agree to that, but here's Mike Waltz yesterday saying just about the same thing.

Cut number nine. Full dismantlement. Iran has to give up its program in a way that the entire world can see. And this is, look, as President Trump has said, this is coming to a head. All options are on the table. And it is time for Iran to walk away completely from its desire to have a nuclear weapon.

And they will not and cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapons program. Isn't saying, why does Israel have a nuclear weapon without the permission of the UN? Why does Israel get away with slaughtering 50,000 innocents? Iran hasn't done anything like that. All of this is because of the domestic political pressure on Trump and the American government

imposed by the donor class. Yes, and I don't understand why they feel so tied on Israel to it. It's not in America's interest. As I say, it could blow up the agreement with Russia because as I, you know, it's not a question about Putin trusting Trump or anything like this. What we're talking about is something different. The political class in Russia is deeply skeptical about American ability to to

maintain its intentions, deeply skeptical. And an attack on Iran, even if it's the financial attack, an ally of Russia will be seen as an example of why America is not agreement capable. And that will tie Putin's hands, whatever he wants. Yes, Putin would like to see normalization, but it has to be, and he said that even last week, it has to be legally, it has to be foolproof. I'm not going to go in and repeat and be accused of repeating the same mistakes that took place during the Minsk agreements. Got it. And so it will blow up the whole, I think, the whole program of the administration. Yet they seem absolutely, you've just heard it,

they seem absolutely fixed for reasons I don't fully understand, or moving ahead. And as I've tried to explain, Iran is, I mean, it's not about the nuclear-ish, the subsidiary things that were inserted by Israel into that memorandum by Pompeo and Bolton, which were then repeated by Trump directly. He signed off on the same requirement, the dismantlement of all Iranians' defensive systems and its foreign policy. It has to be rendered completely neutered. I see dark days coming my dear friend but thank you very much for this extraordinary analysis Alastair. All the best to you. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you very much. Thank you. Of course. And coming up later today, it's Monday. Ray McGovern at 10 o'clock, Larry Johnson at 1130, Scott Ritter at 3 o'clock, and live from Yemen, his first report from Yemen at 4 o'clock this afternoon, Pepe Escobar, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. MUSIC