Judging Freedom - COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Consequences of US War with Iran.

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Consequences of US War with 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 Thursday, June 19th, 2025. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson joins us now. Colonel Wilkerson, thank you very much for your time as always and thank you for allowing me to pick your brain, which I will try and do gently, but with a little bit of oj at the coming up. How do you think Prime Minister Netanyahu managed

to dislodge President Trump from the conclusions of the American, British, and even Israeli Intel that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and hasn't been working on one since 2002. How did Trump go from complying with what his own Intel people told him to saying, I don't care what she says, I believe in the I believe the contrary anyway. I'm going to offer a very simple answer to that question, but I think it's right. And that is that he didn't know what Tulsi had said, and she had not passed it on to him in a way that permeated the screen around him and got to him. And so he was caught at that plane door with, you know, the question that why do you differ from what your DNI said?

And he had no other choice in Trump land but to say, I don't believe it or I don't agree with it. Chris, play the clip from Air Force One, including the embedded statement under oath from Tulsi Gabbard. People always said that you don't believe Iran should be able to have a nuclear weapon. including the embedded statement under oath from Tulsi Gabbard. People always said that you don't believe Iran should be able to have a nuclear weapon. But how close do you personally think that they were to getting one? Because Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that the intelligence community said Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon. The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. I don't care what she said. I think they were very close to having it.

If he means I don't care what she said, shouldn't she resign? I would or I see, but I understand she's, he's really become in my camp, a sycophant because she put Will Ruger, who I know quite well from the Coke Institute in charge of the ultimate decision as to whether or not such an analysis would make it up to the president or even to her. And I know what Will Ruger's decision will be. What will that be? I mean, his decision will be nothing will go up that will conflict with Donald's preconceived conceptions. Well, then they're not giving him adequate and full Intel.

They're telling him what they think he wants to hear, just like you and Larry and Ray told me the CIA did in the Biden years. Thank you. Thank you. Wow. It's even worse because graceful a Colonel, because people risk their lives to get that intel. Yep. I think there are people behind Trump, we all know who they are, we can't put names

to all of them, but I can put names to some of them, who are advising him in a neoconservative fashion and he gets a fixed opinion and it doesn't matter what flows over the transom with regard to official intelligence. Does she, let me restate this, is she the chief briefer of the president of the United States each morning on matters of intelligence? I'm told she doesn't even get across the threshold that she does what she does usually in written or pictorial format. If she does brief anyone, it's Vance. Wow. Well, he probably doesn't have the patience for the briefing.

We know he's not going to read a briefing. Yes. The latest developments were they were seriously judge seriously trying to develop what they were calling a Fox News format briefing for him that would be purely visual. It would be clippy. It would be just like a Fox News forecast, probably as reliable as that too. But he would pay attention to it. Are they dealing with a person with the mind of a child? I'm not exactly sure how I would describe Trump's mind, but it's certainly not like yours or mine or any other sentient adult that we know. How badly did Israel damage Iran's nuclear enrichment, air defenses, offensive weaponry

in that initial barrage last Thursday night which caused such euphoria in Israel and among their Zionist supporters, euphoria which has now dissipated. My contacts in the country and in this country who might know what they're talking about tell me that they took some significant blows that one would expect when it's an attack like Yamamoto executed on Pearl Harbor in 1941. They were caught completely off guard because they were lulled into being that way by the promise of diplomacy, mostly from the United States, but apparently adhered to by Bibi at least for the next 48 hours or so. So they were called completely off guard. It was like Saddam Hussein attacking Kuwait. But I'm also hearing, and I got lots of videos to tell me this is true, that much is left.

