Judging Freedom - Col. Douglas Macgregor: Is Biden Starting a Regional War in The Middle East?

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

Col. Douglas Macgregor: Is Biden Starting a Regional War in The Middle East?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, January 15th, 2024. Colonel Douglas McGregor is with us in just a moment. Is President Biden wittingly or unwittingly starting a regional war? But first this. Judge Napolitano here. The world is falling apart and the government wants to spend money to try and save it. The Israelis are defending themselves from the greatest onslaught in their history. Ukraine is collapsing. We are trying to fund both on borrowed money and borrowed time. The Federal Reserve keeps raising interest rates so everything you own is worth less and everything you earn can buy less. What can you do about it? You can buy gold and silver, the most stable commodities on the planet in the past 3,000 years. The government can't print more of it and can't interfere with it.

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consider physical gold and silver. Ask about a gold-backed IRA. You can take this information and discuss it with your spouse. And when you call, find out if you can qualify for up to $15,000 in bonus gold or silver. Call today, 800-511-4620, learjudgenap.com when you talk to them tell them the judge sent you colonel welcome back to the show my dear friend uh always a pleasure what would have happened to you uh as a tank commander in the middle east a full bird colonel if you suddenly disappeared for 10 days and didn't tell your superiors, your colleagues, or even your people you commanded where you were?

Well, the best thing I can say is that I've been in a lot of trouble. And everybody would have noticed, and the usual suspects would have been out with the guard dogs trying to hunt me down. But the Secretary of Defense, through whom the codes for, correct me if I'm wrong, use of nuclear weapons passes, and theoretically through whom all military behavior must be approved or authorized, was in whereabouts unknown for the President of the United States for at least 10 days. How dangerous is that? Well, it's dangerous, but I'm not sure we have a full picture. Clearly, the Secretary of Defense is very close to the President. You could effectively regard him as a deputy commander-in-chief.

People are confused because they impute such powers to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. That's wrong. He's simply, under the law, the senior military advisor to the president. But the Secretary of Defense is much, much more if you go through and read Title 10. I don't know what happened. I certainly hope that whatever has happened that Lloyd Austin recovers. And I don't think it was his intention to hide, per se. We just don't know the whole story. And, you know, again, as we've discussed in the past, are we sure that anybody else in the White House wasn't also aware? I'm sure that the National Security Advisor must have known. I'd be surprised if other members of the National Security Council staff are not also aware. So

the best I can say is that I hope Lloyd Austin recovers, even though I'm hardly a fan of his. But I say that because Lloyd Austin is one of the few people who behind the scenes, I'm told, has expressed concern about our tendency to overreach and put the American military in a difficult position, particularly in position to fight a major war. So his voice in that sense is missed. But whether or not anybody listens to him, well, that's another point entirely. And this may be evidence that they don't. What do you attribute to what do you attribute the bile and hatred and anger that Joe Biden seems to have towards Vladimir Putin?

I don't know. I don't expect you to psychoanalyze him. But is this just an outdated view of the head of the Russian government? Treat them as if they're the old Soviet Union, not the modern-day economic powerhouse that they've become. Well, there was also a lot of lingering distrust and contempt for the Russians during the Balkan campaigns, first in Bosnia-Herzegovina and then later on in Kosovo. I dismissed it at the time as a hangover from the Cold War, but many of the same people have resurfaced and continue to harbor hatred for Russia, which is obviously

counterproductive and stupid. But Biden is somebody who has said different things on different occasions. I attribute much of what he says to his age and his mental state, whatever that happens to be. I sort of think, and tell me if you agree or disagree or if I'm trying to play a psychoanalyst here, his views about Russia and his views about Israel seem to be hopelessly outdated and locked in time from when he was a younger man and formulating his views. And it's almost as if nothing has happened in the past 20 years to modify them. I would separate one from the other. I think this is a man who has courted and enjoyed support, monetary financial support from a number of key donors. The Israel lobby is just one of those. And he has historically honored the interests of all of his donors. So I don't see the views that he's

expressed about Israel as being any different from those that he's expressed in the past. Russia is the other side of the coin. And again, he may be another cold warrior who never came to terms with reality, or he may decide that it's simply convenient to take that position because it's one that his donors want him to take. You know, I'm not somebody who thinks a great deal of most politicians inside the Beltway judge, frankly. Is Israel its own worst enemy? I think so.

