Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke : Trump’s Iran Strategy: All Bluster, No Exit

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Alastair Crooke : Trump’s Iran Strategy: All Bluster, No ExitSee 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? 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, February 2nd, 2006. Alastair Crook will be with us in just a moment. Can Trump make up his mind on Iran, or is he boxed in? But first, this. History tells us every market eventually falls. Currencies collapse.

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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. Alastair Crook, welcome here, my dear friend, good day to you.

Thank you for accommodating my schedule, as always. I have to tell you, and of course, you and your lovely wife and I are very good social friends as well as professional collaborators. I love starting my week with you. It's just such a gifted, gifted opportunity for me and for everybody watching us, for Chris, my producer, we talk about you all the time. It's amazing how much you know and how well you articulate it. Do you think that this is a little bit domestic politics, but you have a broad range of analytical capabilities? Do you think Trump is tempted to start a war with Iran in order to get the American public off of his terrible domestic woes and his dismal approval ratings? As our friend Gerald Salentie says, when all else fails, they take you to war.

I think he would be attempted. He would be tempted to do a war if he thought that it could be done in boom out, as he said about the, if you like, the attack on the nuclear facilities in Iran and back in June. I think he would like to absolutely have, you know, a big show up, a big headline. grabbing war with Iran, which is short, clean shop. And indeed, those are the instructions that he's given to the Israelis, too. And that's come from the head of CENTCOM, who say that, you know, he wants it to be short, no entanglements, no prolongation, just a quick attack.

Now, I think he would welcome that. I mean, Maduro is for him, you know, the example of what he would like, of a quick operation, all done in a day, and Maduro in court the next morning. But the problem is he is not being able to find an easy chink into this, and the Israelis keep trying to expand it. They are flooding him with intelligence at the moment saying, look, you know, it's not just the nuclear or bringing down the state. In fact, the Israelis are saying, you know, we're not sure that you can bring down the Islamic Republic. You can't bring down the whole state just simply

by a standoff attack. You have to have boots on the ground to do that or you have to have operations that go on the ground as well as come in from from the air. But what we want you to do is to destroy their missile system. And, you know, that is not easy because those missiles, and I think I've said this before on this program, are dispersed across 57 different regional areas, deliberately buried deep into tunnels, tunnel cities there. So destroying them will be difficult.

So what would be... What would be the stated purpose for attacking Iran? It's not the crackdown on the demonstrations. The whole Western world knows those demonstrations in the streets were fermented by MI6 Mossad and CIA, and many of the demonstrators were paid, bribed to kill people. It's not to disrupt the flow of oil. It's not to destroy nuclear capability because supposedly they were obliterated back in June. What does he tell the world his purposes?

Is he going to arrest the Ayatollah in his bedroom at 2 o'clock in the morning and bring him to Manhattan for trial? Of course not. I think it's twofold. I think it's just that he says this is a, you know, this is a government we don't like. not peasant people. We disapprove of them. And the other thing that he says, and he keeps going back to saying it's, well, it's a nuclear issue. But he's put preconditions on any discussion of the nuclear issue, which are not acceptable. I mean, in one of the preconditions he's been given the Iranians, I mean, there are four of them, give up all your enrichment, zero enrichment for the future.

But then he's added, you know, you've got to give up your ballistic capabilities or limit them drastically. And you've got to cut all of your links with Hezbollah and other proxies. That's not possible. It's already been refused by Iran. So what we're in now is a sort of strange. People keep misinterpreting it, I think, because they're not negotiating. I know there are people who are saying they're negotiating through Turkey and Russia and everything. They're not negotiating. What they are doing is negotiating about negotiating.

I know that sounds, if you like, a tautology. But it's not because to do hostage negotiations, we always used to have a rule of thumb. If you cannot open a channel of negotiations within a week, you will spend a year negotiating. about how to negotiate. And they are at the beginning of this process, negotiating about whether there is anything to negotiate about, what are the parameters, what is it landing, where is it going?

And of course, I mean, I think the chances of that going anywhere are very remote because he's stuck, he has trapped himself in an entanglement, both on the nuclear issue because he says it's obliterated, yet he says he wants to do more about it and on the other issues. And Iran is certainly not going to give up its self-defense, its missile program in order to stand naked before the Israelis.

