Judging Freedom - Kyle Anzalone : Advantage Iran!

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Kyle Anzalone : Advantage Iran!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? What if Jefferson was right? What if that government is best, which governs least?

What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, March 30, 2006, Kyle Anselaun, from the Kyle Anzalone's show and from anti-war.com joins us now. Kyle, it's a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for taking the time to accommodate my schedule.

One minute, Trump praises the so-called productive negotiations. The next minute he threatens to bomb civilian infrastructure and the power grid. So how desperate is he? He seems very desperate because now the interval isn't even a few minutes. It's a few seconds. Sometimes within the same sentence. He's saying that, oh, thoughts are going well, yet we have to blow them up. It's really incomprehensible to try to understand what the United States, what Donald Trump is trying to achieve in Iran, what he thinks he's accomplishing by giving these completely contradictory messages all the time.

You know, 24-7, we're hearing different messages from him. Of course, you know, last night was Sunday night. Today was Monday morning. Markets were about to open. So we heard some rhetoric suggesting tauts are going in the right direction. I think, you know, that we saw that last week, too. Trump is trying to build up the markets on Monday. He doesn't want the war to reflect negatively in the stock market.

But it didn't seem to work as well today as it did last week. I think the, you know, the utility he's gay now that is wearing out. and he doesn't really have a good option here. I mean, has he still stated what his objective is? I mean, he has gone from regime change, that's out, seizing their nuclear-enriched uranium, that's out, getting rid of Iran's offensive ballistic missiles, that's out. Now he wants to open the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before he started the war. He probably can't do that, even though I think Chris has a quote in which he says,

we'll open it so fast your head will spin. I'm not sure which one it is, Chris. I think it's number six. All right, number three, whichever one it is, play it, Chris. The issue of the Strait of Hormuz and he ran control of it charging tolls, What do you think about that? Well, I have to find out of it's true. I mean, you know, they're going to do whatever they have to do.

We could close that up in two minutes. We could close that up so fast your head would spin. So does he even know what he's talking about? He doesn't want it closed. He wants it open. Yeah, he must not have any idea what he's talking about. At this point, you know, the real debate is whether Trump is just constantly lying or he's so mentally, cognitively compromised.

at this point in his life that he really just doesn't understand and is spouting off whatever headset or Rubio or Wickcalf or Kushner told him. But yeah, as you said, John, so the problem is, is that the straight of Hormuz is closed, not that we need to close it. And if Ron imposed a toll, well, then that would be Iran opening it to select ships. And so the U.S. wouldn't have the ability to shut that down unless they could reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

and assuming that we could do that, Trump would have already done it. So the fact that the Strait of Hormuz is still closed is pretty good evidence of that. I read a report in Bloomberg today that over the past month, only five ships that weren't linked to Iran or Iranian vessels exited the Strait of Hormuz. And three of those were on March 1st. And I don't think there's been any since March 9th. So the oil that is tied to the U.S. and's allies is not flowing. Iranian oil profits had doubled during the first month of this conflict.

And in fact, over a third of the ships that have exited this Strait of Hormuz were ships that were sanctioned by the U.S. Iranian ships that were sanctioned by the U.S. And once the U.S. lifted sanctions, those ships headed on their way to China or India. I don't know where this is going. He would be, he'd never admit it, but he would be happy to have an agreement. with Iran, much like the JCPOA, which he ripped up because it provided for inspections, including American inspectors. I think he ripped it up, literally ripped it up in a moment of peak listening to John Bolton during his first term. Yeah, Judge, I think that's a correct

assessment of this situation. I think whatever deal Donald Trump ends up making to extricate the Americans from this war, it's not going to be good for the U.S. in the long term. We may not be able to return to many of our military bases in the Middle East. In fact, a lot of these Gulf Arab countries may turn to China or Russia to make security partnerships and paths between them in Iran to keep them safe going forward in the future. Iran may just claim sovereignty or the straight of Hormuz in the future, which means that any ship entering or exiting the Persian Gulf can be charged atoll by the Iranians if they choose to do so and that would, you know, enrich Iran and relieve a lot of the problems that they have. Also,