But obviously the Israelis at this point are still emoting, still angry and determined to leverage the United States in their goal of ridding Israel of all its Arabs. That includes the West Bank as well as Gaza. Gaza is the first dramatic step, but the West Bank as well as Gaza Gaza is the first dramatic step but the West Bank is not far behind I think it's uh undoable or unworkable I I told my friends that I said I see nothing good resulting uh for Israel from any of this but they take the opposite position and so do their supporters here the great danger is that they end up in a situation from which they cannot

de-escalate, because I see no evidence for de-escalation, either in Washington or in Jerusalem. Everyone is escalating. And eventually, this escalation will be met by equal and opposite force. And that's the great danger, because I don't know how the Israelis survived that encounter. We can obviously float and fly away, which is what we always do when things don't go the way we would like them to. That's not the case for Israel. They live there. They have to deal with the consequences. And this war will not end when the Israelis decide to stop killing Arabs. We need to get that through our heads. The populations in the region are enraged. Don't dismiss that. Everybody does, and it's a great mistake. And the elites understand that if they do not stand up to this

newest aggression in Gaza and to the Israelis, that they may not survive in office. Coups may remove them. When you say elites, you mean the elites of the governments in the region. Sure. I'm talking about Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Iraq. All of them understand that they could conceivably be removed unless they step forward and pivot away from Israel and pivot towards a growing alliance of peoples in the region against Israel. What do you expect Egypt to do if the IDF shows up on the ground in Egypt under the pretext or perhaps the reality of wanting to control the border between Gaza and Egypt? Would that not be an invasion? Well, there's a heated argument at the highest levels in Egypt about that.

Many think that that's an act of war and Egypt must reject it. But Sisi is ultimately our man, and he's already viewed in Egypt by millions as an Israeli puppet and as an American puppet. The assumption in Egypt is that he will ultimately do what he's always done, back down and accommodate Israel. If he does that, I don't think he'll last in office. I think there are so many people in Egypt determined to right the wrong that they see in Gaza, that they are willing to put everything at risk and go to war. And I think that's the reason why I said earlier, the elites need to think carefully about their behavior in the past. You know, we've tended to bribe as much as bully people in the region and the populations aren't going to take it. That's the difference. The elites just want to govern. They're not too different from the people that we have. They want to retain their positions of

power, influence, and their wealth. So they're going to have to make some hard choices. If they don't go along with it, if General Sisi just says, oh, well, we can't help it. We'll have to withdraw. I don't think he'll last. How about at the other side of Israel? How dangerous is it for the Israelis to be attacking Hezbollah? Alistair Crook reports that 250,000 Israelis have been involuntarily relocated out of the West Bank to hotels in Israel at the expense of the Israeli government. It would be an enormous expense against their will, but that's where they are until the Israeli government tells them they can go back. Obviously, something is planned or they wouldn't be undergoing an expense and a migration of that magnitude. Well, the number that was cited

to me by sources in Israel about people that lived along the northern border where these exchanges of gunfire have occurred was 96,000. But whether it's 96,000 or a total of, say, 250,000, including those Israelis who live down near Gaza, it doesn't make any difference. It's not sustainable. Israel cannot do this for very long. There has to be some sort of resolution. Netanyahu knows this, so does his cabinet. But at the same time, they feel that they've got to do what they're doing, that this is a once, perhaps in a 50-year opportunity to build the greater Israel that they have privately always wanted. And the Israeli population is behind them to the tune of something like 85 to 90 percent

