Judging Freedom - COL. Douglas Macgregor : Is Iran War In America’s Interest?

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

COL. Douglas Macgregor : Is Iran War In America’s Interest?See 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 our judging freedom. Today is Thursday, April 16th, Colonel Douglas McGregor will be here in a minute. Why are we fighting this insane war? But first this. Don't you just cringe when people say, I told you so.

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It's not too late. Experts are predicting higher prices ahead. Why? Nothing has changed. Geopolitical chaos, cost of living crises, and a weaker dollar are driving central banks to boost their gold reserves. Forecast suggests gold could hit $6,000 an ounce and silver $200 in ounce. Even Morgan Stanley ditched the 6040 rule for 60-20, putting 20% into precious metals. They're getting educated.

and you should too. Call the best in the business and the people I trust, Lear Capital. Get their reports, get the facts, get some gold and silver. Tell them the judge sent you and get up to $20,000 in bonus gold or silver. Call 800, 511, 4620 or go to Learjudgenapp.com. Conno McGregor, welcome here, my dear friend, and thank you for accommodating. And my schedule, as always, before we get into big picture and, Iran some breaking news. This one you pointed out to me. They're about drones passing over Finland and the Baltic states and landing in Russia and harming civilians and civilian infrastructure, according to the Russian defense minister. How dangerous is this? I don't hear you, Colonel. That should work.

There we go. I think it's actually very important. and potentially very dangerous because what Secretary Lavrov had said the other day, and now we're hearing it from the former defense chief, Shogu, is that Ukrainian drains that are being launched against effectively civilian targets in most cases, civilian infrastructure, sometimes oil infrastructure, are being recorded, and I think to some extent guided, certainly from the, from the, purposes of accuracy and battle damage assessment from stations inside the Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia.

And their point was under Article 51 of the United Nations, they have the right to defend themselves. And if they can identify the source, they have the right under the UN Charter to attack and destroy the source. That, of course, would be catastrophic. It would be catastrophic, period, because it's unnecessary and ought to stop. But it would be very bad for us and for everyone else in the nation. NATO. Wow.

Who is provoking this, the governments of those countries? I mean, you're talking about World War III if Russia attacks Finland and the Baltic states. Well, we used to think that. And then we found out from President Biden that you could actually court World War III without getting into it. I think it's very serious because the president of Estonia, this later, or I guess, She was the foreign minister. She's now very vocal inside NATO, callous, talks about Russia as though we're still under Stalin,

and there were Soviet armies gathered on her borders. This sort of attitude is very strong inside the Baltic states. They seem to be caught up in a time war. They're not facing the Soviet Union. This government in Moscow wants nothing to do with an invasion of the Baltic states or anywhere else in Central East Europe. But this is the propaganda. that is being so effective on the populations because they they're ancestors in other words in most cases their grandparents and great-grandparents went through hell but it's a different world today and

unfortunately nobody is being told that they're being told the opposite so i i think it's extremely dangerous if i were the president of the united states i would get on the get on the horn right away and make it clear that this has got to stop we don't want anyone inside nato inside any of the countries at border Russia and Ukraine implicated directly in attacking anyone in Russia. And effectively, that's what they've done. The other breaking news is the so-called ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel. I mean, the Iranians must realize that this is a joke. The president and prime minister of Lebanon are going to do whatever the Israelis and the Americans tell them to do. Well, the sad truth of the matter is that everything we've seen from much,

months now can be characterized as purely theater. We have to understand what Israel's goals are and what they have been from the beginning of this process after the 7th of October. And that's Greater Israel, the Greater Israel Project. The Greater Israel Project cannot be achieved without the use of extensive American military power. Certainly the Israelis can bomb people on their immediate borders with relative impunity, but But to secure anything, to annex anything, to hold on to anything, they need the unconditional support and backing of the United States.