the U.S. is already lifting sanctions on Iran. What Iran's been trying to do over the past few decades is to have something we're trading to the Americans to get the sanctions lifted off of Iran and the Americans have refused to do so. Now just after a month of war, some of those sanctions are being lifted. So I think from the Iranian perspective, you know, having this war go on for some time, they're just actually achieving more and more by establishing dominance over the Strait of Formuz. So what has been accomplished by the war so far? Well, again, for the Iranians, 13 American bases in the region have been destroyed. I think they've proven that their missile stoppiles can outlast the U.S. and Israeli stoppile of interceptors.

Getting control over the Strait of Formos is big. Already the lifting of some sanctions, but Iran has massive economic. leverage at this point. The world oil markets and world leaders are crying and they're saying, hey, we got to get out of this conflict. The South Korean leader says he doesn't sleep at night because of the pending oil crisis. Economists are saying that we're going to see 4% inflation in the United States by the end of the year. And that's in the best case scenario where this war ended today. And it's not going to end it today. The Qataris are saying that they're not going to be able to fulfill a lot of their LNGS boards for the Nets 3.

three to five years. This is an absolute catastrophe judge. And that, it would be a catastrophe if it ended today. And it shows no sign of slowing down at this point. Here's General Barry McCaffrey on one of the talk shows, giving a very interesting scenario or synopsis, I should say, sorry, of where Trump is. Now he begins by referring to Hegsseth as a comic book. tough guy who has caused hysteria and chaos in the Pentagon. Chris number five. Higgs says in some ways looks like a comic book, Tough Guy. And so I think increasingly inside the Pentagon, there's an element of chaos and hysteria to decision making. Our remaining objectives in the Gulf War are stop the nuclear program and open the Gulf of Hormuz. Each of them are in,

danger. You cannot stop a nuclear weapons program unless you have inspectors on the ground with robust rules of investigation. That's not going to happen under the current approach by the United States or Israel. The second thing you've got to do, you've got to open the Gulf Hormuz. I think the Iranians can outlast us. And no U.S. Navy warfighting vessel wants to be in the Persian Gulf, shallow water, restricted maneuver space, and subject to instant attack by mini-subs, floating naval mines, cruise ballistic missiles. It's just a nightmare of an operation. So the whole notion of forcing passage, even if the NATO allies joined us, is really

tenuous. This is probably not going to work. We have to have a diplomatic solution. I wonder if anybody gives Trump advice like that in the White House or if they're afraid to give him advice that it's not filled with bellicosity and threats of slaughter. I don't believe so, Judge. A lot of the reports I've read about the briefings that Trump is getting every 48 hours, the Department of War puts together a two or three-minute video of the highlights of the military operations over the past two days. Wait, let me stop you. He's not briefed by briefed.

first like you and I are talking, he's briefed by watching television and watching a video? I think he's getting short briefings too, although I've read reports that they're only a few minutes long. But if we're looking at Donald Trump and what catches his attention, what the president seems to like, I think he's probably enthralled by these two minute videos where, you know, there are five to 10 seconds of you see a missile launch or a plane or at least what's purported to be, you know, a missile factory, some building. and it blows up. And I'm sure the president is staying there next to Pete headset, Seth, high-fiving and celebrating as they watch us. But of course, it's achieving absolutely nothing. I guess the president doesn't understand or again is just lying about the level of crisis that we're in right now, the problem we've gotten ourselves in. And look, they're talking about sending ground troops to the Middle East at this point. President Donald Trump directed the American people to watch the Mark Levins show and Mark Thurton.