plus. You just have to look at the polling data. So they want to stay the course. And that means you inevitably have to attack Hezbollah. Now, keep in mind, a lot of people, and I include myself in that category, think the operation in Gaza has failed. That doesn't mean it's going to stop, but it certainly did not go as well as the Israelis had hoped. And the consequence of that is there's also an interest in distracting public attention away from Gaza. And how do you do that? Well, you attack Hezbollah. But there are plenty of people in the Israeli armed forces who understand that that's a fight to the finish, and that will require virtually all of Israel's resources. Unless, of course, we come in and support the Israeli defense force against Hezbollah. If we do that, it will be largely from the air and offshore in terms of missiles and airstrikes but of course that's also risky for us because we'll probably lose some aircraft we may even lose some naval craft it's it's hard to tell it depends on the proximity to hezbollah

so if that happens we don't know how the american republic or american public is going to respond some will say fine great, great, do it. But a lot of people will begin to ask hard questions. Have we thought this through? Which, of course, we haven't. What's our strategy? And, of course, we have none, other than to unconditionally support Israel. And the Israelis want to try and do things as quickly as possible because they're a citizen

soldier force. They can't keep hundreds of thousands of able-bodied men in the field fighting that need to be back inside the economy working. So everything is being done without, I think, long-term strategic consequences being fully understood. But you get caught up in this sort of thing in warfare. You're dragged along. The dynamic of conflict just takes you on a ride, and it becomes very difficult to get off. And I think that's where Israel is right now. There really is no off-ramp. Do you suspect that Prime Minister Netanyahu and his cabinet, including the extreme right-wingers in the cabinet, whose departure from the government apparently Prime Minister Netanyahu fears,

understand that Israel cannot defeat Hezbollah on its own? I don't know. That's the conventional wisdom, certainly in military circles in Washington, that a two-front war is too much for the IDF. On the other hand, if you restrict the numbers of forces around Gaza to only those you need to contain Gaza, you continue to apply pressure from the air, relentlessly bombing the population and the structures, then I suppose you can make the argument that enough of the IDF can be committed to Hezbollah that it's possible to make it work. You know, again, I still think it depends heavily on us. I don't think they will attack Hezbollah unless they're about 90 percent certain that we will back them up, because that's the only way that it can be done successfully, at least

in their judgment. Now, there is a lot more happening in Lebanon and Syria than we report here. There are more capabilities up there. There are air defense systems that belong to the Russians and Russian air defense systems that are being provided to others in the region, like the Syrians and the Lebanese. These are not irrelevant. They could down aircraft. They can have a profound impact. And of course, as we've discussed many, many times, Hizballah has infinitely more rockets and missiles at its disposal, as well as far larger numbers of experienced combat fighters based on the experience of the Syrian civil war than Hamas had. Hamas has done pretty well.

Hezbollah can do a lot better. I think the Israelis know that. So again, I think this turns on our willingness to support it actively with our own air power and offshore naval power. What is the U.S. goal, if you can discern one, in bombing selected targets in Yemen? I mean, Yemen is a member of the United Nations, so this attack theoretically is illegal. But what does the Biden administration believe they're accomplishing by this? And what did they, if anything, accomplish? Let's do a little backward analysis. What has actually happened as a result of our strikes? The first thing is that we essentially declared the region in that part of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean a war zone well as soon as we did that all of the major insurance corporations

in the world who normally ensure commercial shipping at sea will no longer insure any vessels that move through that area of the world so we've effectively shut down commercial shipping now i'm told that today a commercial vessel was attacked. I don't know the details. I don't know whether or not there was any serious damage done. But that would also indicate that whatever we did to the Houthis hasn't deterred them in any way, shape, or form. And I think we may have discussed it previously. The Houthis are pretty tough. I mean, they went through years of warfare against the Saudis.

