Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke : US Lost the War and Trump Knows It

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Alastair Crooke : US Lost the War and Trump Knows ItSee 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, July 27, 26. Alastair Crook will be with us in just a moment on the U.S. has lost the war in Iran and Trump knows it. 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 Alster crook welcome here my dear friend as always thank you for accommodating my schedule why in your your view, did President Trump not comply with this weekend, with the threats he made in the middle of last week to unleash the gates of hell on Iran?

I think he was told very clearly that the military options are really no longer there. And what I mean by that is, I think, by Cooper, who is the head of CENTCOM reportedly told him. that simply going on attacking around Hormuz, on the basis around Hormuz, was not really achieving anything, but it was depleting American intercept missiles and stocks, and that these are at a dangerous slope across the board, that this is dangerous.

So what are the alternatives? So what has he got to do? Well, there are really only two, I think. And neither of them, I think, are one. that the Pentagon would advocate. One is to attack pickaxe mountain, and that would mean it's almost technically impossible to do it. There are just a few figures that say,

it could possibly just be done. It is a granite mountain with a steep slope to it. As I understand it, that have to, if you like, drop a bomb. they could create a two meter three motor circle on the slopes of it and then slip a more effective weapon maybe even a nuclear weapon a thousand meters further down to where they think this intrepuge is or the uranium might be i mean this isn't going to happen a thousand meters they have been bombing the missile city that is under a similar mountain 45 times during the 12th day war and all they've done is make it a little blacker it hasn't worked they

can't destroy it they can't get down and pickax mountain is much deeper and very solidly grounded the alternative which is one i think the new york post was highlighting in america just recently putting a big expeditionary force onto the ground in iran enough to seize Isfahan or Pickax Mountain, and then we have special tea teams go in and extract the uranium. This two would be just, well, either Pickax Mountain or this would be a gift to Iran. It wouldn't in any way improve Trump's position or America's position. Putting troops on the ground in Iran, I mean, is exactly the best position. that Iran would like to be in, because they will win that contest quite easily.

So what is the left? There is nothing much, quite clearly intercept weapons have run down, maybe even kerosene for air flights is getting short now. We don't know exactly what that situation is. The only thing then is what Israel advocates, and that is, Israel is advocating that he should go full hog and destroy, if you like, all the infrastructure that supports the state, including the oil infrastructure too, that he's advocating, if you like, destroying the ability of the state as a state to provide any services to the people. And I don't think that the United States, and I don't think the Pentagon wants to go down that route,

because the Iranians have warned, if you go down this route, look what happens to the, if you like, water desalination throughout the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. In the Gulf, it is very high in some places 100% dependent on water deceleration. same in Saudi Arabia, highly dependent. So Iran can easily, if America escalates against infrastructure, then the dependency of the Gulf is extremely high. The dependency on Iran, on desalination, is a mere 3%. It's tolerable. They can manage that.

But that is the reasons why. So I think the only thing that Trump came to a conclusion, is that he can see that, you know, the military, the back has been broken on the military side. So I expect he thinks he can pivot back to the memorandum of understanding and just simply go back to where he left off. But I don't think that that is possible for a number of reasons. I don't think it's simply open to him to go back to the memorandum of understanding. He may want to, but he has. completely discredited by lying and by his failure to adhere to the commitments in it.

It is now a discredited document. No one believes Trump in respect to that sort of negotiation. And why would Iran anyway wait, give time for Trump to prepare for a new round of attacks, perhaps a boots on the ground attack in September. I don't think they are inclined to do that. So I think for that and other reasons, it will be very difficult for Trump to negotiate any form of outcome. He may pretend that that's taking place. As always, there will be mediators who say,

oh, yes, Iran is begging for a deal. It's just not true. and the Iranians have formally just said there are no negotiations taking place. There are swaps of messages about practical matters between the mediators, but no negotiations are taking place with the United States. And they've said there will be no negotiations taking place. So Trump has left with a very start. really option, which is, if he wants to start those negotiations, he's really got to give

a major concession, a real concession, not a phony concession. A concession up front? Up front loaded. Not the sort of, well, after a few weeks, we'll have a look and see how it is. It's got to be upfront and it's got to be a major concession, such as the return of all of Iran's frozen assets or something. Straight off. First thing.

Maybe then they'll open negotiations. I can't tell. But only something like that will be able to start it, I believe. By the way, did the United States ask Iran for a ceasefire as it did the past two times? No. No. They just stopped bombing. The Iranians were quite puzzled by this.

and I know they were puzzled and they kept thinking that, you know, an attack was imminent. Many people thought an attack was imminent when he started talking about that. And then only very lately on the message this start coming through is that actually it looks like the Americans are not preparing for that sort of attack. No, nothing was said. It just stopped. and as they stop, Iran stopped the attacks. And I think the other aspect of this that has to be taken into account

is, of course, it's not just that there's no military options, but look what's happened to Saudi Arabia. And the Jadhan refinery, which is on the southwest, which is close to the Red Sea, has been set on fire, and to my knowledge, it's still been. burning is burning up completely. Now, the point of this is it's not just a refinery. We keep hearing about the Ukrainians attacking a refinery in Russia. Little damage is done.

