Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke : Who Won the 12-Day War?

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

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you Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, June 30th, 2025. Alistair Crook will be here with us in just a moment on who won the 12 day war between Israel and Iran. But first this, we all know how devastating war is lives lost, communities destroyed, but war can also threaten your financial freedom. That's where America's heading our growing involvement in global conflicts. It means more spending, more debt, and a weaker dollar. That's a direct hit to your wallet. So here are three things to keep your eyes on. Exploding debt, declining dollar, rising prices of gold and silver. These things are

already happening. Goldman Sachs predicts gold could hit $4,500 an ounce by 2026. Why? Because central banks and smart investors are buying gold hand over fist. They know what's coming and they're hedging against it. Currency collapse, inflation and market volatility. Gold has been a trusted store of value for thousands of years. And today we need that protection more than ever. Alistair Crookedadia, my friend, and welcome here. Thank you for accommodating my schedule. Did the United States bombing of Iran totally obliterate its nuclear capabilities as President

Trump and Secretary Heg Seth, as recently as this past weekend, have continued to insist? No, certainly not, but because he's gone out on a maximalist language, totally obliterated, they are completely destroyed, it will be years. I mean, if it's been a little bit more circumspect and said something like, you know, this is done damage, but we don't know, it is done damage but we don't know and we will not know for a little while if there was much damage to the centrifuges in Fordow or Isfahan or all what has happened to the 408 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium. We have also a very interesting explanation from Professor Ted Postol, who is the professor of physics at MIT University, who specializes in these things. And he says three things that are very, very interesting and very important. It's quite likely that whatever enriched uranium was in Ford or in some of the other sites in Fahan has been removed wherever it was because he said, look, you know, it just needs

a small container. You can put this, put it in the back of a pickup. You could put it in a carton donkey if you want and take it away. So you know, will the White House have spotted it and seen it go with all those trucks going up and down to Fordow in the four days beforehand? He says it's unlikely. He thinks it's very likely that it is gone. That was the one thing he said, which was sort of really important. And he said, the second thing was that, you know, it was enrichment, it's a sort of, it's an exponential graph, after a

certain point, you know, as you enrich further, it's very quick. And so he said, you know, when they're at 60%, the last bit of it doesn't take months, it just goes quite quickly. It sort of goes slowly, slowly, and then it takes off and the enrichment goes faster. And the last thing he said, because he's briefing Congress, and I think he's briefed the White House not at this point, but he said he's very doubtful that they were given really very accurate information about the difficulty of attacking Fordow. His view was, and I mean his caveats it because like me, you can't actually tell for sure because like me, you can't actually tell for sure until someone gets a proper assessment from within Fordow. But he said it's almost impossible to attack Fordow.

And he thinks that one of the reasons that may be that's persuaded the White House to go into, you know, this maximalist, everything is obliterated, it's been put back, there's no more nuclear program, it's over, it's finished, done, we finished it, we saved Israel. He says, you know, partly because they think the vent shafts at Fordow are vertical, that you've got to drop, if you drop, you know, one of these GBU-57 bombs one after the other down the ventilation shaft, it takes them down, down, down, and finally there's a huge explosion at the centrifuge hall and that blast is puts everything out of action. He says but of course they don't have vertical shafts at Bordeaux. They have very carefully long elbow shafts in them which you know were put in there precisely for this purpose and he said what happens then if you drop these bombs

happens then if you drop these bombs down the shaft and there is, if you like, a dog leg to the ventilation shaft, then all of the explosive force will come right up again and all the gases and everything will explode on the surface. And he said, look, it's not conclusive, but it was quite telling that the pilot said, oh, look, you know, when we dropped the bomb, there was this huge, major flash and bang and explosion. And he said, well, that's what would happen if it hit a dogleg in the in the shaft and came pushing up. So this is this is fascinating.

You would think that the president would have a minimal understanding of this. I just want to play for you his most recent boasting, saying they didn't move anything. This was yesterday with my friend and former colleague, Maria Bartiromo, Chris Cutt, number four. But I wonder if it's traceable. I mean, if they were to have

made it move anything, they didn't move anything. You know, they moved themselves. They were all trying to live. They didn't move anything. They didn't think it was gonna be actually a doable what we did. And what we did was amazing. And they, you know, we went,

there were energy commissions that went there. Now, no, it's just thousands of tons of rock in that room right now. That room, the whole place was just destroyed. And the other two also. Now Israel was able to do damage, but we did the final damage. Does he not know what he's talking about? Absolutely not. Nobody's been into that chamber yet because after all the

Iranians carefully blocked the main ingress into the tunnel system, the tunnel system, not directly into the hole with Earth to absorb if you like any blowback from the explosions through the tunnel system. So they are busy at the moment clearing all that. They've been doing this for a couple of days now, lots and lots of trucks, lots of work. There's a bull days there, sort of seemingly sort of vacuuming up the vents that they did blow up.