We and the Saudis bombed the living daylights out of them. And they were fighting against al-Qaeda as well as Saudi forces. warfare against the Saudis. We and the Saudis bombed the living daylights out of them, and they were fighting against al-Qaeda as well as Saudi forces. The two were cooperating against them because they were Shiites. These people are not going to roll over and play dead for us. So I think they're going to be a permanent thorn in our side, and they're going to continue to disrupt traffic through the Gate of Tears into the Red Sea. Can the United States Navy sustain a prolonged battle in the Red Sea? That's all dependent upon how much money you want to spend and how you're going to support

them logistically. Diego Garcia is there, but that's quite a distance from the region we're talking about. And then you have Djibouti. You have to look at the naval installations that are available where you could reload ammunition, particularly missiles, where you can get support if you need new engines, new propulsion, whatever it turns out to be. You know, I don't know the answers to those questions. I rather suspect it's pretty tough. If we've had trouble, and I know we have, sustaining a combat or a carrier battle group in the eastern Mediterranean, I would think we'd have even more trouble sustaining a permanent naval presence off the coast of Yemen in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. What would happen, in your view, if Joe Biden listened to Lindsey Graham, I suppose we could stop right there and say catastrophe, without me even suggesting what the senator has offered, and attacked Iran? Well, you know, the problem with President Biden is that he sets out certain red lines. He makes statements, and over time, he evolves beyond those statements.

What I'm talking about is the statements he made early on during the Ukraine proxy war, that he was going to not send specific types of equipment or technologies to Ukraine, because that would result potentially in World War III he talked specifically about cruise missiles initially that statement was made about rocket artillery uh he wasn't going to send any U.S forces on the ground in Ukraine but we know we've had something in the vicinity of 400 to 500 men killed on the ground in Ukraine. Now, they may not have been wearing U.S. uniform, but they were there and they were killed. Maybe they were contractors or temporarily assigned as contractors.

So he's backed off several times and done what he said he would never do. My concern right now is the same thing could happen with Iran. He allegedly sent some message to Iran about the Houthis, which I found laughable. There doesn't seem to be any understanding that the Houthis are not Iranians. They're Arabs. And just like the Arab militias in Iraq, they are committed to fight all alongside hamas and the palestinians in gaza and on the west bank and they are trying to do as much damage as they can against us in the hopes that we will leverage our power to push the israelis back and away from gaza well we're not going to do that so i think that's that's something everybody misses. It wouldn't matter whether the

principal Ayatollah in Tehran told these militias, do nothing, stop. They're Arabs, and we can't lose sight of that identity. I'm going to play a clip for you. This is number five, Chris, of Admiral Kirby discussing just what you and I are discussing. And I'd like your opinion as to whether or not Admiral Kirby's words manifest an understanding, a real, realistic understanding of what's going on in that part of the world. This is Admiral Kirby on Face the Nation yesterday. Does the U.S. assess that these coalition strikes will deter the Houthis, or are you bracing for retaliation and an open-ended conflict?

I think it'd be Pollyannish for us to think that there couldn't or may not be some sort of retaliatory strike by the Houthis. We're watching this very, very closely. We've taken the requisite necessary precautions in the region to make sure we're ready for that if that should occur. These strikes were meant to disrupt and degrade their ability to conduct these strikes. And so we think that we had good effect on that. We're still assessing the battle damage assessment of those strikes, but we think we had good effect. We'll see what happens. The Houthis have a choice to make here now, Margaret. And the right choice is to stop these reckless attacks. And no matter what they say, this is not about punishing Israel. I mean, one of the ships they took a shot at yesterday

was Panamanian flag that it was taking Russian oil. It had nothing to do with Israel. So it may be an open-ended conflict. We don't know if deterrence has been established. Nobody wants a conflict with the Houthis. We're not looking for a conflict with Yemen here. We're trying to get these attacks to stop. If we have sufficiently degraded the Houthis or like the Ukrainians attacking a Russian ship that's already in dry dock. Battle damage assessment is an art, not a science. People look at what airstrikes or missile strikes have achieved on the ground, they often reach different conclusions. Admittedly, a lot of battle damage assessment involves wishful thinking. Remember,

the Air Forces, not just the Naval Forces, but the Air Forces are very, very sensitive to what comes back as battle damage assessment. If the Air Force is part of it then the operation has to be successful i'm sure naval air feels very as similar feelings so i don't place a great deal of stock in battle damage assessment my point is that i don't think they were very effective if they were i don't think the hooties would have already launched strikes against another commercial vessel and i think they'll launch strikes against our naval vessels if they think they can do damage. Now, fortunately, they're using old technology, but it's still problematic enough that it's caused enormous trouble for the world's commerce. And that's

