Judging Freedom - Col. Douglas Macgregor: To Bomb or Not to Bomb Iran

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Col. Douglas Macgregor: To Bomb or Not to Bomb IranSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This new year, why not let Audible expand your life by listening? Audible CA contains over 890,000 total titles within its current library, including audiobooks, podcasts, and exclusive Audible Originals that'll inspire and motivate you. Tap into your well-being with advice and insight from leading professionals and experts on better health, relationships, career, finance, investing, and more. Maybe you want to kick a bad habit or start a good one. If you're looking to encourage positive change in your life one day and challenge at a time, look no further than Tabitha Brown's I Did a New Thing, 30 Days to Living Free. In the audiobook, Tab shares her own stories and those of others alongside

gentle guidance and encouragement to create these incredible changes for yourself and see what good can come from them. Trust me, listening on Audible can help you reach the goals you set for yourself. Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash wonderyca. That's audible.com slash wonderyca. That's audible.com slash wonderyca. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, February 5th, 2024. Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us by phone because of traveling today. Colonel, we deeply appreciate your taking time out of a busy schedule to join us on the phone. Thank you very much for doing so. It's great to have you here. Sure. How volatile is the Middle East today, February 5th, 2024, in light of what happened with the attacks on the Houthis, in light of what happened with the attack on Tower 22, and in light of the 85 bombing raids, more or less, it's what the government claims,

that the U.S. government has visited upon the area in the past four days? Well, as Secretary Blinken pointed out, this is perhaps the most dangerous point in the history of the region, certainly since the Second World War, and arguably perhaps for the last two centuries. So I would say it's extremely volatile, explosive on a scale that very few people in the United States and Europe can appreciate. What is your greatest fear? What is the biggest danger short of somebody setting off a nuclear device? Well, I think the greatest danger right now is the utter and complete failure of people inside the United States government

to recognize that we are in the position we are in right now because of what's happened since the 7th of October in Gaza. The rationale for all the actions that have occurred. There have been over 160 attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East, and there have been numerous attacks to halt or stop shipping that is trying to enter through the Gate of Tears into the Red Sea, involving ships that are either flagged or owned or operated by U.S. and Israelis. And these things are not accidental. They did not happen spontaneously in a vacuum. They are the campaign of mass expulsion or killing of Arabs in Gaza.

That's the problem. And the failure to recognize that, the misguided notion that somehow or another Muslims simply hate people in the United States, or Muslims just hate people in the West, this is nonsense. This is a direct consequence of that. We need to understand that, because if we genuinely want these attacks to stop, it's back to the requirement to get the President of the United States to intervene and simply tell Mr. Netanyahu, if you continue these actions, we will no longer support you. At which point in time, I suspect that 99% of all the hostility and attacks directed at the United States would end. There's a failure to understand that on the Hill.

Now, how far can this go? This has the potential to become a regional war directed primarily at Israel and the United States and its presence in the region with the possibility that we could also experience acts of terrorism here inside the United States thanks to our open borders and unsecured immigration. I don't think anybody should discount that. And it seems as though the principal problem for us in the United States is this utterly insane enthusiasm for beginning a bombing campaign against Iran. What is the basis for, why is the U.S. even considering,

why are people around Joe Biden even pushing for bombing Iran? Colonel, are you still with us? I guess we lost the Colonel's connection. I can hear you. Okay, we couldn't hear you. I'll repeat the question. Why is the U.S. even considering bombing Iran, Colonel? I think it's very simply because over the last 25 to 30 years, there's been a deliberate effort to try and make Iran responsible for everything in the region that Israel doesn't like.

Israel has made Iran its principal opponent and decided that unless Iran is removed as a danger to Israel, which effectively means unless Iran is destroyed as a nation state, Israel will have no peace in the region. I think that's very misleading because I think all of the states in the region are as hostile or more hostile than Iran. But I think that's the problem. And they have convinced using the U.S. media and substantial influence by the Israel lobby, Israel's agents in the United States, through various means of donations to campaigns and favors to key personalities in the U.S. government, they've managed to convince everybody in the United States that Iran is evil incarnate, that it is ultimately the principal

sponsor for terrorism in the region. That's not true. But that, unfortunately, is what people have been convinced of. The interesting part is that now we have this argument that three Americans were killed, which is unfortunate, but three Americans in uniform, reservists who were in Jordan were killed, and that this is now justification for an act of war against the Iranian state. One would think that we'd be at least probably a lot more concerned about the 100,000-plus people who die from fentanyl poisoning every year, the thousands of Americans who were killed in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York,

