Judging Freedom - COL. Douglas Macgregor: Will US Attack Iran?

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

COL. Douglas Macgregor: Will US Attack Iran?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

you Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, March 19th, 2025. Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now. Colonel and those of you listening, excuse my froggy voice, these things happen from time to time. Thank you for your time, Colonel. Colonel, what military advantage was there or is there to bombing the Houthis over the weekend? You know, it's difficult to calculate that. This has been a pretty unrewarding activity.

And you would think after all the years of having bombed these people in Yemen, someone would have concluded that unless you go in on the ground, you're probably not going to disrupt them. And what we've seen is after every series of strikes over many, many years, you recall we were also bombing them on behalf of Saudi Arabia at one point. After the strikes are over, they resurface and launch missiles.

And their entire focus is, of course, to punish US and Israeli shipping that has connection to the war in the Middle East. It's very straightforward. They've said, until you stop killing Palestinians, we're going to continue to shoot at you. Are they actually interfering with American ships, not naval ships, but commercial transportation?

Well, if they can identify the ship as flagged American, yes, they've taken shots at it. I think the most important thing to realize is if you're Lloyd's of London and you're in the business of insuring ships, you don't want people moving through the Red Sea or the Suez Canal at this point. I saw a three-star, I'm not even sure which branch, speaking alongside the new spokesperson, Sean Parnell, for the Pentagon, saying, the hooties fired back, they missed us by a hundred miles.

Was that hyperbolic or could they have been that far off? I have no idea, and I wouldn't wait for an accurate statement to come out of the Pentagon. The Pentagon is certainly not going to announce the accuracy and precision or effectiveness for the Houthi operation or for the people in Yemen. I wouldn't worry about it at this point. I know that they came within very close range

of destroying some Israeli airfield. The Israelis managed to down the missile. So that gives you an impression of the kind of accuracy that they're capable of achieving. So they're a long way from Israel down in the south of Saudi Arabia. Is this the beginning of a conflagration between either the United States and Iran or Israel, wouldn't be the beginning, but the continuation of a conflagration between Israel and Iran, a military conflagration. Well, you know, Judge, I've said for a long time that we're going to end up at war with Iran,

and I still think we're on that path, unfortunately. I don't think it's a path that President Trump necessarily wants. In fact, I think most of his bellicose statements directed at Iran are designed to sort of bluff Iran into a position of paralysis, to convince Iran that it's in their best interest to essentially surrender to us and to Israel, their national sovereignty for all intents and purposes. That's not going to happen. So I think what you're seeing now is the continued pressure being exerted on Iran by us and the Israelis until finally it blows up and we get the full regional war. So yeah, I think we're on that route. I don't think we're going to get off of it, frankly.

Why do you think, Colonel, President Trump unleashed Prime Minister Netanyahu to resume genocide in Gaza, which unfortunately resulted, I say unfortunately, it was intentional, the killing of 400 civilians in the past two days. I don't think he has any choice. I think when he ran for office, he made certain agreements with major donors. These donors move far beyond just Miriam Adelson. And these donors oblige him to effectively underwrite whatever Mr. Netanyahu wants to do.

I thought it was interesting that a recent meeting was set up for the United States with Azerbaijan to talk about cooperation with Israel, but it was set up by Mr. Netanyahu. He called and made the arrangements with Mr. Aliyev, who's the president of Azerbaijan. The State Department did not do it. I think we're very much in the grip of the Israel lobby and I think President Trump is obliged to go along and I don't see any evidence that he's going to diverge from that path. and I don't see any evidence that he's going to diverge from that path. Does he have no choice but to back up Israel militarily when it attacks Iran?

I think so. And keep in mind you always have the possibility that a war is precipitated somehow by Israel somewhere in the region with Iran, the Iranians respond. And the expectation is with the buildup of force in the region, you know we're sending additional carrier battle groups over there right now. The expectation is that we will reinforce whatever the Israelis want to do. We've already done all of the planning for joint strikes, joint strike packages. We're sharing all of the intelligence with our vast satellite arrays with theirs. So I think it's a foregone conclusion.