It's repaired quickly and every life goes on. This is the mother of all refineries. It is considered to be, you know, the most advanced refinery, all singing, all dancing refinery in the world. It does everything, not just refine, produce distillates, it produces chemical products. It's considered to be the leading, if you like, example of the future of fossil fuel management in the world, and it's destroyed, completely destroyed. It's still burning. It's looks as if the whole thing is going to burn down. And that is a huge loss, not just because of the infrastructure, because of the physical building, but this, you know, this was a symbol.

This was the symbol, the prime symbol of, if you like, Gulf technical supremacy and leadership in the world in terms of oil. And that has just gone. No one talks about it. The Russians, the Saudis don't say anything. You look at your newspapers, I don't know what you see in America, but you might have seen a brief reference to it. But of course, I mean, the whole Saudi is out of the export business.

A little bit of oil, possibly will be able to go up to the Suez Canal and out. But what the Houthis are doing is not just attacking shorthy, attacking ships as they load once they're loaded and start heading towards Babel Mandam or and they don't attack them going up to the suez but what they're doing is warning off empty tankers that arrive at the at the port in the in the red sea and telling them go back because you may be at risk of being hit and destroyed so So, I mean, it's a severe effect. And one of the strange things, here in Europe, there's no reference, no news, it's as if it is not happening, that we're not sliding towards an energy crisis, not in the newspapers, not addressed, no one talks about it. It is off limits. It's not mentioned. So, I mean, no one is prepared.

It will be hit much harder because no one has been psychologically prepared. But we also know that the strategic reserve is really down to the bedrock. It's beyond that. Soon they will, if they go on draining from the reserves, the strategic petroleum reserve, they risk some of their caverns collapsing. I mean, people, no one knows what is the limit. for taking oil out, but they've even said at about 200, these caverns might start collapsing. But anyway, they're down to the sludge at the bottom, and now Saudi Arabia, which was producing diesel,

other things, from that refinery, has been knocked out of the picture. It's a big thing, and no one is mentioning it. And oil has gone down a few dollars on the market. This will raise the prices of virtually every consumer product carried by a truck anywhere in the United States. Precisely. Exactly. It will affect that. It will affect farms, the ability to produce food.

They need the fertilizer that you. to come through HOMOs. It's going to affect a lot. It's already affecting a number of countries where they're getting into real difficulties. It's in Africa and other places. I mean, food production is going to collapse. And as I say, you know,

it's just kept out of the public sphere. No one, if I went out in the street and started saying, what do you think about the Middle East? People would look at me and say, What about the Middle East? Is there anything we don't know? Well, yes, there is something you don't know. Tomorrow, Prime Minister Netanyahu will be visiting the White House.

What do you expect to be asking the president for? Well, in the Hebrew press this morning, the military correspondent for Channel 13 Hebrew Channel, channel, who's a very well-known commentator, Bar-A-Lon, has said that the Americans are asking Israel to leave Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. And this was at a meeting last night in Israel, in the cabinet, And Netanyahu, according to Baralan, just got up and he said,

if he asked me that, I'm going to get up on my back legs and tell him, no, never. That is Netanyahu's going to tell Trump. No, never. That's what is being said. I think that Netanyahu is on a sales pitch to say, we want you back in the war. We want to make it a long war if we can continue the war. still believe, you know, ultimately Iran will crumble and it is a house of cards. And, you know,

I just think that this is a reflection of people's the way of thinking. They've got everything back to front. They really have got it simply back to front. They think the hardliners are the leadership. These are the people that are unbending hardliners. And of course, the ordinary people just want a way out of the crisis. It's totally back to front because it's actually the leadership that is pragmatic and it is the street and the ordinary people in Iran who say, no, no, we don't want negotiations at all. What we want is vengeance. That's what we want. Does the Pentagon and does the White House understand this? No. quite clearly no, because they have no idea, you know, this language that they use all the time,

the language that you hear on Fox, you know, these people are really, you know, the Iranians are evil, they are just a group of thugs, a gang of thubs. This sort of language actually precludes any form of dialogue. because when you take this completely Manichaean language of black and white, evil, light, dark, and say, we are the light, and they are just evil, well, of course, how do you negotiate with evil? This is what was, you know, this was the basis of this shift took place with Leo Strauss and with Carl, Carl Jones,

also Carl Schmidt. I mean, he wrote, he said, we have to blacken the enemies so much that no one would even believe it was possible to talk to them or to negotiate with it. Well, this language does that, and it makes it impossible to talk. And then also they don't seem to understand

that Trump, in widening the war, widening it to Syria, Yemen, and other parts, makes this a whole thing much more complex. It's not just any longer an illinois. Iranian U.S. discussion because it's now got to involve Yemen and the Houthis and it's got to involve Lebanon and it's got to involve Syria. It becomes a sort of matrix of sort of complexity. Yes, everything is interlinked, but also everything has its own agenda. The agenda for the Yemenis is there war which is now unfolding with Saudi Arabia. That's a different issue, but it

is interlinked. And I don't think they have any idea in the Pentagon of the complexity of what they have unleashed and how much, I mean, this language by which everyone is evil and the leadership is evil, it's not just that these people in Iran can't, you know, can't cope with America calling them names or anything. They're big enough for that. But they know how is it, that then, if you call them evil and thugs and criminals, how then we're going to see an agreement emerge, which will lead, inevitably is going to lead, to Iran emerging as a Middle Eastern power and perhaps a big player on the well seen. If they're evil, would you be repaired to elevate them to a position like that? That will not be acceptable in parts of America.