Philadelphia, and other cities by other Americans each year, and the importance of imposing the law on the population. But apparently those things are treated as almost minor or tertiary issues. And the most important thing we can do is because of these three Americans who were killed by what is alleged to be a proxy force for Iran, therefore we need to bomb Iran. That's about it. And I spoke with the senator, and he kept telling me, they killed three of our guys, they killed three of our guys. And I said, yes. And it wasn't Dave necessarily. It was a Shiite militia resistance group in Iraq. And there's a reason for that. And it's 7 October. And what's happened since the 7th of October? Oh, no, it's Iran. It's Iran. I don't know how you fight that

kind of insane thinking. I don't know who you were talking to, and I wouldn't ask you to reveal that, but it sounds like it was Senator Graham or somebody who agrees with him. What? Senator Graham doesn't talk to me, Judge. Same here, Colonel. I tried to call him a couple of times, but he's not interested in hearing either of us.

Welcome to the club of people who have a sensible head on their shoulders. Do American troops, are American troops ever put in harm's way intentionally in order to attract these militia groups to give the Lindsey Grahams and Victoria Nulands of the world an excuse to bomb Iran, their heart's desire? Well, the first thing to keep in mind is that the war with ISIS ended a few years ago. Our forces are not on the ground in Iraq, Syria, Iraq or Syria because of ISIS. That's simply untrue. Why are they on the ground? Well, that's what I'm going to try and explain. As I've said on previous occasions to people,

as soon as I arrived in the Pentagon in November of 2020, I began asking the critical question, what are we doing with our forces in Iraq and Syria? And there were various answers tried, and I said, no, that doesn't make any sense. ISIS is being neutered. And, of course, what your listeners need to understand is that there are always and will always be inside the Islamic world Islamic extremists that we call Islamists.

They're part of the body politic. You're never going to get rid of them, just as you can never eradicate various forms of criminality in our society. But the point is, that's not why our force is on the ground. And I finally said, well, why? Give me a straight answer. And I was told, because of Israel. And I said, well, why would Israel want them there? And then there was another problem with answering that, well, you know, early warning. And I said, well, that's ridiculous because the Israelis know more about what happens in Iran, excuse me, in Syria or Iraq than we do on any daily basis. Then finally, I was told, well, you know, effectively, they're a tripwire. And Iran is the great Satan and the great danger to Israel. Therefore, these forces are a tripwire. I found that ridiculous, and I found it utterly ill-conceived,

but I think that's one of the reasons that we've kept those forces in those countries. Also keep in mind, we've maintained a large presence in Iraq, I think, to conceal the truth that our intervention there has been a strategic catastrophe. And if we can maintain forces there, we can create the illusion that we'll see we're there because people still want us there. And that's absolutely not true. While there may be a very small minority of people who benefit from our presence, the overwhelming majority of people living in Iraq or Syria want nothing to do with us. And then, of course, you have the connection to the Kurds, and the Kurds have a strong anti-Iranian faction as well as a strong anti-Turkish faction. And we and our Israeli friends have seen it as advantageous strategically for us to maintain

the Kurds as some form of leverage against both Iran and Turkey. So these are the kinds of things that I think are true. And unfortunately, we have 57,000 troops in the region now. And so you've got lots of tripwires. And three of these people killed, and now there are people on the Hill that are anxious to bomb using this as a pretext. Add to this, the Iraqi government has on numerous times asked us to get out. Our presence there is unlawful. Our presence in Syria is unlawful. Our presence in Jordan is probably lawful. I'm sure the king welcomes us there, but that's a good chunk of the 57,000. Why not do what Reagan did after the bombing of the Marine barracks in the early 1980s in Lebanon? Just bring everybody home.

I suppose old Joe doesn't want to do that. The Republicans would say he was a weakling. Well, President Reagan was a different person. They had a different view of the region. We did not at that point unconditionally support whatever the Israeli government wanted. In other words, he was favorably disposed to Israel, as we all are, but he did not see any point to having U.S. forces in harm's way as a benefit strategically to Israel. Well, that's changed, and I think this current government sees it in precisely that fashion, and so, frankly, does the government, the Congress, that is the House and

the Senate. They all see this as a wonderful opportunity to finally come to terms with the great Satan that is Iran. Is bombing diplomacy? No, absolutely not. In fact, bombing someone into submission just has not worked very well for us. We tried it in the run-up to bring the North Vietnamese to the table. But in the final analysis, these efforts to bomb, just as sanctions for the most part, haven't had much impact. Neither has bombing. What does happen is that you end up alienating more people and usually stiffening resistance against you. That certainly happened in Vietnam. It happened during World War II. I think we're seeing that