I can't predict when or how, but I think it's going to happen. Can you get your hands around the thinking of a human being who wants to do all he can to end the war in Ukraine and bring about a grand reset between the United States, China, Russia, Brazil, and India, but is still stuck on giving Netanyahu all he wants to slaughter innocents in Gaza? Yeah, I'm afraid I can. I think he tends to compartmentalize. Whereas if you're sitting in Moscow or any of the other capitals that you mentioned, they see no such compartmentalization. They see what's happening in the Middle East

as part and parcel of what's been going on in Ukraine, an effort by us and our proxies to undermine them, whether it happens to be Iran or Russia or any of the others that you mentioned. Let's talk about the so-called agreement that emanated from the two and a half hour conversation yesterday between President Trump and President Putin. Do you agree that it's unlikely that they spent two and a half hours talking about a bombing Ukrainian infrastructure and that they probably spoke about many other things

as well, number one? And number two, is this much of a concession by President Putin? Oh, of course not. It isn't, and we're not going to get any concessions from President Putin on this matter. I think President Trump made the phone call with the hope that he could persuade President Putin to respond positively in some way to the offer of a ceasefire

that we had extracted from Zelensky. And I think he got something like that when there was an agreement to not destroy or attack any more energy infrastructure in Ukraine. But keep in mind that just six hours later, the Ukrainians struck energy infrastructure in Russia. So under the circumstances, was that meaningful at all? I think the answer is probably no. We need to understand something. There's one important point on which President Putin and President Trump agree, and that is that neither of them under any circumstances want a war to break out between us. In other words, both men will do whatever they can to avoid a direct confrontation with each other.

That is good news. And we should all be grateful that President Trump is in the White House at the moment and not President Biden because there was no evidence that President Biden and his administration were really interested in avoiding that kind of conflict. The problem is how far can we go in terms of admitting that the war is lost, that Putin has won, not Putin but Russia, that the Russian armed forces are in a position that cannot be effectively attacked by the West,

that the Russians can continue to move West if they want to. That's difficult for President Trump to state categorically. And again, it came up that if you really want this to end President Trump, you've got to stop this flow of military aid and assistance to Ukraine.

Not only do you need to stop that, you need to prevail upon your allies to stop it. And thus far, we're seeing a lot of evidence that we have very little influence over our allies. In fact, our so-called allies seem to be determined to chart a separate and distinct path of confrontation with Russia. So this is a very difficult situation.

I don't think President Trump alone can solve all of it at this point. I know it's difficult to try and figure him out because he's often all over the place in what he says and what he does and maybe the question is unfair, but how can he be asking Vladimir Putin for peace when we are funding a war against him, continuing to fund it, not with cash, but with the same military levels as Joe Biden was? Judge, you're preaching to the choir on this one. How many times have I been on your show the last months, probably the last year, and said repeatedly, the most important thing for us to do to signal our

seriousness about this is to end aiding Ukrainians, period, and to get all Americans in and out of uniform, intelligence, civilian, whatever, out of Ukraine. That's still what we need to do. If we do that, then I think we can look forward to a useful discussion with the Russians in terms of what we want to do in Ukraine and ultimately across Europe. But until we reach that point, we understand we've got to do it, nothing fundamentally is going to change. And that's the point of the discussion. Over the last 24 hours, the only thing we achieved was to agree to a hockey game. That's, I guess, a morale builder,

but that fundamentally changed the fact. So I think in the parlance of the neighborhood I grew up in North Philadelphia, I think Mr. Putin threw Mr. Trump a bone when he said, we'll stop destroying energy infrastructure. Why do you think President Putin donned military fatigues, traveled to Kursk, and publicly ordered his generals to get this over with? And then they did. Two things. First of all, in most of the world, not in the United States, not in the United Kingdom,

not in much of Western Europe, but in most countries, I think the ministers of defense usually wear a military uniform, even though they haven't previously been long service soldiers. Then the heads of state in virtually all, almost all countries usually wear some sort of uniform that is military and associated with the armed forces. Now, I don't think I should say all, but certainly the majority. For him as the head of state and the commander in chief to wear a uniform is widely expected in Russia. That's normal. It would be abnormal if he showed up otherwise. And that was to signal the absolute deadly seriousness of the matter.

In fact, in 1914, you had Field Marshal Kitchener, who was the Minister of Defense, we would say Minister of War in Great Britain or First Secretary of War, who went to France to speak to General French, who was commanding the British Expeditionary Force to tell him, you're not leaving, you're staying, you're going to fight to the bitter end with the French. And uncharacteristically for a first Secretary of State for War, he put on his uniform as a field marshal,

went over there and made it clear. So I think this sort of thing signals exactly what you suggested, the absolute seriousness of Putin's determination to put an end to this. So the Russians agree not to attack Ukrainian energy infrastructure. I guess that means plants that produce energy, hydroelectric plants, nuclear plants, old-fashioned

oil-fired plants. But the Ukrainians weren't participating, haven't agreed and have behaved in the opposite way. Does the US, as far as you know, intend to speak to Zelensky and tell him what to do? I think Zelensky has demonstrated that he is not really responsive to what the president of the United States says. And I think that's evident also within the broader NATO framework. You now have Great Britain and France, who for all intents and purposes are telling us that they're going to press ahead on a separate avenue of approaching to Ukraine.