I'm sure they'd be delighted, but I don't think they are going to do that. So the Iranians have shifted, I'm going to say, they've shifted actually what they are saying now, very strong, I mean, it is absolutely bedrock. Any attack on Iran by the United States, by Israel, whole war. And to emphasize what they mean by that, not only is the threat to Hormoz, but they've honeycombed the whole coastline opposite Trump's Amada with anti-ship missiles. And they're there, and they are flying drones into the Amada, so-called field of operation. To underline that it's not just American bases in the region that might be subject to attack, but HOMOES will be shut, and they will use anti-ship missiles against the Amada.

And the Amada is having to get further and further away from the coastline to be able. out of range because the anti-ship missiles have a range of about a thousand kilometers. And the Amada is not well provisioned with anti, these missiles, with air defense missiles, about 50 to 100 per ship per destroyer, but you have to use two or three at a time. And so a swarm of drones of 300 or so Iranian drones, fired at this flotilla, they would have to expend pretty much all their air defenses to protect themselves against that. And then they would be vulnerable. And it's not just from the shoreline because Iran has submarines equipped with 25 to 30 mini-subs equipped with anti-ship missiles,

and they have these fast speedboats, which are hard to hit. And they have anti-ship missiles. So the, so the, so that whole flotilla is now very much in the sites of the Iranians as well as its bases and you did, the big base that you date in Qatar and the other bases. So I mean, this is now the presentation that Trump is getting from Iran. Any, any attack, wherever it comes from, immediately there will be attack. on Israel. What is American forces? What do you expect or what do you understand Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is saying to the Americans, hold off, hold off or let's go for it?

I think he's being a little, the Israelis are being a little bit cautious about this. They know that no decision has made. And so they keep sending people to Washington. First of all, it was the head of Mossad and then it was now one of the military commanders. I think he's just been or is there now to give latest details of both their intelligence on the ballistic system, not the nuclear, but the ballistic missile system as Israel sees it as being the number one threat. So it's changed. Nuclear threat is in the background.

Now it is the Iranian missile system that is foremost. So they're giving as much intelligence and providing him. But even the Israelis in the Hebrew press and in the Israeli press are saying they do not have good intelligence to give to Trump, particularly inside Iran. So the Iranians have rounded up a lot of their network in Iran, thanks to Starling, who has played a major role. They've been able to detect who's using their satellite dishes and have been carefully rounding up. So a lot of the network of Israel in the country has been rounded up.

So that's what it is, and the Israelis say they feel they are slightly, they're not out of the loop, but they're not fully in the loop. So they don't know quite what Trump and the United States, what target they would go for. They've suggested even, which I think is nuts, but the Israelis have suggested it putting special forces on the ground against a target like 40. Now, Fordo is a big mountain outside Kong. It's quite a way out from KOM, but in a desolate area. And I can't believe that America would agree to do that. So it's not quite clear. So they put these options in front of Trump an attack on the other thing that they keep saying

an attack on the sort of what they call the symbols of the establishment of the state, including, of course, the embassiz headquarters and the other military headquarters. But of course, I mean, Iran is on full alert, and I'm sure those headquarters are empty. So those are the options at the moment, and none of them are good for a quick sort of Venezuela in boom out, big shows, great success. I can put it on television. So I think, and then as I keep emphasizing, because it keeps getting left out of all the assessments I see,

because everyone is looking at the strategic position, how many ships are there and are more going or less coming or whatever, fine, but actually what matters as much are the markets, and the markets have been sliding, volatile, up one day, flash, crash the next day, up a bit the next, crash, crash again today. They're very, in a very delicate situation. So he has to put all these things together. You know, is this going to work for me militarily? Is this going to work for me in terms of not sending the stock market into a worse crash?

because, you know, so much of his sales is, you know, the market. Look at the market. The economy must be doing well. The market's up. And then, of course, you know, the approval rating and what, as you will be aware, it didn't have a very good outturn in Texas in the last election, where they lost an election, which has been solidly Republican for a long time, because it seems like, the Hispanic vote disappeared or sat on their hands. I'm not quite sure which. But all of these things have to be taken into account, I think, by Trump. So no one knows from day to day if he's going to do it. Some of the messages Israel is getting is that it might not happen for two months or so. So they don't know. They don't know the target. They don't know exactly what America is planning. and they don't know when it might happen. And I think that's probably the case with most of his team.