So, I mean, it is, it is really, you know, I don't think they understand it. And so they think, oh, well, we'll just go back to the MOU. And of course, that's completely discredited because every time there was an element in it, it was contradicted by Trump because he relies on simply power in order to impose a solution on the other party. to negotiate it, but simply by force of, if you like, hegemony, to say, this is a solution. In other words, there's only A or not A, but there's nothing in between. We can't have a at all. Are we about to see some sort of a connection between the war in Iran and the war in Ukraine. Didn't the Ukrainians recently destroy or attempt to destroy an Iranian ship? And might there

be some Iranian response to this? The IRGC have promised there will be a response to that. Yes, they have promised that. And yes, it was a very open, blatant attempt by Zelensky. to try and insert himself in this war. Why? I mean, it makes no strategic sense, but I think it was an attempt to say to the Americans and to say to the Europeans, look, I'm with you on Iran, aren't I good?

You need to support me more. It was a PR exercise, which, like his other ones, have gone drastically wrong. His attack on the ships in the Azov Sea, I mean, he's actually killed his own ability to export grain. And as a consequence of this, he's now lost Odessa. Ukraine is now a landlocked country. I mean, this is the consequences of these bad judgments.

And yes, I mean, this was a hugely stupid thing. Because Iran, just to be clear, have missiles of the range sufficient to destroy. strike Kiev. So if they choose to, or maybe they will do it in some other way, but they promised a reaction and it will be a tough reaction, I believe, from the IRGC. They're not playing around. I mean, you know, if we are heading back to war, they are ready for a war. And that's what they largely expect. Are we going to see, you know, later on that after they've re-equipped, so somewhat in September, perhaps as we're coming up to the midterms, that Trump decides to, if you like,

put a ground force on and to try and seize his Fahan and its tunnels. Nobody knows because Trump doesn't probably know either at this point. And, I mean, judging from the amount of AI media he was issuing last night, sort of with pictures of him sticking his flag in tankers, now American property and America guiding the world. I mean, I don't think his team know exactly what's going to happen next. But my point is, if he thinks that he can simply go back to negotiations, as if nothing has happened, he's barking up the wrong tree

because it's not going to be like that. Iran has the leverage. Iran is in the driving seat, even more so. and he would have to offer something quite different from what was included in the MOU and mean it and do it and do it up front. It might be better for Trump just to pick up the troops and all their equipment and go home.

That would be a very sensible thing for him to do. But my question would be, and I can't give an answer to this, is his psyche capable of the pain of the humiliation that this would bring? He is a person who has spent his life saying he's never a loser. He always wins. He's not a loser. And we only have to look at the figures, the polls from the United States to see that many people think this whole exercise is being.

a loser, a loser for the United States and for Trump. And I don't know that, I mean, this is a psychological question. I'm not really equipped to answer it, but I do fear for the sort of fragility of his psyche, for his fragility of, you know, thinking that people are laughing at him or that he's being humiliated by the Iranians. And will allow him to do what is sensible, which you've just outlined, which is simply to wind up the wall and get out. Well, what's he going to do with Netanyahu tomorrow?

What's he going to do with Netanyahu if Netanyahu shouts the word no in his face? I, this is, because we don't know the underlying sort of, we don't know the underlying hold that Netanyahu has over Trump. There's clearly a hold. Trump has almost invariably done whatever Netanyahu is asked for. Netanyahu is going to say he's not leaving and he wants America. I believe he will say I want America to attack the infrastructure to continue the war, to attack Iran. And if that happens, Netanyahu, he is apparently coming. So we should all expect it.

It happens every single time. He is coming and he say, new intelligence. I've got fresh intelligence to show to you, Mr. President, about what Iran is doing in these tunnels. Of course, it's nonsense. There's no intelligence about what's in these tunnels. But my prediction is he will come and say, I've got fresh intelligence to show you, Mr. President,

to show how important it is to destroy the nuclear project of Iran and you must do it. Well, Alistair, thank you very much, my dear friend. As always, terrific analysis. A week from today, hopefully we'll know what Netanyahu demanded and how the president responded and what the president demanded and how Netanyahu responded. And hopefully, whatever these responses are,

it will be a lessening, not an intensifying of the violence. All the best, my friend. Thank you very much, Judge. Sure. Coming up later today on all of this at 9 o'clock this morning, Larry Johnson at 11 this morning, Professor Jeffrey Sachs at 2 this afternoon, Jim Webb, at 3 this afternoon, our lawyer friend with his contacts in the Oval Office,

Robert Barnes. What is Trump's inner circle really whispering into his ear? 3 o'clock this afternoon. Justin the Paltano for judging free. Thank you.