We are not in control. The President of the United States, who's Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces, is not in control of all the European forces. NATO itself has broken down. It is not this alliance that is committed to unity of effort and unity of command anymore. So I think the Russians know that. They're not surprised. Unfortunately, the Europeans and Zelensky have made President Trump look silly, to be blunt. How have they made him look silly?

I mean, a lot of your colleagues on this show think he has made them look silly. He's excluded them from negotiations. They're boasting about what aid they can provide Zelensky, which they don't even have. And if they send what they have, the Russians will demolish it. Well, he's not just the commander in chief of the US Armed Forces,

he's effectively the leader of the alliance. And if your alliance is no longer in step with you, and you tell them what you will or will not do, and you tell them not to do something, and I'm sure President Trump has made it very clear, we are not interested in a confrontation with Russia. You are pressing ahead with the goal of confronting Russia. That is what the British and the French want to do.

However ridiculous it may appear to us, they seem to be quite serious about it. Now, can it be done? I don't know. They have to go through Germany and Poland in order to reach Western Ukraine, but they seem to be intent on doing that. So that means that the alliance is no longer responsive to President Trump. So if you're Russian, you're looking at this and say, well, it's all fine, well and good, whatever President Trump says, but he doesn't control the NATO alliance anymore.

So we can't expect him to speak for the alliance in terms of what they will or will not do. Colonel, what is NATO without the United States? Well, that's the $60,000 question. I don't think it amounts to much. I haven't for a long time. And you've been to Europe many times, we all have. Europe is hardly a uniform construct. Europeans in different parts of Europe

see the world very differently. If you're in Rome and you look at the world from the perspective of Italy, is Italy remotely interested in a war in Russia? Of course not. The same is true for Spain, and I would argue the same is true for Paris. And President Macron is making a serious mistake by seeing it otherwise. The same is true for Spain, and I would argue the same is true for Paris.

And President Macron is making a serious mistake by seeing it otherwise. He's out of touch with reality and out of touch with his own population. And of course, I think the British are viewing all of this in the way that perhaps we are. What are we doing on the ground in Ukraine? That doesn't make any sense. Now, the British historically have lied on their naval power, but they're a much diminished naval power. They can't blockade the Russians.

They can't control what goes in and out of Russian ports anymore. So the bottom line is NATO doesn't amount to very much without us. Now that doesn't have to be a permanent condition. And I am beginning to hear indications from the president and his administration that we're quite prepared to live with a new four-star supreme commander of NATO and Mons who is not an American,

which I applaud because at some point the Europeans have to take responsibility for themselves. They're talking the talk but they're not walking the walk. So I think ultimately they'll end up looking ridiculous. But in the meantime, they're embarrassing us because they are theoretically led by us within the NATO framework and that's not the way people are behaving. Colonel, do you see any connection, whether political or emotional, between the two decisions within two days, one by Donald Trump,

one to unleash Netanyahu and the other to talk peace with Putin? and the other to talk peace with Putin? There is a difference, and we need to understand this. The people who are arguing to back the Greater Israel Project, even if it involves war with the United States between Iran and the United States, Egypt and the United States, whoever in the region doesn't support the Greater Israel Project is the following. There are some key assumptions that both Washington and the government in Jerusalem have agreed to or essentially sign up for.

Number one assumption is that the Arabs, Turks, Persians, all the Muslims in the region in the final analysis are cowed by us. They're afraid of us. We can bully them. We can bribe them. We can drive them in whatever direction we want them to go. Number one, they will not fight back. Number two, that as long as the United States Armed Forces are in the area and back Israel, that the United States Armed Forces together with Israel are invincible and invulnerable in the Middle East. And I think the third is that ultimately the rest of the world will indulge us, that everyone else will go along with it because they have no choice.

Those three assumptions have not been invalidated. Thus far, if you stand back for the region and you look at it from Mr. Netanyahu's standpoint, and I think Mr. Trump shares this view, the people in the region have not fought back. They have not directly challenged the destruction, the mass murder and expulsion of people in Gaza, or presumably in the West Bank, in southern Lebanon, or anywhere else. It simply hasn't happened. And so they're right.