same sort of thing emerge in the Middle East. And it just is not the right instrument if you're trying to change attitudes towards the United States. Colonel, is it your argument that if we were to bomb Iran, whether at the instigation of Prime Minister Netanyahu or because one of these tit-for-tat things that we're involved with now gets out of control, that we would actually begin the process that might jeopardize Israel's existence as a country? Well, the problem is that Mr. Netanyahu, I think, is playing an all-or-nothing game. In other words, he's decided to roll the dice. And that means that Israel could be enormously successful,

particularly if we are successful at utterly destroying Iran, or Israel could be very much at risk and actually go out of existence if things don't go the right way. This is very dangerous thinking. There's nothing incremental about it. There's nothing cautious or balanced about it. It's a dangerous ploy. But I think that's exactly what's happening right now

with Mr. Netanyahu. I think he's decided he has to listen to his speeches. He says this is an existential question for us. Either we rid ourselves of the Arabs inside Israel and build the new greater Israel and establish what is effectively our supremacy in the region, or we will eventually be destroyed by these people. That's the way he looks at it. There is nothing in between. So I think he's willing to risk exactly what you described, the destruction of this country, if he can get what he wants, which is for the United States to eliminate Israel's opponents in the region. And the principal opponent in his mind at the moment is Iran.

Do you think he's given up on his efforts to secure the release of the Israeli hostages safely from Hamas? Oh, I have no idea. I mean, it certainly doesn't look promising at this point, but I think he's also made that clear in his discussions that there are greater things involved than the hostages. As much as he wants to extract the hostages from the custody of Hamas, you know, the real strategic mission that he's on is what we've described, which is the complete eradication of the Arabs from his country and supremacy for him and his country in the region. And of course, none of that is achievable, quite frankly, without us.

Thus far, we are providing unconditional support. So I think he would welcome a war between the United States and Iran. And he's hoping that that's what he's going to get. That's what he and his supporters here in the United States have been working toward for at least two decades. I would argue almost three. A war between the United States and Iran. Does that mean U.S. ground troops invading Iran, or is it an air war, which would test our offensive weaponry against Russian and Chinese, presumably, supplied defensive systems.

Well, remember that in Vietnam, everything began as, quote-unquote, an air and naval war, until finally the war progressed to the point where ground forces had to be committed. Usually ground forces were committed when it became clear that the air campaigns were not successful. The argument that the Air Force has been trying to make for a long time is that precision now ensures that they will be successful. The problem with that assumption is that it ignores the changes and lethality of air defense technology and the probability that you're not going to be able to penetrate air defenses with ease and attack with impunity anything that you find. So I think that the danger is that lots of people in Washington see this as essentially what you described.

Well, this is an air campaign. We punish the Iranians enough, they'll go away. I see a very different outcome. I see that Iran will double down and fight tenaciously against us for as long as it can. And it will be joined by others in the process over time. That's the problem. The Russians are certainly not going to allow Iran to be destroyed by us. And they will provide the Iranians with everything and anything they can give them. And I think the same is true for China.

The Chinese are very dependent upon the Straits of Hormuz and the transport of oil and gas, as well as food out of West Africa, or excuse me, East Africa. So they're not going to be ready to walk away and ignore Iran. So you have the potential for a much larger regional war. And then, of course, you have something that's going on now that had never happened in the past, certainly not for centuries, and that is cooperation between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Iran. And they know, the Saudis and the Emirates know, that wherever there are U.S. forces in the Middle East will become targets for the

Iranians. So they're very sensitive to that. They don't want a war either. But that doesn't mean that they will blame Iran if Iran finds it necessary to attack U.S. facilities, bases, and harbors in the region that happen to be in their countries or on their soil. I think that what this promises to do, long run, is essentially create a region-wide alliance of Muslim states against Israel and the United States. Again, you started off with the discussion about the Houthis. Why are the Houthis suddenly attacking,

shipping, and specifically, shipping that is U.S. or Israeli? And the answer is very simple, because of what's happened in Gaza since 7 October. But no one wants to say that. In other words, we are under attack, we are under assault, because of our support for what's happening in Gaza. That's it.

If we stepped in and stopped what's happening in Gaza. That's it. If we stepped in and stopped what's happening in Gaza, the attacks against our forces in the region would stop. The Houthis would stop. Is Israel a strategic national security asset to the United States? At the moment, it certainly is not. It's an asset when it's a benefit. Right now, it's a hazard to us. Where do you think this is going?