But again, according to Professor Postel, it looks like a lot of sort of broken up rock, but not, if you like, as if something has gone down or to the bottom. There's no sign of radiation. No one's picked up that. The Saudis haven't picked up that. So we don't know what the condition is, but don't forget, those GBU 57s go down 66 meters only, and the hole is at 800 meters. So they'd have to go down and go down and go down and then explode. And, you know, it would be silly of me to say you know because I don't know exactly what what is down there but first of all it's very likely it was removed. Secondly the damage to Isfahan was not great. Damage to Nantaz which is an old plant which during dating back to the Shah's time much of it is on the surface.

I mean, you can pass Nantaz on the road. I've seen it from the road. And that part of it probably sustained quite a lot of destruction. But the centrifuges were much deeper. I think they were supposed to be, I can't tell you for sure, but I think they were supposed to be at about 80 meters depth. So I think, first of all, if you ask me what is the situation, some superficial damage, I wouldn't be surprised if the Iranians have removed enough centrifuges

to continue the enrichment. I think it's highly likely the 400 kilos, it's not going to be a difficult job to remove that clandestinely in a little bucket to wherever. I think they've probably hidden it in Pickaxe Mountain, which is even deeper than Fordow, but I don't know. I don't know where it is. So they have that. And the second most important thing that has arisen out of it is the egregious way in which the Secretary General of the IAEA, the Atomic Authority, has acted on behalf of the West. And I mean the Russians are furious with what they see as him giving the pretext. On the 12th for

the 13th of June, surprise sneak attack by Israel on it. So the IEA, which was sort of the West spies in Iran, are out. The parliament has passed a law. They've got to go. They won't be allowed. All their cameras and all their surveillance is being removed. I think that suggests very clearly that as the Supreme Leader for Seoul, he said, we will continue with our enrichment process and that is going to be recovered and we will continue with our enrichment process, and that is

going to be recovered and we will continue. That sent Trump into, you know, West sent him into a crazy flurry on the truth social. Did the IAEA effectively become a Mossad asset? Yes. Oh, indeed. Yes, they were passing the information to Israel and there's pretty credible evidence. So the viewers know what we're talking about. This is the independent, international, nonpartisan examiner of all nuclear equipment under the Nonproliferation Treaty was gathering information from Iran and passing it on to the Israelis. The Israelis who haven't signed the treaty and who don't abide by it and don't even admit that they have nuclear weapons. I think also for a long time it's been

suspected, I can only use the word suspected, by not only Iran but other states too, that the ability of Iran, of Israel to kill, I think it's 12 senior, if you like, researchers, nuclear scientists to assassinate them in their homes with their families on the 13th. Where did that, you know, all those details come from? Of course, they could have come from the ground, they could have been agents, but also it was, of course, the IAEA who insisted on questioning these scientists and having their details so that they could talk to them. Was Iran weeks away from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon as the president and his secretary of defense have insisted? I don't know that they, I don't know that any decision had been made to move to a nuclear weapon. This is pure presupposition that is, has been adduced.

I think it's far more likely that they will be moving, possibly towards it. But it's not that straightforward. You see commentators in the West all saying, well, you know, there's a balance of interests here, you know, between various factors in Iran. And now the pendulum has swung to the hardliners. And so it's going that way. But the whole point of the fatwa and the review by the supreme leader, there's a thing in Shia Islam called Ijtihad. Ijtihad allows law and if you like the sharia

to be amended according to the necessities of time and circumstances. And the only person who can do that, of course, is a jurist, a qualified jurist, which means you have to be Hodja at al-Islam or an ayatollah to be able to make that sort of approval. But it won't be just made on a matter of interests. It will be made on a matter of what is um uh sharia what is islamic morality about who may be killed and not killed during a war. It is if you like the shi version of the just war that Christians have. You know what is a just war? Is it appropriate to take this action on the basis of,

if you like, time and circumstance? Right. It may be that they will do that, but it won't be just a simple sort of, oh, well, the pressure is if we'd had a bomb, well, Israel could never have attacked us, so that's right, we're gonna have it. It'll be more complex, but it may be.

And the language coming out of Arashi, the foreign minister of Iran, is really much tougher now, and saying there's been toing and froing, but with Trump saying originally there were rumours that he was offering 30 billion, you know, peaceful investment in a nuclear project in Iran. Then he said that's untrue, false news from the media. Then there was a prayer and he came back and then he was saying, well we will have talks with Iran, we'll have them next week and maybe sanctions can be lifted before the talks. And he was sort of saying that this is a great thing for Iran and looking forward to it.

And then the Supreme Leader said, well, you didn't actually do that much damage. And we came out pretty well from this war. And he got in a temper and he said well it'll be no nothing nothing and so and and the foreign minister of iran said no we we're not having talking with trump there's no there's no point in talking to him what are the consequences alistair to the united states for having dropped these bombs there are two really important consequences that people are not really focused on. What this period,

this 12 days of conflict produced is really stimulated Iranian national feeling. It is magnified in a way that of course you won't be aware of because you won't have seen probably on your televisions the funerals, the massive turnouts in Tehran, millions to celebrate those who died in the 12 during the 12 days, the military and the scientists. I mean, it was a huge expression of fervor and passion. It wasn't sort of just formulaic or still or quiet.