the principal concern. This sort of thing disrupts supply chains. It stops access to critical minerals and resources. It's bad news. You know, why didn't someone talk to the Houthis? Whatever you may think of them, whatever you don't like about them, why don't we talk to them? We don't do that. We are not interested in talking. We want to bully people into submission. I don't think that's going to work with the Houthis. Do you have any idea why Senator Graham and his colleagues want us to attack

Iran? I mean, there isn't even an argument to be made for that, and the risks are potentially catastrophic for Israel, are they not? I think so. I think that could be catastrophic for us as well, perhaps not as quickly, but eventually. You know, there's a lot of emoting. And remember, these people are all owned by someone else with lots of money. They don't take up a cause without being boosted in the effort with lots of cash because they're ultimately interested in staying in office none of the people on the hill are responsible or accountable for very much of anything so whatever they say however damaging or dangerous they get away with it it's a little more serious in the white house where ultimately the president as the chief executive is responsible for what

goes on so if we go to war with Iran, if we actually push the envelope, and I think for Graham and those that support him, bombing the Houthis and their minds is a way to eventually embroil Iran. I think attacking Hezbollah is another way to eventually embroil Iran. All of these people, I run into people all the time that, you know, they're convinced that Iran is the source of all evil everywhere. They've been drinking this Kool-Aid for years and years and years. They don't understand what they're dealing with. So they, let's say they bomb Iran.

We know that Russia will not stand by and allow Iran to be pulverized. Iran has better air defenses now than it's ever had in its history. Those will certainly obstruct some of the airstrikes. At the same time, they're stronger militarily. They have an arsenal that involves thousands of missiles with the range to rain terrible destruction on Israel. They also, we think, have access to some of the newer Soviet hypersonic missiles. Those could be used against our ships at sea. So it's a dangerous proposition.

You know, we are accustomed, Judge, to dealing with opponents in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world who are, I would say, cooperative targets. They don't have any air defense. They don't really have armies. They don't really have air forces. So't really have armies they don't really have air forces so you can pretty much do whatever you want it's analogous to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia or the Italian invasion of Libya uh those days are over that era has ended we're now beginning to bump up against genuine military capability and that military capability should not be underestimated.

And we may well be surprised by how good it is. And keep in mind that the Russians, as I said earlier, are not going to allow this to go on for very long. Neither will the Chinese. Remember, the Chinese desperately want access to the oil and gas that comes out of the Middle East. They also need access to the food from East Africa. So their commercial interests are titanic. That's why they sent six ships over to the Indian Ocean, not because they're threatening anybody. They want to make sure the vessels get through, so they go through the straits and up to China. And the Chinese aren't alone. There are others who are equally interested in this. Showing you demonstrations in Washington and in London over this past weekend. Do you have

a, this one's obviously Washington, it's about 200,000 people there, according to the organizers, I realize these numbers are always debatable. Do you have a feel for the gravity of Israel's loss of the PR war by the south african lawyers as compared to the tepid defense made by the israeli lawyers at the international criminal uh court of justice my question is can you put your finger on the pulse of public opinion and do you see that dial moving against israel first i don't think anybody in the United States, I shouldn't say anybody, but the vast majority of Americans could care less what the International Court of Justice says. We don't care. We haven't signed on for it as a nation, and Americans are just not interested. And as you point out, it doesn't get much coverage anyway. So I don't see that that makes any difference at all.