That is what they have at the moment. But they're pushing the envelope. More and more people are questioning the rationale for this war as it is inside the United States. And as I feared for the very beginning, I think this is heightened hatred for Israel, the Jewish state, and I think it's fan the fires of anti-Semitism, all very unnecessary. early. Secretary Heggseth

stated this morning by the way, a retired general referred to him the other day as a 12-year-old playing with new toys in a playpen. Unfortunately, these toys are lethal that the

government of Iran, that they're dealing with a new government in Iran. Now, I have the Iranian foreign minister. I met him eight months ago, New York. He's still the Iranian foreign minister. He was one of the two negotiators at this so-called negotiation with Vice President Vance. Is this the new mantra? We are telling you we're dealing with different people. Therefore, we caused regime change? Well, there are a couple of considerations here. First of all, let's keep in mind that setting aside

right now the mechanism of government, the command of the United States Armed Forces, and all the other responsibilities. We're dealing with President Trump as a person, quite apart from his office. What shapes President Trump's behavior? What shapes the man's thinking? And I think we have to go back to Roy Cohn and his profoundly important influence over the development of today, the man we call Donald Trump. He had three rules, and he pounded these rules into Trump's head. What were the three rules. Rule number one, attack, attack, attack. Always go on the offensive. Never give an inch. Always on the offensive. Strike repeatedly. Defame people, undermine them, distract them, but attack, attack, attack. No such thing is defense. Secondly, deny, deny. Whatever people

tell you, whatever people say to you, if they accuse you of lying, you just deny whatever comes along. The most recent example of this, of course, I think, was President Trump's terrible decision to put his head and face on the body of Jesus Christ and then send it out to people. When he was asked about it, what did he say in response? Did he say, that was a terrible mistake? I don't know what I was thinking. I deeply regret doing that. And I hope that my supporters will forgive me. No. What he said was, well, I was thinking of myself as a physician who was healing people. And then the third rule is whatever happens, it's a victory.

It doesn't make any difference what really happened. What makes a difference is how you spin it, what you say. So what you're doing when you talk about the new regime that is ostensibly in power in Iran, he's simply saying, well, we killed all those other people. Now we have a new group here, and I think maybe they'll be anxious to make a deal. The truth is no one in Tehran is anxious to make any kind of deal right now beyond the framework of the 10 points which they put on the table during the last discovery. Isn't he desperate, almost panicking for some way out that will enable him to comply with Cohn's third rule of claiming victory in a way that would be accepted by the American public?

Desperate. Well, I'm sure he is, and I know from anecdotal evidence that's being presented to me that he's losing his temper. on a routine basis. He's angry with everyone. Obviously, he's beginning to blame everyone around him for everything that's wrong, which is part of his motives of ending. But I think there's another aspect to this that I think is finally penetrating with him. Singapore's foreign minister, Alakrishnan, put it very bluntly when he described the United States as a revisionist power. and some, he said, would even call Washington now a disruptor. He was talking about the Iran War. He was talking about America's role in Asia,

but he's also talking about something much bigger. The erosion of the Washington-led post-war order. That, as he said, underpin for a long time, peace and prosperity, a foundation that, as he put it, is now gone. I think that's beginning to sink in with President Trump. he never had a very mature view of international relations, did not think of the leaders of other countries as very important. He probably would dismiss what Singapore says on the basis of its size. But the truth is, Singapore is a critical leader in all of Asia.

When the leadership of Singapore speaks, everyone in Japan, Korea and China, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, everyone listens carefully. And right now they know that across Asia, rising fuel costs, it's not just fuel, it's fuel, food, feedstocks, and fertilizer. The absence of these things are triggering unrest. Transport workers are going on strike in the Philippines. There's panic in various parts of Thailand, panic buying. India, where the supplies of liquefied petroleum gas are very tight. People are being told that they cannot buy multiple containers. that they have to be rationed because the liquefied petroleum gas is vital to cooking in India.

You know, international law, international governance that we talk about all the time is like Jim membership. Everybody pays in it, but very few people show up to do the heavy lifting. Well, we've been doing the heavy lifting, but in the wrong way. We've been destroying the order that we claim to have actually set up and want to preserve. What is your take on the weekends, now five or six days ago, events in Islamabad? Did Donald Trump set up his vice president to be the fall guy? I think Donald Trump has set up everyone around him to be fall guys. I think when Donald Trump goes down and he's going to go down hard for what's happening right now,

he'll drag everybody down with him. I don't think there's any question about that. whether or not he purposely set up Vice President Vance, who knows? I mean, Vice President Vance can do plenty of harm to himself without much assistance. And I think he did that when he talked about what happened in Islamabad.