But, I mean, that's what the Israelis are saying that they find it quite difficult to read Mr. Trump at this time. We're going to play a clip from the Iranian foreign minister from yesterday. I'd like your... It's just about a minute long. I'd like your analysis as to whether this is sincere and believable. It appears sincere and believable to me, but I think you know him and you certainly know the mentality and the culture.

Chris, cut number one. If war starts, that would be a disaster for everybody. In the previous war, we tried hard to limit the scope of war between Iran and Israel. This time, if it is between Iran and the U.S. Since the U.S. bases are spread all over the region, then inevitably, you know, many parts of the region would be involved, engaged, and that could be very dangerous. Our missiles were tested in a real war last time,

and we were able to, you know, understand their problems, their weak points and their strengths. So we learned many lessons from those 12 days of war. And I think we are now very well prepared. But again, being prepared doesn't mean that we want war. We want to prevent a war. What did you think of that? I think he was walking a tightrope.

He was trying to say what, needs to be said for the purposes of China, for Russia, that Iran is not sort of fixated on war come what may. It isn't. They don't, I mean, no one is relishing a war. But what he sort of downplay is the reality of the decision that has been made collectively by the military, by the by the whole apparatus of Iran, that they cannot go on being sort of eroded by sanctions, by tariffs, by various forts of siege or sanctioning, and that this cannot just go on from one crisis to the next crisis to the next crisis. They have to meet this head on. And so this is it. This is why they come, because they can see.

you know, it exhausts the nation. It exhausts the people. There's endless sort of political tension, the threat of war hanging over them. So, I mean, I think that that really is the message. And it's actually now increasingly the question that the person that is leading this is not asheqan. It is the small committee in the Supreme National Security Council and the person who is making, calling the shots, making the decisions is Calibaf. Calibaf, a former military officer, a man who is qualified to fly air buses. You may recall he flew his airbus into Beirut when it was shut off during the war recently with Israel. He's quite a, you know, a tough character, a strong character, and he's calling the shots in this war.

And he's in charge of the committee. It's subject to now a much smaller committee in the Supreme National Security Council of military and intelligence and security experts. Have the Iranians signed any kind of defense? I'm not sure what the word would be, Alistair. It's not a treaty. It's not a pact and agreement with the Russians and the Chinese. On this, there is absolute silence. No one in Russia, no other Russia is anyone who says one thing or another is not speaking correctly.

They are saying nothing. Now, there is a strong sentiment, I would say, within the Duma, within the Parliament. They do say a few things. And they say it is absolutely right that Russia and China should have provided all the support that Iran needs or would need. And they even suggest, now I'm not saying this is anything of a state department, just giving you this as the atmospherics. There is even suggestions floating around that why not for Russia or China to lend their nuclear umbrella for this period to Iran or even station forces, nuclear forces, in Iran or in the sea

adjacent? The Chinese are sending ships now, it seems. I haven't seen it fully confirmed, but I believe. believe the Chinese are sending their new destroyers to be on station there with missile destroyers. So we don't know what, but for sure some assistance has been given from the number of heavy transport aircraft that we've seen landing at Tehran in previous days. Maybe four or five from Russia a day, big, huge, tupil off, big transport planes. What will be the economic consequences if the Iranians close the Strait of Hormuz in response to an American attack?

Number one. Number two, can the Americans force it to stay open? Oh, no. I don't think you'll find any American that claims he can be kept open. The straits are very narrow at their narrowest, very narrow. And as I say, all of the cliffs are honeycombed with missile sites, short-to-ship missile apparatus. They could close it.

They don't have to mine it. They can close it by just the threat of the missiles, putting a missile close to a ship if it's not allowed to go through. And that can be determined because they are saying, also the Iranians are saying, also the Iranians are suggesting that some of the Gulf states that are not complicit in helping America with an attack on Iran, they would allow their vessels to pass. So there would be, like you have in Suez, if you like permission for some states to traverse the straits and others would be attacked if they try and traverse it. So it could have a major effect on

energy supplies. I don't think it would cause that much trouble to China. China does take a significant quantity of oil, but there's a lot of oil actually on the sea. Iran has taken the moment to put as much oil into tankers around the world for this period. But also people don't pay any attention or don't actually notice that actually there is a railway link now. It was established, I think, last May, between Iran and China, crossing many states, a big project. And that is functioning. And that was partly instigated as a supply line.