They think they can get away with this and bully anybody. When you move to Eastern Europe, that's a different environment completely. We are not in a position to challenge the Russians militarily in Ukraine. And I think there's an awareness behind the scenes that if we try to do that, we will lose that confrontation. And so there's a willingness to do business in Ukraine that's different from doing business in the Middle East, where we think Ukraine're green supreme. A superb analysis, Colonel. Going back to the Middle East, doesn't Netanyahu risk the existence of his country if he attacks Iran even with the assistance of the United

States? I certainly think so. And I'm not below Ranger, obviously. I think it's worse than that. I think the existence of Israel within the region is very much up for grabs at this point. You cannot tell all of your neighbors and everyone that you live with that they are sub-human animals and then expect to flip the switch on and have everyone march to your tomb whatever you're playing.

So I think it's very dangerous right now for Israel. I don't think Israel's existence should be put at risk in this fashion, but I hold a minority opinion. The people in Israel are backing Mr. Netanyahu feel very differently. They think this is their moment in the sun, that they can conquer the region, if you will, either militarily or psychologically,

that everyone can be compelled to bend to them because of us. And we are now unconditionally signed up for that war, if it has to be fought. And the assumption is we can win it. Again, we forget, and we've talked about this before, the Middle East is 6,000 miles from us, a long way. The logistics of the fight are very, very critical.

You cannot sustain yourself indefinitely if you get into a brawl with a large continental power like Iran. But instead of looking at the capabilities of Iran and for that matter the potential for the entire region to line up against you. Those are things that no one will touch because they just don't believe it's possible. So Colonel, just as an example of the Zionists with whom the president has surrounded himself, the last time I checked the FBI was a domestic law enforcement agency charged with enforcing federal criminal laws in the United States. You might not know that if you heard

Director Patel say the following. Chris, cut number 13. You will see what we did with Israel and the prime minister and our special forces and their intel operation. We will be standing side by side with them. We will shut off the machinery that feeds money into Iran. We need America to wake up and prioritize Israel. We need to bring home Americans and end this war, bring home Israelis and make sure we stand by our number one ally in Israel. And people need to wake up. Is that the job of the FBI?

No, but it's a, it's a fair, uh, articulation of the attitude inside the administration. This is very much an Israel first administration and whether or not you agree with it, it doesn't matter. Their view is that our interests and Israel's interests are identical. No, I don't think they are. I don't think they ever were. Our interests aren't really identical with very many nations around the world at all. But this is the, this is the load, what would you call it?

The touchstone of membership and allegiance inside the Trump administration. So I think Cash is telling you exactly what President Trump has told him, and that is the policy of the United States. That's where we're headed. That's why we're going to have a war with Iran. Do you share the view of Alistair Crook that the divisions in Israeli society are broad and deep and exacerbated by Netanyahu and this firing of Keshpetal's opposite number, the head of

Shin Bet, will only make things worse? Well, Alistair Crook knows a great deal more about the internal workings of Israel and for that matter Israel's neighbors than I do. I think there are divisions in Israel of that there is no question. However, they have had these divisions in the past and when necessary, this was true in 48, it was true in 56, there's some evidence for it in 67. Whenever they've had these divisions, they have been able to impose government's authority on everyone in Israel to ensure everyone marches in the same direction.

So I think right now, while that may be true to some extent, it's not critical to the outcome. Mr. Netanyahu is firmly in charge, let there be no doubt about that whatsoever. And he is on this path and he will not be diverted from it. Konova, Gregor, thank you very much, my dear friend. Thank you for your time. Thank you for letting me take the conversation

across the board, so to speak, from Washington to Palestine, to Tel Aviv, to Kiev,. S. so to speak from I don't know. I don't know what the problem is in Ireland. They just can't seem to brew really whiskey is more effective than I don't think you'd be welcome there. I think if somebody wanted to be shot to the face when I was growing up, all they had to do was

walk into my grandfather's house and hand him a bottle of whiskey that was blended. Wow. You're dead on the spot. If it wasn't a single malt, they wouldn't touch it. So, thank you. Thank you, Colonel. All the best. Feel better,

sir. Thank you. Sure. Uh coming up later today, my froggy voice holding out at one o'clock, Pepesko Bar. Earlier I said he's in Moscow. I don't know where he is, but we'll find out when he's here. And at three o'clock, Phil Giraldi. Justin Palatino for Judging Freedom. Music you