All that he had to do is confirm to everyone that he had been on the phone to talk to Mr. Dandenyahu. End of discussion, end of story. We already know that there was an eruption of sorts during the negotiation by Whitkoff and Kushner. I don't know the details, but obviously it was something that did not suit Israeli interests. Everyone regards those people as effectively Israeli agents. We went through

this under Biden, where Tony Blinken would fly around and everyone that talked to him in the Middle East regarded him as an agent of Israeli influence. The real question on people's minds is who is actually in charge of the United States and its armed forces? Because it seems that President Bush, excuse me, not President Bush, but President Trump is extremely subservient to Israel. and it's representatives. So I think the whole thing was just theater. We did an interview with Muhammad Miranda, the professor at the University of Tehran, born in Virginia,

and then a longtime friend of mine who was part of the Iranian delegation. He wasn't in the room the entire time, but he flew with them and back. He told us a couple things. One, they were terrified on the way back, and were forced to land in another airport for fear that the Israelis would blow up the plane. Second, he told us that Vice President Vance seemed nervous and ill at ease and was not able to answer a simple question that called for a yes or no answer without leaving the room and getting on the phone with someone.

Either President Trump, who was at a cage fight, some sort of boxing matched inside of a cage. or Prime Minister Netanyahu? Well, I don't think anybody interrupted the cage fight. So I think it was probably Mr. Netanyahu, especially since the Secretary of State, I think, was with the president. Yes, the president was booed? This is in Miami.

Rubio was cheered. Well, that's fine. I think it's a demonstration of what Trump expected from the talks with the Iranians. Because effectively, what we did is represent. Israeli demands. How many times have we on this show made it clear that Iran will not submit to Israeli demands? End of discussion. When people ask, what are we fighting for? I always try to point out we're fighting to compel compliance with Israel's demands. That's it. Because you and I both know this allegation that Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world is nonsense.

It's never been true. And Iran over the last 47, years has actually changed profoundly. That's true, not overnight into something new, contrary to what President Trump said, but it's a very different society. Had we not bombed, I think this year would have been an interesting year because I suspect we would have seen substantial change inside Iranian society. That doesn't mean a violent upheaval or revolution, but clearly fundamental change. Iranians are not bloodthirsty animals, contrary to what Mr. Trump thinks or what Mr. Netanyahu has told everybody. So I think we're stuck right now because the talks really weren't substitute. They really weren't going to produce anything. I don't think the talks that are starting sometime this week and

continuing, I hope, beyond a day or two, will produce any sort of positive outcome. I mean, I hope they do. Everyone hopes for an end of this thing. But I don't see it happening, Judge. And I think on Monday, President Trump will try to do what he talked about. He will try to launch what he thinks will be the final solution for Iran and quote unquote bomb the place back into the Stone Age. I don't think it will work. I think the Iranians will come out of it. They will sustain damage, but they will also inflict a lot of damage because while we have been resupplying, refurbishing, refreshing, so they.

They are receiving missiles from China. Do you think he'll resume the bombing or do you think he'll try another scheme to capture nuclear-enriched material? It just brought 10,000 more troops there. What would they have to do with bombing? Their infantry. Well, I think the operations to seize islands and the Persian gopher are still on the table, Judge. I wish they weren't, but I think they probably are. There is this delusion that if we capture some islands,

we're going to demonstrate our control over the Strait of Hormuz. It's not going to happen. Remember, the British put over 500,000 troops into the Dardanelles, and they couldn't get out of the valley they were in because the Turks commanded the high ground overlooking the strait, and that lasted for nine months. So I think there'll be an attempt to do that. Now, as far as flying around, I don't know.