I mean, how much bullying and bombing can Joe Biden get away with? Well, I think it's a mistake to talk in terms of just joe biden i think the republicans and the majority of democrats have all decided to throw in with this game and that's the way they view it they do not understand what war means they don't understand that bombing on the assumption that bombing will produce a change that's beneficial to us is not going to happen. That's why I tried in the article to point out that every time we bombed the Vietnamese, they adjusted, they reorganized, they found new ways to adapt, and then they found ways to attack us where we are weak. I would expect the Iranians to do the same thing. I would also expect other

countries in the region over time to throw in with the Iranians and support them. And again, I've always said that it was only a matter of time until the Turks, even though the Turks are historic rivals of the Iranians, will find it impossible to stay out of this fight. So I think the problem is that there are false assumptions that are underpinning this decision to bomb. I think if President Biden went to the Congress and actually asked for a declaration of war against Iran, he would get it. That's what I don't think most Americans understand, and Americans aren't in the picture. They're not really being consulted. The average American says, oh, yeah, that's probably a good idea to bomb because he doesn't understand what that means.

It's back to the problem with the so-called bombs away club. There are always a third of the electorate out there that are willing to sign on for any bombing. But to go to war, that's a very different matter. But again, war hasn't visited us as a nation at home since the Civil War in 1865. But this could change very rapidly with Iran and with the rest of the region. We could find ourselves fighting here at home, dealing with the terrorism and dealing with dangers emanating from Latin America into our country, where Latin America is host to many of these Islamist organizations. Is the United States militarily prepared, naval, air, ground, to wage an invasion of Iran?

No, certainly not. Our ground force is in ruins. I don't think that anybody in Washington deludes themselves into believing that they could order a mobilization of the country using a draft

in order to fight Iran. That's just not going to happen. So I think, sadly, what we're up against right now is this assumption that ships at sea and aircraft in the air by delivering long-range strikes are going to change things in Iran. They'll change things. They'll make the place infinitely more dangerous and hostile to us. And Iran will have an inexhaustible supply of allies to help it. But it's certainly not going to induce change in Iranian behavior towards us. In other words, we're not going to bomb anybody into submission.

That's absurd. That will not happen. Why do Western governments seek justification through war, Colonel? Well, you know, I think, again, the use of long-range strike weapons is similar to sex without consequences. But we know that unless you use protection, you're going to have problems if you have sex with somebody. Well, the same thing is true in war. If you're bombing or striking with missiles or anything else, first of all, you have to have a very large supply of bombs and missiles.

I don't think our supplies are really adequate right now. We've expended vast quantities and reproducing more missiles, Tomahawk missiles and other strike missiles, quickly is extremely difficult. We have no surge capacity. We can't rapidly ramp up and provide more. Ships have to go back to port to reload. Submarines do not, at least not for a while because they tend to carry more, but eventually they too will have to go to a protected port facility to reload. So you can't sustain this kind of damage for a long time without having to pause. Whenever you pause, of course,

your adversary adjusts. And I think, again, the adversary has far, far more strike weapons at its disposal than we do. They have thousands of missiles ready to go, and those are precise, and they're going to hit us. Again, the problem is that the mind is stuck in 1991, but we are not in 1991.

This is 2024. Our arsenal is considerably smaller. The numbers of forces at our disposal are considerably smaller. And as a result, this is not going to go well for us. It's going to turn into a very long, arduous campaign if we embark upon it. I mean, your statements are so rational, so derived from a grand understanding of the forces at play here, I guess the chances are slim

and none that the people running the State Department now, presumably will be a different group of people a year from now, will not accept your rationale, and that this president will want to attack

innocence abroad in order to enhance his political chances of reelection at home? Well, I don't know if this is going to enhance anybody's chances for anything at home, because I think it will be so destructive and counterproductive that no one will benefit from it inside the United States or in Great Britain, assuming the British tag along. I think you've got to go back to 2002 and 2003. And there were many statements and discussions made in Rumsfeld's office. And reportedly, in the spring of 2003, there were some questions raised about what happens if we go in and what happens if we don't and how many forces do we need and we need this and that and so forth. And supposedly, Dr. Wolfowitz spoke up and said, look, we just want to get the army into Iraq. In other words, the goal here is just to drag in the

