Judging Freedom - COL. Douglas Macgregor: Is War with Iran Inevitable?

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

COL. Douglas Macgregor: Is War with Iran Inevitable?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, May 20th, 2025. Colonel Douglas MacGregor is here and here's the question. How close is the United States to war with Iran? But first this. While the markets are giving us whiplash, have you seen the price of gold? It's soaring. In the past 12 months, gold has risen to more than $3,000 an ounce. I'm so glad I bought my gold.

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I do wanna talk to you at some length on your observations and conclusions about the likelihood of war with Iran, but first to some issues involving Ukraine, particularly animated by President Trump's two-hour phone call with President Putin. Do you think the Americans understand the Kremlin's mentality that it would not and hasn't historically stopped fighting for the purpose of negotiating, that it has conducted both negotiations and fighting at the same time. And secondly, that it will hold fast to its initial demands, which were part of the agreement in Istanbul and which

it expects to achieve by the special military operation? I think the easy answer is no. I don't think we have the slightest idea how the Russians think about their country and about this war. That's one of the major problems. We have a bad habit of projecting onto the Russians an intellectual framework or a cultural framework which is our own. And as a result, it's very hard for us to understand them. They are willing to negotiate, but keep in mind, we are a co-belligerent. We're in no position to mediate a solution or an agreement of any kind.

We are part of the problem. So they're happy to talk to us, but they're not going to cease operations until we demonstrate conclusively that the Ukrainians and we will respect the initial position that they've always taken. So until we do that, nothing will change. And I don't see much evidence that we're going to do what is required. I think we're already talking about walking away from it.

At least that's my impression from the things that Mr. Rubio has said and Vice President Vance has said. Here's what President Putin had to say after the conversation with President Trump. I thought he was very astute saying our key objectives have always been the same, to identify the root causes of this military operation. Chris, cut number eight. The President of the United States and I agreed that Russia can and is ready to work with Ukraine on memorandum on the possible eventual future peace treaty by addressing a number of provisions, including the we need

to set forth the principles and the deadlines for achieving a peace deal and this includes the possible cessation of hostilities for a specific period of time if we reach specific agreements. This gives us hope that overall we're headed in the right direction. This was a very constructive conversation. I think that both Russia and Ukraine must do everything to contribute to peace and they must find the compromises that would suit all the parties involved. I would like to say that overall

Russia's position is clear. Our key objective is to identify the root causes of this crisis. We all know what the Russian objective is. He stated it before the war started. It was restated again in the agreement that the Russians and the Ukrainians agreed to before Joe Biden and Boris Johnson talked then lawfully President Zelensky out of it. We all know what those agreements were. Is there any reason to think that Vladimir Putin would change his mind? He's on the cusp of a military victory. No, I don't think so. But there's also no reason to expect that Mr. Zelensky is going to accept those conditions. He's not going to accept the permanent incorporation of the Eastern Oblasts

into Russia, along with the legitimate ownership of Crimea and Russian hands. He said that repeatedly. So under those circumstances, it's hard to imagine anything good coming out of this, although I think President Trump has a habit of hearing what he wants to hear. And I think he heard a willingness to end the war, which is clear. Nobody in Russia wants this war to go on in perpetuity. Least of all, Vladimir Putin. They've lost 120,000, 130,000 killed. I don't know how many wounded.

The Ukrainian losses, of course, are much higher, probably 1.5 million killed in action. How many wounded is anybody's guess. But Zelensky's in no mood to accommodate anything connected with Russia's core position. Well, then there will be no amicable resolution of this. It'll be a military resolution or there'll be some new government in Ukraine that will resolve it by by trading? Well, you know, obvious, you know, judges also pretty clear if

you look at the numbers of discontented officers and soldiers in the Ukrainian army, that if fighting were to stop in eastern Ukraine for any length of time, I think 10s of thousands of Ukrainian veterans would turn their attention to Zelensky in Kiev, and I don't think he would survive it. I think there's great bitterness right now in the field towards the regime in Kiev. They hold him responsible for these massive losses and dramatic failures. I don't think there's an understanding of that in the Trump administration at all.

If they understood that, they would go back and do what we've urged them to do from the very beginning. President Trump says this is not his war, okay. And all further aid to this government in Ukraine and pull us out, get all the Americans that are in Ukraine, military or otherwise, intelligence, civilian, they all leave. All he's done by failing to do that is extend the Biden policy. Sadly. You know, he said it as recently as yesterday, and it irritates me when he says it,

because he should accept responsibility for the war that he's funding. Chris, cut number nine. This was not my war. This is not a war that would have happened if I were president. This is not my war. I'm just here to try and help. We've spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this war. And yet that's not, frankly, we made much more than that just in four days in the Middle East.