Again, this blockade that we've talked about, remember the ships that are supposedly blockading the strait. And I say supposedly because I'm not sure it's leakproof at this point. Maybe it is now, but it wasn't within the last 48 hours. If it is now leakproof, they're sitting 500 miles away from the street. Now, we've talked about this before. They have to stay out of range. They have to stay at a range of cruise missiles, tactical ballistic missiles, even unmanned systems. You know, how do you insert forces, ground forces, either inside the Persian Gulf or at selected

points inside Iran without risking the lives of everyone on board the aircraft and without first demolishing whatever you think is out there in terms of air defense? You're not going to get, at least in my day, I cannot imagine, any general officer or admiral launching an operation involving large numbers of ground troops and five, 10,000 men, that's a large number, into an area where there is real effective air and missile defense. The first thing that you would demand if you were in command is an effort to go in and eliminate as much of that as possible. Everyone knows eliminating all of it's an impossibility. But if I were in command of ground troops and I were about to face this problem, I would say, wait a minute, what are you doing to suppress and eliminate

all the air defenses, air and missile. I would ask that question. So I think you've got to go in and you've got to bomb. You've got to launch this killer strike, frankly, this war-winning strike that President Trump hopes privately will change the outcome of this crisis. That's got to come first because you can't go in until you've done that. If you try to do it simultaneously, you're going to lose people.

Will this killer strike change the outcome? I don't think so. Of course, I could be wrong. They could have some weapon that I'm unfamiliar with that no one's ever seen before. I'm very doubtful, though, on the conventional level, that any conventional weapon system or group of weapon systems is going to transform the situation into victory. But keep in mind, you're dealing for the most part with airmen,

whether they're naval or Air Force. They're always looking for victory in the target set, For them, the target set equals strategy. It never does, but that's neither here nor there. They're looking for the target set that will deliver victory. You know, when they ran the discussion, not discussion, but a rehearsal of everything done in the air campaigns during World War II in Europe, one of the things that they found out was the most effective bombing was against fuel sources. In other words, the oil infrastructure.

Destroy the pipelines. destroy the tanks, the tankers, that is, on board trains that carried it, the distribution system. That did more to win the war than anything else they did. And what else did they do? They leveled whole cities, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. And see, that's the problem. They're looking at Iran and they're trying to figure out, what is the golden nugget here? Where do I go to drive the golden spike right through the heart of Iran?

And I'm sure that at this point, they probably think they found it. I'm not convinced that's the case. Is it a coincidence in your mind that while this ceasefire is going on and on the heels of this rather performative, not substantive negotiation in Islamabad, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, was spending three days in Beijing. Absolutely. I mean, that's a signal that only someone who is duff, Demmon blind could miss. First of all, he's there to reassure the Chinese that they will do everything in their power to supply China with all of the energy that it needs. And that's understandable.

These are two giant Eurasian states. These are the heart of the continental strategy vis-a-vis us, the maritime aerospace strategy. They are now closer than they have ever been, and they will remain close. because they know they each need each other to survive. But there's something more than that going on. And that's why you've got to go back and look at what's going on in Ukraine right now. The only thing holding back the Russian military establishment from simply moving to the Nieupper River, crossing the seas Odessa,

and ultimately to get Kiev, is President Putin. That's all. He's exercised enormous restraint. But if you're sitting there and you're sitting across, as President Putin is, from his general officers, looking at what we're engaged in right now, what would you do? Would you sit there and do nothing? Or would you turn to your generals and say, let's get this over with? So I think that's also part of the mission.

We're going to give you everything you possibly want. We need to finish the job where we are, and we appreciate your support. There must be tremendous pressure on President Putin, even from his inter-sert. to using your phrase, get this over with. It's four years now, longer than four years. Well, I think the population itself has not suffered. I mean, he's done a marvelous job of insulating Russia from what I would call, you know, a destructive drop

in the standard of living. The shelves are full. People are eating. People are well. Morale in the military is very high. It's not low. he's dealt harshly with the elements of corruption and so forth. So I think he's got the instrument at his disposal. And I think people are saying, you know, President Putin, we appreciate all that you've done.