It was an extraordinary mounting of passion. And what I hear from Iran and what people tell me, and I think I have no doubt about it, what you saw there, they said, it is the young people that are the most fervent. And it is their support, who do they support? The supreme leader. It is the young are absolutely celebrating the supreme leader on the streets of Tehran. So if you say who won in this thing, who was celebrating? I'm not talking about the funerals now, but before that there were great celebrations in Iran. Young people everywhere were going out and celebrating

what they consider, whether they're right or wrong, they consider it a great win. Did you see any celebrations in Israel? I don't think so. I don't believe you would. Now, so that was a huge, a huge implication. Second implication, I think by particularly made more serious by the White House's choice to go to absolute language. We've destroyed it. There's no program. There's nothing to discuss. It's setting the scene for an escalation. Why do I say that? Why wouldn't the ceasefire work? Because it's not in Israel's interest for that ceasefire to work. Already the Israelis have been saying, the defence minister is saying, you know, it's a ceasefire, but if we have the slightest indication that they've actually got enriched uranium and they're working on it, or they're moving in some respect.

Anything that moves, we will go in and attack Iran again. And of course they're going to do this. This is the same ceasefire proposal that they've had with Lebanon, that they attack Lebanon and anything, you know, it's at their discretion. They go in and they bomb. They've just been bombing in Beirut and there's a ceasefire. But the West pays no attention to that. They just go in and I think it's very clear that Israel wants another round and another round which will bring in the United States. So we will hear from

the Israelis, well maybe it wasn't destroyed, you know, we've got evidence to say that it wasn't destroyed, that it'll be, you know, some damage but Fordow is probably going to be alright and Isfahan and who knows where they've moved the 408 kilos, where's that? So I think Israel will be plugging this very hard to try and produce a result. Your observations about who's celebrating and who's not are brilliant in their simplicity and irrefutable. Do you think that Netanyahu and his regime underestimated the power of the Iranian retaliation? And do you think they expected the level of devastation

that Iran has visited on Israeli buildings and infrastructure and airports and ports and cities? Yes, I think there's something important to say about that. Because all of Israel at the moment is praising and lauding, you know, the technical feats on the 13th of June that they, you know, that they'd sent Mossad, had sent their agents in and were blowing up things in Iran and that they had, you know, assassinated nearly I think it's eight or more of the line commanders of the Iranian military and killed, murdered all of these scientists in their homes.

And there's a great celebration about it, but they missed the point. Was it tactically a success? Was it professionally done? Yes, but it failed. It was a complete failure because yes, it did take Iran partly by surprise, but what happened was, you know, they thought it would break the spine of Iran and instead of which a shield has emerged, a shield of real sort of passion amongst Iranians and a real sense at all levels of resolution to go ahead and to proceed, and no sense of wanting to, absolutely no support for negotiating with the West or seeing the IAEA come in again to try and supervise that process. If they're attacked by the IDF, and already that's happening, so it won't be long. In the last few days, we've seen drones coming in, quadrocopter drones coming in probably from

Azerbaijan or somewhere in the Caspian or being launched locally. And they're quite clearly they're not attack drones, they're not destroying anything. They are monitoring attack drones, they're not destroying anything, they are monitoring radar systems, the coverage, the responses and things like that, preparing for future attacks into Iran. So already you see the preparations going on for the next phase. says they've got lots of these drones just collecting collating intelligence about Iranian defenses. Before we go Alasdair, how do you think the Kremlin and Beijing view American involvement in this? It's had a dramatic impact on it. I know there are lots of stories about how there's a breach between Iran and Russia and most of them are nonsense.

Iran understands, you know, that if they want air defenses, which they need and should want, you want. Russia needs them. I mean, it doesn't have any despair. It needs them at the moment. It's engaged in a major war. China is offering to supply them. And they've been in, the Iranian have been in talking to the Chinese about buying not only missiles,

but aircraft to Chinese aircraft, and also others. I mean, North Korea, because North Korea had a long involvement with Iran, it actually helped design some of those tunnels at Fordo and other places. So I think they will, but the sense of the question you asked me, they thought that, you know, and I think you asked that question, I think some time ago to Pep Eskobar, and he said

they've bunker busted the charter, bunker busted the international law, they bunker busted any prospect of negotiated settlement settlement because every time you start a negotiated settlement with the United States you turn around and find Israeli just been a cover for a sneak attack on your military support. With Russia with the spider's web attack on their strategic element or the 13th of June when the Iranians thought they were negotiating with the United States. So they think all of these things have really been completely destroyed by the West.

And it's not just those states. I think the rest of the world thinks the same. I think that the West is out of control. It is launched on a major exercise of trying to establish a new hegemony across and to have Israel sort of colonize the Middle East. And they think it's very, very dangerous indeed. Alistair Crooke, thank you, my dear friend. Thanks for accommodating my schedule.

Thanks for your analysis as always. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you very much, Judge. Thank you. Coming up later today at 10 o'clock this morning, Ray McGovern at 1130 this morning, Larry Johnson at three this afternoon, Scott Ritter, and at four this afternoon, Scott Ritter and at four this afternoon,

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, just in the Paul Townell for Judging Freedom. You