I'm poured in this morning videos from friends in Australia, friends in Israel, friends elsewhere of weapons hitting Israel. Now let's let me ask you the opposite then how badly have the Iranians struck Israeli sites? have the Iranians struck Israeli sites? In Israel's minds, I'm sure terribly. And in actual destruction, pinpoint destruction, not this kind of wholesale destruction, although they have hit hospitals

and they have hit other civilian institutions, but mainly they've tried to stick with military targets. Now, Israel buries its military targets intentionally in civilian buildings and civilian surroundings. So it's almost impossible to avoid it entirely. But the videos I got this morning, I would say that a lot of Israel is aflame and Netanyahu is hiding it.

He has cut down everything that could possibly get out except his richer citizens are taking yachts off the coast and going to Greece or to Cyprus or someplace. They're leaving Israel. This is becoming desperate for Netanyahu's various warnings about how imminent the Iran nuclear capability is. He's been warning about this, warning about it. Since 92. For 30 years. I think there's a word of truth in any of these warnings, but I'm anxious to hear your

thoughts on it. Chris? The deadline for attaining this goal is getting extremely close. And Iran, by the way, is also outpacing Iraq in the development of ballistic missile systems that they hope will reach the Eastern seaboard of the United States within 15 years. By next spring, at most, by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage. From there it's only a few months, possibly a few weeks, before they get enough enriched

uranium for the first bomb. The foremost sponsor of global terrorism could be weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons. That would place a militant Islamic terror regime weeks away from having the fissile material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs. If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year, it could be within a few months, less than a year. I think it's easy to say that none of that is truthful, but I guess it's sunk in with Donald Trump. Well, he also said that Iran was the greatest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.

The country right next to Iran, Saudi Arabia, is the greatest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, as 9-11 dutifully testifies to. And there are a lot of countries, and I would even place Pakistan in there to a certain extent. We just saw the embargo with India over the terrorist attacks in Kashmir. So Iran has not really been a significant sponsor of terrorists. In fact, it's fought them. It fought ISIS, it fought Al-Qaeda. It's fought other terrorists that managed to get within its midst Because they don't believe in that sort of action and they don't believe that their state should be subject to the kinds of things

Terrorists do they were our allies in Afghanistan judge some of our best allies in Afghanistan And let me tell you something else. One of the things that got Israel into Iran and placed all these strategic drones and such was Afghans. Afghans whom they recruited out of Afghanistan who had a bone to pick with Iran, which Afghanistan always has, and they paid them and they went in. And now Iran's captured a great many of them. And I'll give you two guesses as to what's going to happen to them. Wow. How is it that Trump can, um, avoid hard Intel and just make a decision because BB wants it because the pressure on him, I think, from these

billionaires who are behind him, one third of whom are Jewish Americans, as to say, dual citizens at a minimum, they want this to happen. They want this to happen. I've said all along, Israel is our attack dog in the Levant, and our attack dog has to accomplish the missions we wanted to accomplish, one of which is regime change in Iran. And what I fear greatly now, Judge, is they cannot accomplish that. They are not going to accomplish that. So we're going to jump in to try and do it ourselves. What will the Russians, the Chinese, the Pakistanis do? The Russians will probably exult in the high oil prices because it will just be a god. It'll be a windfall for them because oil will go up to maybe even a hundred or more dollars

a barrel. I don't think in the long run though either China or Russia is going to be very happy about this. And I might suggest that there will be some clandestine activity that will move into the region to counter some of the things that we're trying to do if it's successful. Now I don't think for a moment that this country of 90,000 people, 50% Persian, this country will collapse. The only way we will be able to change that regime is to mount the peninsula as it were, to put troops on the ground and march into Iran. That'll be the end of the American Empire.