You know, the Israelis could nuke Gaza tomorrow morning, and I don't think a lot of Americans would understand what that means. It probably wouldn't be reported accurately or quickly through the U.S. media. So for the moment, no, I don't think that makes any difference. Now, you're pointing to something else. This has a lot to do with our social cohesion. These kinds of demonstrations would not have happened in 1990 or 91 when we intervened in the Gulf War and went into Kuwait and ultimately Iraq. They wouldn't have happened because those people were really not here. All of this immigration has occurred since then. Not all of it, but a great deal of it. We don't have much social cohesion anymore. The average American is exactly what I described. I'm not going to get very upset about this. I mean, even before World War I, when almost a third of the American electorate was either

descended from or emigrated from Germany into the United States. We had some demonstrations, but nothing on this scale. And the Germans who were here, either the ones born in the United States or had emigrated, ultimately signed on and joined the United States Army and went to war. I know because I met several of them when I was a young man. So we have a different country today. And you've got to ask yourself, if these people are this exercised over what's happening in Gaza, what does that mean for the United States as a population? Now, in some ways, this could be good because it may constrain our action in the future and reduce our ability to involve ourselves in people's internal affairs around the world,

which would be a good thing. On the other hand, what does this say if we get into a real conflict and we expect to pull the nation together and fight somebody and we have vast numbers of people like this take to the streets and say, no, it's a double-edged sword. So this is a big issue. It goes beyond the Israeli-Arab conflict. It's a huge issue. You and I have discussed it many times and will again. Before we go, I want to show you a clip. It's from the second argument. each side, four South African lawyers, four lawyers representing South Africa, four lawyers representing Israel. The second one for South Africa embedded into his argument Israeli soldiers dancing and chanting and making reference to Amalek in the Old Testament on the rubble that they had just caused in Gaza. I thought this was reprehensible, but I'd like your view of it.

On 7 December 2023, Israeli soldiers proved that they understood the Prime Minister's message to remember what the Amalek has done to you as genocider. They were recorded by journalists dancing and singing. We know our motto. They are no uninvolved that they obey one commandment to wipe off the seed of Amalek. The Prime Minister's invocation of Amalek is being used by soldiers to justify the killing of civilians, including children. These are the soldiers repeating the inciting words of their prime minister. I'm coming to occupy Gaza and beat Hezbollah by sikta one mitzvah to wipe off the seed of Hamas. Do American soldiers do that?

I haven't seen that level of hatred and contempt for the enemies that we fought. I'm sure some people feel that way. I know that during Gulf War I, as Americans became more exposed to the Arabs that they saw in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq, what they saw did not endear the Arabs to them. But that kind of blatant hatred, no, but keep something in mind. The hatred and contempt for Arabs in Israel is not a new development. That's been existent for many, many years. Secondly, the Arabs that actually those that live in Israel in many cases feel exactly the same contempt and hatred for the Jews. Now, I'm not defending any of it.

I'm simply pointing out that what Mr. Netanyahu has done is tap into it. Now, this tapping into it is dangerous, as you point out, because suddenly the reins go away. You know, on an incident at the end of the fighting in which I was involved in 91, I decided to call for a ceasefire. We'd been hauled for several hours, and it had reached a point where we were sort of annihilating anything we could reach that was in front of us, and there wasn't much left to shoot at. We'd largely run out of targets. Almost everything was destroyed, and when opposing Iraqi soldiers stuck their heads up, we could see it on the thermal sites and we'd start dropping mortar rounds on them to bring them out so they could be machine gun. I looked at this and

I said, that's it. It's got to stop. So I got off the tank and I directed the PSYOPs team to announce a ceasefire. And then I got a hold of commanders and I said, look, you've got to stop, stop firing. We didn't come here to exterminate the Iraqi enemy. We came here to win a fight. We've won it. So we stopped. But there were some soldiers and there were some officers who didn't like that, who got very angry and said, no, we're killing them. Let's finish it. I said, we didn't come here to annihilate all these people. We came here to win a fight. We've won the fight. There's no reason to continue killing these people. They have nowhere to go, no escape. So I think I was surprised out of some three or 4,000 people engaged, perhaps 500, 550 survived and came over and we treated their wounds and dressed them. And I was impressed with the compassion and humanity

that most of the American soldiers showed to these wounded Arabs. But Israel is in a different situation. There is a long history of this. And this is very dangerous because the Arabs are acutely sensitive to it. I mean, you can't stand there and say these things and then be surprised that Arabs, Turks, and Iranians, all Muslims, decide that they hate you. You can't make those statements,

that they are animals, effectively. That's what you've told the region. This is one set in motion. This is very, very hard to stop and contain. Colonel McGregor, you're a great man. Thank you very much for your time, for your analysis. Judge, can I add one point here? Of course.