It's a lot of money, but we do much. This is about thousands of people dying every single week. Five thousand, six thousand people dying every single week. You know, these soldiers, they say goodbye in Ukraine and in Russia, and then their parents never see them again, except maybe in pictures of horrible scenes, You know, these soldiers, they say goodbye in Ukraine and in Russia. And then their parents never see him again, except maybe in pictures of horrible scenes, because I've seen some scenes I've never seen anything like it. So we're going to see if we can get it taken care of. Yep.

I mean, much of this is just irresponsible for him to say it's not his war, but five to six thousand people have died. That's 60 to 65 thousand people since he became president. How long would Ukraine last if Trump says to Heg Seth, close the spigot, stop sending them weapons and ammunition? I suspect a few weeks at most. You know, they're in very dire straits as it is right now. But you know, President Trump seems to lack self-awareness, Judge. He doesn't seem to grasp that he is monumentally responsible for this war continuing. Our cash, our equipment continues to pour in. The recent attacks or attempted attacks on the 9 May celebration

in Red Square consisted of a Tachem's missiles. They didn't show up magically on their own. They didn't come from great Britain or Germany. They're ours. Surely he must understand that. Did didn't doesn't make sense. Didn't the first Trump administration, this is what he was impeached over as, as ill advised us. The impeachment was send an enormous amount of military equipment to Ukraine. I'm talking about 17-2017 to 2021. Joe Biden wasn't, President Trump was. Yes. He consistently fails to remember that. I don't think he ever grasped what was really happening on the ground in Ukraine.

This was presented to him as more foreign aid and military assistance to a future NATO member. What does he know about Ukraine? Nothing. What does he know about Russia? Frankly, nothing. So again, you get this transactional response. Look at all the money we just effectively garnered

during our trip to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. We'll set aside whether or not that's actual and real. And just think about that statement. And we've lost hundreds of billions in Ukraine. What is going on here? You know, this is not the art of the deal. We're talking about national interests and the survival of peoples and nations. It doesn't seem to sink in with him at all.

Do you think the Russians understand that there are two disparate teams that whisper into his ear, the American firsters, like the vice president and Mr. and firsters like the Vice President and Mr. Wittkopf and the neocons like Sebastian Gorka and Marco Rubio? I don't know what the Vice President is saying because the Vice President is equally uninformed about Ukraine and Russia. I don't see much evidence he understands what's happening over there.

The only thing he has said, which is to his credit, is I think we should terminate this and move on. Okay, thank you very much. But there's no understanding of what that means. How do you terminate it? And you have to terminate it along the lines we just discussed. You can't make statements and say, well, I've had it, we're leaving, we're walking out. You have to end the aid and you have to start withdrawing everyone who's part of it. This is the problem the Europeans are having. Because on the one hand, he says these things, I want to end this, and this is bad. And then he turns around and tells the Europeans that the Russians are now flexible and willing to negotiate and are ready to sign up for a ceasefire,

when they know categorically that's not true because the initial conditions that the Russians have always stipulated have not been met. So I think there's confusion across the board. The only people that are not confused are Moscow and Zelensky. Zelensky knows what he wants, which may involve the complete death of his own country, his nation, but that's what he's going to stand on. council yesterday that 14,000 Gazan babies will die in the next 48 hours, 48 hours if they don't get nutrition, and that 5,000 of them died in the past two weeks. Whatever happened to the resistance we heard about? What ever happened to the utter moral revulsion about what's happening in Gaza and the determination to use force to stop it? Well, it doesn't exist in the United States for all intents and purposes. I don't see any evidence for it. I think that the Israel lobby has absolute unchallenged control over what's happening

on the ground in Gaza. And that means that people in Washington are going to unconditionally support Mr. Netanyahu and whatever he decides to do with the forces at his disposal. There's nothing that's changed. I remember Gaza is this wonderful piece of real estate that if it were only simply developed the right way

would be a Mecca for everyone. That's the president's view. I don't know what to make of it. What about resistance in the Middle East? Egypt, Jordan, Turkey? There must be revulsion among the masses. They see this stuff on their mobile devices. There is, but all of these governments.

And this is very important for everybody to understand are afraid of us military intervention on Israel's side against them. If they were dealing exclusively with Israel, that would be different. But no one really wants to go to war with us. I mean, this is something you and I have discussed over and over and over again for years. Right.