See if these clips ring a bell and if history isn't repeating itself, Chris. Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort, no effort to disarm as required by the international community. Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations

to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger. They have ballistic missiles that can now reach deep into Europe and soon could reach the United States. You want these people to have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to your cities? Today it's Tel Aviv, tomorrow it's New York. LBJ and his domino theory, today Tel Aviv, tomorrow New York. You know, he actually, Netanyahu actually stole

line for line, word for word, a line from Bush's speech to Congress. He said we cannot allow the world's most dangerous nation to have the world's most dangerous weapons. Imagine who has, he just stole that right out of there. He's the world's most dangerous nation. He possesses the world's most dangerous weapons. Don't you agree? I agree and I think that if Israel and it looks like they might right now gets into circumstances

Where he thinks he's in peril and his state may be possibly too, which means he's in peril big time He will use a nuclear weapon and that frightens me It really does because I have no doubt that Golda Meir was telling the truth in 1973 when she looked at that BBC reporter over the phone, she was actually talking to him on the phone, and said when he asked her, would you use the nuclear weapon if you were in dire straits? Absolutely, she said. When the British parliament was debating a motion by then Prime Minister Tony Blair to have the British military join the American invasion of Iraq. I don't know how much help they provided, but they had a great debate on the floor of the British House of Commons. We're going to play for you the last two minutes of the best of those

arguing against military intervention, Sir Anthony Wedgwood-Benn. Before you play it, let me just tell you, I was in London when I got immersed in the largest anti-war demonstration in the world's history. Two and a half million people were surrounding me. The bobby's horses couldn't even move. Is this when you were chief of staff of the State Department? Yes, and I happened to be in London when that outburst broke. It was incredible. You may have been very close to this when it was said. I'll finish up by saying this. War is an easy thing to talk about.

There are not many people of the generation that remember it. The right honorable gentleman served with the six and the last of them. I never killed anyone, but I wore uniform. But I was in London in the blitz in 1940, living in the Milbank Tower where I was born. Some different ideas have come in since. Every night I went down to the shelter in Thames House. Every morning I saw Dockland burning. 500 people were killed in Westminster one night by a landmine. It was terrifying. Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't

Iraqis terrified? Don't Iraqis and Iraqis women weep when their children die? Doesn't bombing strengthen their determination? What fools we are to live in a generation for which war is a computer game for our children and just an interesting little Channel 4 news item. Every member of Parliament tonight who votes for the Government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will. That is for their decision to take. This is a quite unique debate, in my parliamentary experience, where we are asked to share responsibility

for a decision we will not really be taking, with consequences for people who have no part to play in the brutality of the regime which we are dealing with. I finish with this. On 24 October 1945, the former Prime Minister from Bexley and Old Stuttgart will remember it, the United Nations Charter was passed. The words of that Charter etched into my mind and moved me even as I think of them. We, the people of the United Nations, determined to save future generations, succeeding generations, from the scourge of war which twice in our lifetime has caused untold suffering to mankind. That was the pledge of that generation to this generation, and it would be the greatest betrayal of all if we voted to abandon the Charter and take

unilateral action and pretend we were doing it in the name of the international community. And I shall vote against the motion for the reasons that I've given. There was a gentleman. There is no great debate here. There was a gentleman who looked a little like him without the British accent, who stood on an empty Senate floor, Senator Byrd, and he said, listen, we're getting ready to make a monumental decision.

And you could hear a pin drop. There's no one here but me and the pages. This decision will be made by an intellectually challenged person in a windowless room surrounded by people who will tell them what he wants to hear. Yes, absolutely. I believe that now I held out some hope, some faint hope for this man, but I've lost it all now. So let's say he announces tonight, we'll wait a couple of weeks to bring Iran back to the negotiating table. The Israelis can do what they want, but we're not going to get involved for a couple of weeks.