Yeah, I just wanted to add something that doesn't seem to get a great deal of attention. It was reported recently, and it's in the open press, that the Iranians have begun enriching uranium to weapons-grade plutonium. For your audience, this means that it's enriched to 20% or more, and the plutonium then is capable of being utilized in making bombs for warheads on missiles or dropping from airplanes or whatever. This is not an accident. The Iranians have restrained themselves

in the past they've kept well below those levels they're now actively making that plutonium I have very very little doubt in my mind that they can transform that plutonium into nuclear weapons at the same time the Turks know and have known this for a long time that if they were ever in the position where they felt they were going to be directly threatened by another nation with a nuclear weapon and in the middle east everybody assumes that's israel that pakistan would provide nuclear warheads that could be utilized by the turks these developments are huge and get no attention. People need to understand what this means. It means that if this war spreads, as I think it will, I think we're on the slippery slide into a major regional war. The Houthis, Hezbollah, the militias are symptomatic of where I think we're headed.

I think that Washington wants desperately war with Iran. And I think there are enough people who are careless and don't really understand the region, don't understand the facts, are beating the drums for it. And all of these things point to a disaster that we really don't want to confront. But no one in the White House is addressing this. No one is standing up in front of the American people and saying, look, this is very serious. This is beyond the usual Arab-Israeli conflict. This is not something that lasts for a few weeks and then ends and results in some sort of treaty or a new agreement or a war for the existence of the Arabs and Muslims in the region on the other. This is not exclusively Mr. Netanyahu's problem. Mr. Netanyahu said this is existential, either we win or we're finished. Well, that dangerous attitude has been adopted by the

people that surround him. And I don't think we can bribe them to stop. I don't think we can bribe them to stop i don't think we can bully them into stopping and i think if we become involved uh we put a lot of things at risk ourselves our installations remember you have a total i think of roughly 57 000 american servicemen in the region you have between syria iraq kuwait uh qatar bahrain probably 30 000. uh the other 20 000 are distributed in those other areas in Jordan and elsewhere they they will be at serious risk and we cannot protect everyone everywhere all of the time particularly when we're trying to protect Israel. So there has to be some more thorough analysis and thinking about the implications of our actions and the actions of our Israeli friends. And I'm just not seeing it.

What I see is more emotion and very little rational calculus. Because you see a president on the cusp of a re-election, which he thinks will not succeed Had he lived longer and the outcome of the war being fully explained to the American people, I think he'd been in a lot of trouble. That's water under the bridge. I think the opposite is true. I think the left and Joe Biden know that Joe Biden is not going to run again. And if he does, he's not going to win. So I think they are similar in some respects to win. So I think they are similar in some respects to Mr. Netanyahu. They want to leverage their control and dominance politically, militarily, economically over us and the rest of the world to reshape the region to

their satisfaction. They failed miserably in Ukraine. They're going to make noises. We're sending small numbers of troops to northern Finland and northern Sweden. We're stoking the fires of fear in Scandinavia and sort of one-way street to disaster into a fight that we can avoid and don't need to fight. And I don't think Israel needs to demand that all of its unwelcome opponents in the region have to be destroyed in order to create this new greater israel i think the opposite is the probability and that is it doesn't work and israel's at very severe risk of being destroyed gregor mcgregor thank you very much my dear friend okay thank you judge okay see you soon all the the best. Right. Wow. Some terrifying analysis, but sound and right on the money. Coming up at 2.45, I know I'm getting some grief on this, but he's my friend for many years, and I'm anxious to hear what he has to say. Bill O'Reilly, right here. And at four o'clock, back to normalcy,

Professor John Mearsheimer. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.