US Army into Iraq, just as the goal of 1965 was to drag the United States Army into Vietnam. McNamara called General Leibniz, who was the Supreme Commander of the Forces in Europe at shape, and said, General Lemnitzer, how long do you think it'll take us to get the 101st into Vietnam? And General Lemnitzer said, well, not too long. He said, the real question is, how long is it going to take us to get it out? Well, the second question was the right question. And unfortunately, the second question has not been asked. No one is asking what happens after you pulverize, you know, four or five hundred targets in cities and military installations

and harbors in Iran. Well, then you're at war. And that war is not going to be a tight, tidy little package that you can manage without interference from anybody else. It's going to spread like wildfire all the way across the region. It's going to involve the emergence of new enemies that you never expected. It's going to involve the arrival of new weapons and capabilities in Iran that are not there now that will be provided by others. None of these things are being addressed. And the people on the Hill don't think like that. On the Hill, I've heard repeatedly again and again and again,

you know, we're killed three of our guys. Well, I certainly regret that. But if you're going to go on deployment in the regular army, whether you're a reservist or not, you have to accept the possibility that you could be killed. And free dead is not justification to declare war on anyone. What it suggests we should do is re-examine what we're doing and ask the question, is the loss worth it? In other words, what do we gain by losing soldiers and resources in the region? And right now, I don't think we gain anything strategically from being in Syria or Iraq. We are, in fact, exposed to a danger that we could

otherwise avoid. And we do not have any interest as a nation in going to war with anybody in the region. But the fact that we think we do is entirely due to the relationship we have with Israel at this point. And this prime minister in Israel is going to exploit that to the nth degree. If a war breaks out and the U.S. is involved as Iran's principal adversary, does Iran have the military wherewithal to destroy Israel? Yes, it does. And it does not need a nuclear weapon to do it. And, of course, this then leads into a discussion of when you bomb Iran, what do you do? What do you attack? And this is where people get confused and think that

selecting targets is a strategy. And someone will speak up, no doubt, on the Air Force side and say, well, we probably have more targets than we have aircraft, munitions, and ships and missiles. In other words, if we're going to prevent Israel from being struck by the vast arsenal of missiles at the disposal of the Iranians, then we'll have to go in and hit far, far more targets with far more munitions and aircraft and ships than we ever have in our history. Because if we don't do that, we cannot guarantee that Israel will not be on the receiving end of devastating missile strikes. Again, these are the things that have to be discussed. That's why you have staff studies. That's why staffs run through in great detail all of the requirements,

and then you model to the best of your ability what you think is going to happen. I am very skeptical that we have done that. I think we've done parts of it over the years, but I don't think we've looked honestly at the entire picture. Would any country besides Great Britain, with its very weak and depleted military, come to the aid of the United States in a military way? Seems very doubtful. There are very few out there that could make a material difference to us. Probably our most powerful ally is Japan, and there is no provision for the Japanese in the event of any emergency to come to our aid. We, however, are obligated to go to theirs. That was the point that President Trump made when he was visiting in Japan

that upset many people, but that's the truth. So no, I think we would be on our own. Now, the British seem to have lost their minds because they have an army of roughly 72,000, and they're actually talking about committing ground forces to Ukraine. Well, 72,000 British soldiers, if you move the entire army to Ukraine, would be swallowed up by the terrain and the force requirements that exist in the war between Ukraine and Russia. We're living in kind of a never-never land, I think, in both Great Britain and the United States. And that's why your question was a very important one.

You know, do we have any ground forces to go into a place like Iran, which is the size of Western Europe and has a population of 90 million? The answer is no, we don't have. We could go in and seize a point. We could take a particular harbor or a port city or something. We could land down south in Balochistan, where the Balochis are anti-Pakistani and anti-Iranian. What good would it do us? Probably not much. And we would be targets sitting on the edge of a great desert in the mountain range. None of this makes any sense strategically for us. None of it. Colonel, thank you very much. I wish those people you talked to on the Hill would listen to you, but I somehow think that all of your logic visited upon them

would be fruitless, and time will tell. I know you're busy. I know you're traveling. I can't thank you enough. The number of people watching us as I speak and commenting is enormous, and you are deeply and profoundly appreciated. Thank you, sir. Sure. Thank you, Judge. Bye-bye. Bye. A bit terrifying, but gratifying that this program has access to the moral, metal, historical understanding and contemporary prudent wisdom of Colonel Douglas McGregor. All of our regulars will be with us this week. Professor Mearsheimer, Professor Sachs, Scott Ritter of the Intel Roundtable at the end of the week, Kyle Anzalone, Phil Giraldi, Colonel Wilkerson, Aaron Matei, and Max Blumenthal. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Altyazı M.K.