Don't worry about it, Ayatollah, we're not going to get involved for a couple of weeks. Don't worry about it, Ayatollah. We're not going to do anything. Who would believe him after the subterfuge in Saudi Arabia last month, Colonel? Absolutely true. Absolutely true. But I will say this. I'll believe him because I'm so desperate I'd believe anything

right now. I wonder if you'll believe this. This is Senator Slotkin interrogating the Secretary of Defense, who is a graduate of the same academic institution I am, the third oldest university in the United States. What he says at the end about books is simply reprehensible. the Donald Trump giving that order to your predecessor, to a Republican secretary of defense, who I give a lot of credit to because he didn't accept the order. He had more guts and balls than you because he said, I'm not going to send in the uniform

military to do something that I know in my gut isn't right. He was asked to shoot at their legs. He wrote that in his book. That's not hearsay. So you're poo-pooing of this. It just shows you don't understand who we are as a country Who we are and all my colleagues across the aisle, especially the ones that served should want an apolitical military and not want citizens To be scared of their own military. I love the military. I served alongside my whole life

So I'm worried about you tainting it. Have you given the order? Have you given the order that they can use lethal force against honor? I want the answer to be no. Please tell me it's no. Have you given the order? Senator, I'd be careful what you read in books and believing it except for the Bible. Oh my God. Oh my God. That's my comeback too. That's as bad as Ted Cruz telling Tucker Carlson that the Bible tells him if he's not on Israel's side, he might be in peril. It is just as bad. I was going to raise the Ted Cruz stuff. I don't know how that guy can show his face after what Tucker did to him. He did it to himself. Tucker is just the instrument of exposing Cruz's frauds. But that statement he made at the end without saying, as McGregor said, here's the standard

for the use of military force. You can't use deadly force unless it's being used on you. No person under my command will be using deadly force unless deadly force is used on them. Instead he mocked up by laughing at her and gave this absurd answer, defying his own Princeton education. Don't believe what you read in books except in the Bible. Well that got him out of having to tell an abject lie. Yeah. She asked him if he had given authority in the rules of engagement for deadly force. He never answered that question. Correct, correct. Here's Tucker Carlson going after Senator Cruz on this issue of what does the Bible command. You're a senator and you're going by the old testament. Well,

here it is. Cut 22. Growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible, those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed. And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things. Those who bless the government of Israel? Those who bless Israel is what it says. It doesn't say the government of it, it says the nation of Israel. So that's in the Bible. As a Christian, I believe that. Where is that? I can find it to you. I don't have the scripture off the tip of my, you pull out the phone

and use the- It's in Genesis, but so you're quoting a Bible phrase, you don't have context for it, you don't know where in the Bible it is, but that's like your theology? I'm confused. What does that even mean? Tucker.

I'm a Christian, I wanna know what you're talking about. Okay, where does my support for Israel come from? Number one, because biblically we're commanded to support Israel, but number two- Hold on. No, no, no. Hold on. You're a senator and now you're throwing out theology and I am a Christian and I am allowed

to weigh in on this. We are commanded as Christians to support the government of Israel? We are commanded to support Israel. And we're told- What does that mean, Israel? We're told those who bless Israel will be blessed. But what, hold on, define Israel. This is important.

Are you kidding? This is a majority Christian country. To define Israel? Do you not know what Israel is? That would be the country you've asked like 49 questions about. So that's what Genesis, that's what God is talking about in Genesis. The nation of Israel, yes.

So is that the current borders, the current leadership? He's talking about the political entity called Israel? He's talking about the nation of Israel. You had nations exists and he's discussing a nation. A nation was the people of Israel. Is the nation God is referring to in Genesis, is that the same as the country run by Benjamin Netanyahu right? Yes. Yes It is and by the way, it's not run by Benjamin Netanyahu as a dictator. It's it's a But just just like you know America is the country run by Donald Trump

No, actually the American people elected Donald Trump the same principle is silly I'm talking about the political entity of modern Israel America is the country run by Donald Trump. No, actually the American people elected Donald Trump. The same principle is there. This is silly. I'm talking about the political entity of modern Israel. Yes, and that is Israel. You believe that's what God was talking about in Genesis. I do, but- That country's existed since when? For thousands of years.

Now there was a time when it didn't exist and then it was recreated just over 70 years ago. I'm saying, I think most people understand that line in Genesis to refer to the Jewish people, God's chosen people. That's not what it says. Okay, it is real, but you don't even know where in the Bible it is. Other, I'm sorry to say, Princeton graduate, Ted Cruz, actually claiming his votes on the floor of the Senate are directed by the Old Testament.