No one in the world is interested in going to war with us. We're the ones that are talking about war all the time. So that's number one, they wanna do business with us. Number two, if you're an Egyptian, you probably feel comfortable with dealing with the IDF. In other words, if you have to fight them, you can fight them. But what do you do if hundreds of aircraft

fly off of carriers and come in from overseas to utterly devastate you on behalf of Israel? And right now, that's what they expect. The Turks, of course, would like to extract benefits from their cooperation with us. And by the way, one of the things that nobody brings up is one of the key reasons that President Trump went to the region and ultimately talked to this man, Jelani, and shook his hand and talked about what an attractive young man he is, is because he's trying to hold together this CIA-Mossad-brokered alliance between the Turks and the Israelis. It is the joint hegemony over the region that we are trying to promote with Turkish and Israeli military power. It's very fragile because the Turks collectively as people are utterly opposed to everything the Israelis are doing.

I don't think it's gonna last, but Mr. Erdogan sees great value in it. And Mr. Jelani, you know, people are saying he's a CIA asset. Okay, fine, perhaps he is, but he's very definitely Mr. Erdogan's asset. And so you're signaling to President Erdogan, I'm going to go along with what you want to do, just as I'm going to go along with what Mr. Netanyahu wants to do. Erdogan has his finger in so many pies. He's in NATO, he's in

BRICS, he's got his finger in this pie. Foreign Minister Lavrov, who's in Rio de Janeiro today, for some reason while there, condemned Al Jelani and said he's engaged in ethnic cleansing against Alawites and against Christians. And the Kremlin's not happy with that. I don't know what they're going to do about it. They still have a small naval base there, but I thought it was rather telling that he made that comment, knowing that a comment like that from him would make it around the world internationally. I saw it in the Guardian. Well, the Russians are trying to protect the Alawites that are within range of their base. The Alawites have tended to pull back towards the coast in the direction of the Russian

military base. And remember that Erdogan has instructed Jolani and his legions, whatever they are, not to attack the Russians. So I think the Russians are going to do whatever they can. Remember, the Russians have always been prepared to intervene on behalf of Christian populations under attack. By the way, the Iranians also saved Christians from destruction when they were fighting ISIS. Christian lives were saved along with Shiite lives. So this is an ongoing problem in the region. Iran and Russia are both involved in that. But there's another feature to all of this,

and you brought it up when you mentioned BRICS. The other reason for the president's activities in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates is to try and persuade them not to become part of BRICS, to stay out of the sort of Chinese herd of potential cooperative customers. Well, that's impossible. They're gonna join BRICS.

It doesn't matter what we say or do, but they also wanna do business with us. This is something that I don't think President Trump understands just yet. Colonel, how important is the issue of nuclear enrichment in the negotiations that Secretary of State Witkoff, slightly tongue-in-cheek there, is negotiating with Iran? Because at one point he was saying we will allow a certain level of enrichment for civilian uses, energy, hospitals, etc. On the weekend talk shows, he said zero enrichment. So somebody got to

him. Now he's a neocon. Is zero enrichment a non-starter with respect to negotiating with Iran? Why would they give up all enrichment? Clearly, remember, they're not going to give up all enrichment. Clearly remember, they're not gonna give up all enrichment. They've made that abundantly clear. That's why the talks are dead. Mr. Witkoff is simply repeating the instructions that were given to President Trump by Mr. Netanyahu. It is Mr. Netanyahu that said, that's off the table.

We cannot tolerate any enrichment of any kind. He's also made it clear that he and Israel will not tolerate the presence of all these ballistic missiles that could reach them. In other words, we're back to the Libyan model. That's the model he wants. Now, President Trump hasn't been willing to support that, at least not on the whole. But President Trump has now, obviously through Mr. Witkoff, agreed there can't be any enrichment. This puts us in the unfortunate position of having to follow through on enormous numbers of threats that we've made to strike Iran. I don't see how we avoid it. And I think that's what Mr. Netanyahu wants. Our friend Alastair Crook, who readily admits he's not a military person and says, my name

that you know far more about the military than he ever will, is of the belief that the United States cannot defeat Iran if we attack it with the Israelis. What's your view on that? Well, the key thing is that if you're going to attack Israel with air and naval power, in other words essentially missiles and bombs, what is your goal? What do you expect to accomplish? Now, I don't think anybody on the United States Armed Forces believes that our goal is to ultimately defeat Iran. If you want to defeat the Iranian state,

well then you're gonna have to introduce ground forces into the mix. Air and naval power alone isn't gonna achieve that. So I don't think the objective is to quote unquote, defeat Iran. I think the objective will be to defeat their integrated air defenses and defeat their missile attacks while at the same time destroying the nuclear their integrated air defenses and defeat their missile attacks,

while at the same time destroying the nuclear capability on the ground to enrich, and also potentially to destroy the regime, because there have been lots of statements suggesting if we're going to go in there, then we have to target the regime itself, hopefully then leaving Iran leaderless and incoherent. Now I don't think those things are achievable, but it's not defeat Iran, it's what I just described. And I think there are a lot of people in the Air Force and the Navy, senior officers, telling

the president that yes, we think we can do that. Can Netanyahu and his partners in the American government, which is a large array of people, talk Trump into this sort of an attack on Iran simply because they won't agree on an enrichment number, a concept that the American public won't grasp? I think that what has got to happen to make all of this come together is the Israelis have to take the lead. And this has always been my concern, that Mr. Netanyahu would make it impossible for us to stay out by taking the lead in terms of attacking Iran.