was on there arguing for a ground invasion. We got the 82nd airborne arriving just today in the Middle East, two Marine Expeditionary units on the way. It looks like he's gearing up for a major escalation here. And what are these ground troops going to achieve? What are they going to accomplish? Unfortunately, I think they're just going to become targets for the Iranians. Look, you know, Iran fired a lot of their long-range missiles at Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East, but everybody knows they have massive stoppiles of short-range drones and missiles. They are prepared for an American ground invasion. If we try to take cargo island, the Iranians will bombard it. They'll use their drones, which we've seen are highly precise. And so they could probably hit the drones without hitting the military, hit the Americans without hanging the oil refineries and the Iranian infrastructure. on the island. So it seems like an absolutely terrible move. I've taught to many former members of the

U.S. military and intelligence community who had told me on my show that this, this is an absolute suicide mission. Trump shouldn't do it. And yet the whole war was an absolute folly. Right. The big goal of the war now is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz that was open before the war started. And so it's just going to continue to become a bigger calamity until Trump cuts his losses and leaves. Do you think that Netanyahu is panicking? I'm not sure about that. He is authorizing Israel to Tate Southern Lebanon, which has been a real desire of the Israelis for some time. It's part of the Greater Israel Project.

If he was panicked, I'm not sure he would deploy a significant number of his troops into southern Lebanon, where they seem to be. taking some pretty hard losses. Asbala was not as beaten as the Israelis anticipated. They've been able to take out Israeli taints. A lot of young Israelis are being killed in southern Lebanon. And if he was panicked, I'm not sure he would order this operation. This may be exactly what Netanyahu wants for this war to continue to drag on, for the U.S. and Israel to continue to pummel Iran, hitting more and more civilian infrastructure, trying to make sure that the society. society cannot recover. And if that happens in Iran does significant damage to Washington's Gulf Arab allies, I think for Israel, all the better, because if Saudi Arabia decides that

they want to go ahead and make a deal with China and kit the Americans are not let the Americans rebuild their military bases, then Israel could eye up and start taking pieces of Saudi Arabia or Jordan if they take similar stuff. So this is exactly the scenario that Benjamin and Yahoo wants. And that's why Israel is doing things like attacking the people in Iran assassinating the ones that Donald Trump wanted to take over the country, attacking water infrastructure, oil infrastructure. So this conflict continues to escalate. So it's harder to end. So Iran is bombed more and the Gulf Arab states are bombed more. Wow. Does Netanyahu confer with Trump before he bombs infrastructure and fuel?

I'm sure he doesn't have to. He knows he has a blank chip from the Americans that were essentially backing everything that the Israelis are doing. I'm sure there has to be some joint command center between the U.S. and the Israelis just to ensure that we're not bombing the same targets. Our forces aren't getting too close together,

things like that. But overall, it seems that the Israelis, just have a blank check from the Americans to hit what they want. Donald Trump may come out and say we don't certain things, but that's all to put spin on it and to try to downplay or get the Iranians to back off hitting, say, golf Arab infrastructure or something like that. Do you know of any significant analysts who take Trump seriously when he says we're engaged in productive negotiations and they've accepted most of our 15 points?

I mean, this is just absurd. It is. It seems to be just kind of the same war huts that we've heard for the past two decades telling us, you know, that the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan were going to be successes. You know, they're the ones telling us that Donald Trump is doing the right thing, that this is going the way we wanted to, that every escalation is, was necessary to win the conflict to finally end the war. But it just ends up embroiling the Americans more, costing us more. and Iran, you know, seeming to have a better and better hand to play to get at the end of this conflict. Watch this on Air Force One in which he claims that Iran has agreed to so many of the 15 points we're going to ask for more. I mean, this is just ridiculous if he thinks people believe him. Chris, number seven.