And Nebuchadnezzar came into that group called the Israelites, not Israel, conquered them, burned their temple, put those he didn't kill in slavery, and they wandered for years. Is that the same country that was blessed by God? The terrible, terrible state of affairs. I mean, if APAC and its colleagues have succeeded in exploiting a mentality like that and somebody as smart as Cruz, Alan Dershowitz, I'm not fond of quoting him,, Alan Dershowitz, I'm not fond of quoting him,

but Alan Dershowitz says Ted Cruz is the smartest student he ever taught in 40 years at Harvard Law School, whatever. If AIPAC can permeate a mentality of members of Congress like that, hope is lost. Well, they're all operating judge on the theory that Charles and David, mostly Charles Cote, created some years ago, quarter century plus ago, when they created their first wedge of allies to perpetrate their theories throughout the American government and people.

And that was, don't ever criticize each other. Praise each other to the high heavens. Even if you're disgusted by your fellow human being doing this or doing that, praise each other to the high heavens, even if you're disgusted by your fellow human being doing this or doing that, praise them because we must be in unity to take over this country. Wow. What will be the international reaction if Trump directs the dropping of 30,000 pound bombs on Tehran?

First of all, I think the physics of it is such that they won't do anything except rattle some windows in the near vicinity. They will not affect the depth that is necessary to be affected in order to take out any other place with deep underground nuclear facilities, just too deep. What it will do is exactly what it does, what we did when we attacked the Houthis. It will show how feckless we are and how our threats really can't be carried out.

And that's a dangerous thing, just as it was with the Houthis. Very dangerous to say you're gonna do what Hexess said he was gonna do and what Trump said he was gonna do and then be utterly incapable of doing it. Wow. China, Russia, Pakistan, how will they react? All good questions. Pakistan would react as the ISI would tell it to react probably. What does that mean? Transfer offensive nuclear weapons to Tehran because they have offensive

nuclear weapons. I don't think so. I think they have a contract with Saudi Arabia. My bin Salman, he gave him $20 billion for that. I think they would pass them to him, But I do think they would do some, as they have been doing in Kashmir, they might do some really nefarious things with their terrorist groups and disavow they'd done it, of course. And Netanyahu's comments about there needing to be regime change in Islamabad, he just made an arch enemy of Pakistan. He just made an arch enemy of Pakistan.

Wow. Is there any institution, establishment, moral principle that he is unwilling to transgress? None. None whatsoever. And Putin knows that, Xi Jinping knows that, and they know that this strategic purpose of what we're having Israel do right now, particularly with regard to this last country, Iran, in the clean break strategy, Putin and Xi know that this is aimed at them. It's aimed at China in terms of its southern-based road initiative, and it's aimed at Russia in terms of cementing its non-presence in southwest Asia.

Those are two very strategic objectives that the Empire has, the United States has, and Israel's carrying them out for us. Whether they're cognizant of it or not, I don't know, but that's what they're doing. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, a pleasure, my dear friend, no matter how bad the news is or unpleasant it is to discuss. It's always a joy to be with you. I hope we can do it in person again as we did, you know, last year. But thank you very much for your time, dear Colonel. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. Let me tell you what you've done, Judge. You smoked out MSNBC, CNN, and today

an invitation from the BBC's flagship program in London. Wow, meaning you turned them down. I turned them all down. We're judging freedom. I know. Next time I see you're gonna get a lot of kisses on that head of yours. Thank you. You're more powerful than any of those people. Thank you, Colonel. All the best to you, my friend. Take care. Bye bye. A brilliant guy and a character. Coming up tomorrow, Friday, the end of the week, the end of the day, four o'clock, the Intelligence Community Roundtable. And who are we missing this week? 430 tomorrow, Professor John Mearsheimer on all of this. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. MUSIC