You've been a good president. But please end this. I think that's true. I think the population feels that way. And I'm sure many of his general officers do. It's not like the United States where you've got a lot of people that heavily invested in the defense industries who would like the wars to go on in perpetrators. because they're lining their pockets.

It's a different animal in Russia. I think people really want it over with. And they go back and they say, look, what Stalin did. Now, Stalin didn't give a damn about human life, whether it was the enemy's human life or his own. And so he paid the road to Berlin with millions of dead, dead Soviet troops. That's something that Putin will not and has refused to do.

He's always wanted a settlement, but we've refused to do business with him. So why should he do business with us? this with us. And I think they have supplied a lot of humanitarian assistance to Iran. I'm sure they've given them lots of technical advice and, of course, the invaluable access to their satellites, which provide that persistent surveillance and linkage to the strike systems that make Iran the dangerous place it is for us. Is the American Intel still locating Soviet troops and assets for the Ukrainians to attack?

Oh, yes. They're locating whatever is out there, I'm sure. I don't think that President Trump, when he came into office, ever sat down and carefully examined all of the existing findings. These are the findings that determine your policies when you're looking at intelligence collection and exploitation, a finding that says Russia is your implacable enemy. Russia is bent on destroying us. Russia wants to reconquer Eastern Europe. That's the sort of thing that should have been thrown out early on. It's just nonsense. What about the findings on China and Taiwan? What about the findings about Iran?

Did President Trump go in there and say, I want to sit down and I want to have my experts with me? I want to go through these findings and I want to make changes. No. As far as I know, nothing has changed. So the bureaucratic structure that continues to provide him with information is still populated with people. and still inundated and information that supports the status quo. He was elected to change things. He hasn't.

No, he hasn't changed them. He hasn't changed them at all. One wonders from whom he gets advice if he even listens to advice if the New York Times article about the origins of the war is even half true. He rejected the advice of Telsie Gabbard, Marco Rubio, John Ratcliffe, General Kane, and accepted the advice of Benjamin Netanyahu and David Barnaya, the head of Mossad. Oh, I think so. Again, this is going to surprise some people, but I think he's somewhat Churchillian. Churchill liked to listen to people that he thought were members of his class. And in the British class system, he saw himself at the top in terms of background connections, social standards.

And he also thought of himself as expert. Generally speaking, he overruled his senior officers during World War II frequently. And in almost every instance, it was catastrophic. I think that Donald Trump is similar. Donald Trump is saying, well, who do I listen to? Do I listen to this billionaire who is my friend that I've known for years in a real estate business, or I've known him as a business partner in other settings because I know he's really, really smart? and he understands me, or do I listen to these people I really don't know very well,

especially someone like Marco Rubio, who after all previously was an opponent politically. And what about Radcliffe? Radcliffe is afraid of his own shadow. So he's going to be told to shut up in color. He'll get in the corner and do it. Who else is left? Tulsi, well, you know, Tulsi's been a bitter disappointment. She doesn't support me on what I think is important.

Forget it. in other words what I'm trying to say is that in his world he's listened to the people he thinks of the right people to advise him he's not listening to anybody who gets him advice he doesn't want or doesn't think is the right thing you know presidents get the generals they want right occasionally presidents get generals they didn't want one man that was never wanted by franklin rosevelt was George Marshall because George Marshall, like all of the generals at the time, was a Republican. They never said that publicly, but they were all anti-new dealers. But Roosevelt took the position, well, who cares? You know, it's the Army. He was a Navy man. He knew the people in the Navy. He didn't know anybody in the Army. He didn't think it mattered very much. But by the time the war ended, he had a very different opinion in Marshall, who while Marshall may well have been an opponent politically, was certainly the most faithful servant of the state that the United States has ever had. And he realized that.

Colonel, thank you very much, my dear friend. Superb, superb analysis, historical and present, deeply appreciated. Have a great weekend. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. Okay. See you soon. Thanks, Joyce. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up tomorrow, Friday, April 17th, at 4 in the afternoon, the Intelligence Community Roundtable, Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson. Judges Napolitano for judging freedom.