If the sea was cut off, they would be able to take delivery of oil by rail. So, I mean, I don't think it would cause much suffering. It would cause absolute suffering to the Gulf states. And I think this is part of the worry why the Gulf states were opposed to a war on Iran and are telling America that sometimes saying one thing to one-piece people and saying slightly different to another. But they are against the war because it could have a huge effect.

But they're against it for another reason, which is important to say, is the entire mobilization of Shi across the region. All of the Shi have been told by the Maja, the leaders. These are not Ayatollah. These are the Maja. They're sort of the people who guide the Shi.

And the Shi, including Sistan, Ali Sistani, Ayatollah, Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, have said that if there is a war, if America attacks Iran, then there will be an issuance of a fatwa of global jihad against America and Israel. And that many of the resistance groups in Iraq have signed their martyrdom letters, already being ready to go to. And don't forget, even in Saudi Arabia, it's not large, but there is a she population. I think something right 13% of the population are Shia. But take Bahrain, 80% Shih. I mean, you know, this is, and Kuwait, I mean, the consequences of this would be probably for the Arab Gulf states more frightening than the Arab Spring was for them, if you

were... Wow. some years ago. So this is another element to the Iranian deterrent system. And so far, I don't think Trump has seen a chink that he can really, you know, push through, that he can get a quick, clean, you know, one-off outcome, which is going to play well in America and amongst his base. And I think also his eye will be on the market, which I think again this morning was opening in a very opening downwards in a small collapse. I don't know, it may have recovered even in this time. But it was definitely in a very febrile, volatile sort of tempo in the debt market.

And that could easily, you know, get much worse, depending on the geopolitical news. So if I were to ask you, how would the average, how is the average American harmed by Iran? The answer is none. But how would the average American be harmed by an attack on Iran? Could you imagine if gasoline prices went to $10 a gallon? Could you imagine what Trump's approval ratings would be then? Well, it's not just that, because, I mean, the way. would be a sell-off in the dollar.

There would be, if you like, inflation, not just in price of gasoline, but in food stuffs and everything, because everything is moved by vehicle, by car, by a truck. And so there would be a huge knock-on. And I think for, you know, the young MAGA, they are already saying, you know, there's no one to save us.

us. You know, we, we, there's no one coming to save us. There's no one there to save us. And by that, they mean neither Republican nor Democrat. Who is going to save us? And I think that's a very, you know, potent cry that is coming out of the young, Democratic and Republican, who are sitting in their parents' basement with no prospects of a job, more AI job cuts already underway. And prices rising all the time affecting their parents as well as them. So, you know, it would have, I think, a huge impact on America, adverse impact on America, not perhaps the, you know, the super rich, but for the 93% of the population that are not in a billionaire category. It would be a devastating effect. A publication or a website, I'm not sure which it is. It appears to be a website called Maritime

executive has reported, actually, since we came on air, that China and Russia planned to hold naval exercises with Iran later this month. What do you think about that, if it's accurate? I can't confirm it, but I have seen those, that, and as I say, I've seen images of the Chinese two Chinese destroys that are said to be en route. to the Gulf now. Of course, I mean, again, you know, already you have the Amada really pushed far back, not with well, not well defended, with anti, if you like, anti-missile air defense systems, unable really to launch an attack from being so far away. And I think that, you know, this is the emphasis that Iran is saying.

out because, you know, I think that, you know, we know nothing about what China and Russia plan to do to support it. There may well be surprises. Oster Crook, thank you, my dear friend. Thank you for letting me go across the board. We didn't even talk about Ukraine and Russia, but the decisions on Iran seem imminent, and your analysis is truly invaluable. Thank you, my dear friend. We may need to call upon you later this week if something dramatic happens. Otherwise, we'll look forward to seeing you next week. All the best. As always, thank you very much, much. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up on all of this later this morning, at 10 o'clock, Ray McGovern, at 1130, Larry Johnson. At 2 this afternoon, my longtime friend,

Colleen Rowley, former FBI agent who will eviscerate what the ice people are doing on the streets of Minneapolis. You don't want to miss that. Judge Lumpal Tano for judging freedom.