Iran then in response would probably let everything they got go at Israel. In other words, it would trigger a massive response from Iran. That in turn would trigger us to try and intervene and protect, if not save, Israel from potential destruction at the hands of Iranian missiles. So I'm not sure it's that clear. What Mr. Netanyahu knows is that he has infinitely more influence over what the Senate and the House will do in this instance than Trump does. Later on today, President Trump is going to announce, now as a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, this has a very specific meaning, Golden Dome.

That is the main administration building at the top of which is a golden statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but he is going to announce some sort of a golden dome Defensive mechanism to prevent drones and bombs and missiles from attacking the United States. So we have that already No, no, not at all. This is sort of a warmed over repackaged Defense missile defense program on the scale that Reagan envisioned after he talked to Dr. Teller. I actually heard Teller explain this in person back in 1986, and it was appalling. Everyone who was in the physics department that I knew and one of whom was with me when we listened to him told me, and I'm not a physicist, but this man that was,

and he just said, Douglas, this is outrageous nonsense. We can't do it. We're still in the same position. What he's trying to argue is that you can have an iron dome like solution that Israel has employed and employ it nationwide. Or if not nationwide, then selectively for large urban areas. It depends on who you talk to.

But the point is the Iron Dome is by no means perfect, and it has been penetrated and will be penetrated in the future. So this is another money pit for lots of people who are very anxious to see this money flow. And I think they're on the Hill. I think they're in the Department of Defense in a number of other agencies across the federal government and of course across the country. And here's the rest of the story. It's not gonna happen. We can't afford it.

It's unattainable. It's back to this thing we used to refer to in the building as unobtainium. You can't break the laws of physics to get there and the laws of fractal mathematics and that's the simple truth so you're not going to get what they want. But you know whether or not you get something out of any of these programs is much less important than spending the money. You know you go to the hill and you ask, what do you do here? And everybody will tell you, well, we spend money. Right.

That's why we're here. Colonel is an American war whether they run inevitable? I hate to say that anything is inevitable, but it's going to be awfully tough to avoid. And that's why I think any number of things could happen. You could have a false flag. We've been through that before with the white helmets on the ground in Syria, and twice they managed to precipitate missile strikes.

Fortunately, those missiles all went into the desert sand because somebody had the sense to realize if they go anywhere else, you're gonna kill a lot of people and find yourself at war. This time around, I'm not sure that's possible. So I think you could have a false flag or you could simply have the decision, you know, we have been provoked long enough, it is an existential threat to greater Israel and we are going to act. Mr. Netanyahu gives a speech

and off it goes. And then we're dragged in anyway. Again, how do you bring peace about under those circumstances if we are a co-belligerent? We're back to the same problem we had today in Ukraine. How can you broker peace when you are in fact part of the problem? I don't think we can do that in Ukraine. I don't think we'll be able to do it in the Middle East. Colonel, thank you very much. Thank you for your time, my dear friend. I see that you are no longer running our country, our choice. I trust you left them in good hands and maybe have more time on your hands. Oh, I think so. And you know, Judge, I was there for over two years and I did the best

I could. But I think and the people running it agreed that it was time for over two years and I did the best I could, but I think and the people running it agreed that it was time for a fresh set of eyes. And that's something that you frequently need in any organization, somebody else with a new perspective that has fresh ideas. So you're right. Now I have a little more time available to me and I've got some other projects. We'll see where it goes. You and I will continue to cooperate though. Oh absolutely. Our collaboration has been

has been a gift. And by the way that episode, the second episode of the program that we were launching, that's almost complete and that will be out. I think people will be very very happy to hear what you had to say about an important topic because it's as you and discussed, it's all about war and the question is, how do we end up going to war so frequently? Yes, the conversation was about the concept of a just war and the concept of constitutionally just war, which we haven't had since December 8th, 1941.

Colonel, thank you very much for your time, much appreciated. We'll see you again soon. Okay, thanks, Judge. Colonel, thank you very much for your time. Much appreciated. We'll see you again soon. Okay, thanks, Judge. You're welcome. A great human being and a true gift to you and to me that I can chat with him in a public arena like this. Coming up next at three o'clock this afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski on all these same topics. Joseph Napoleon. You