You had offered that 15-point plan to Iran. Did they ever come back to him? Yeah, they came back on the 15-point plan. They gave us most of the points. Why wouldn't they? And you make it sound like they've made some concessions. Can you identify those? Well, they're agreeing with us on the planet. I mean, we asked for 15 things, and for the most part, we're going to be asking for a couple of other things. We're having very good meetings, both directly and indirectly, and I think we're getting a lot of very important points. The Iranian leadership says no meetings are taking place, and there's no communities are taking place, and there's no community.

communication directly or indirectly. I think he's saying these things to stabilize the market and the price of oil. Absolutely. And this is how Donald Trump views dealmaking, and it's why on the geopolitical stage, he's never been able to get anything done. You know, he did this in his New York business deals where they would agree to something and then he would demand a little bit more. And because of the corruption in New York City, he was able to operate in that way. But on the way, but on the world stage it simply doesn't work. And so even if this was true where the Iranians agreed to Trump basically capitulated, Donald Trump would then ask for more and it would make a deal impossible to achieve that. Again, that's why Donald Trump has never been able to get any deal done

as president and why he's not going to get a deal done to end this war. And then he goes on to say, well, you just bomb him a little bit more while he's on Air Force One there. And so he's basically telling the Iranians not to negotiate with us because even if you agree to what we want, we're going to then bomb you more and ask for more. And so there's really no off for them for the Iranians. And honestly, Judge, at this point, I don't think they're looking at one, looking for one. I think the Iranians are looking for a way to deter the United States from ever attacking Iran again. And in previous bouts of fighting in the Middle East, like after the Israelis blew up an Iranian embassy in Damascus or the 12-day war, Iran tried to show militarily that they could fight back

and that they could hurt the U.S., that they could hurt Israel. And that wasn't enough to deter those two states. And so now they're trying to inflict a political defeat on the Republicans in the United States to make it, you know, a part of the American political zygai is that a war with Iran is bad politics. And they think that's going to deter the Americans. and they may be right about that. Here he is on first we negotiate and then we kill. Number nine, Chris.

We're doing extremely well in that negotiation, but you never know with Iran because we negotiate with him and then we always have to blow them up, whether it's a B2 bombers or just terminating as an example, the Iran nuclear deal done by Barack Hussein Obama, probably the worst deal we've ever done as a country you're one of the dumbest deals. He couldn't tell you why it was a dumb deal.

He probably doesn't even know that it provided for inspections, including American inspectors. Yeah, he has no idea. Some Israel lobbyists, maybe Mariam or Sheldon Adelson themselves, told President Donald Trump that the deal was going to allow Iran to get a nuclear bomb in 20 years and that it was a bad deal. and we gave them piles of cash that they used to fund terrorist groups throughout the Middle East, when, of course, at the time that Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018,

Iranian bad forces across the Middle East were actually, particularly in Iraq, working with the Americans to fight against the Islamic State. So Iran wasn't funding terrorists. They were funding Shia militias that were fighting against terrorists. And of course, the deal didn't allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon in 20, years. It imposed restrictions on Iran's nuclear program. Some of those restrictions were lifted over time, like the 3.6% cap on the level of uranium enrichment. But they were only going to go up to 20%, which is medical grade anyways, which they're allowed to as being a member of the nonproliferation treaty,

as most countries in the world are. And Iran was going to have inspections of their nuclear program that would ensure it stayed a civilian program for energy for medical and not be weaponized. And all of the Ron won in exchange was sanctions relief. And Donald Trump reimposed the sanctions when he got out of the deal to try to get a better deal from the Iranians. But it was already a good deal in the first place. And so that, you know, create the crisis that we have today in a way. Here's the president of Egypt in a rather emotional address. to President Trump. Cut number four, Chris.

I say to you, President Trump, that absolutely no one else has the power to stop the escalating war in our region, specifically here in the Gulf, except for you. And I am speaking to you in the name of humanity and on behalf of all peace lovers. And you, Mr. President, are among those who love peace. I am addressing you directly. In my name, in the name of the entire region and in the name of the whole world. and the dangerous consequences of this war continuing are even greater than this. Please, Mr. President, please, we are asking you to please help us bring an end to this war

because we know that you are truly capable of doing so. Not sure what that was all about, but it's rather emotional, like we can't deal with it much longer, and it's going to start hurting us as well. Yeah, well, we're looking at world, not only oil crisis, but also in the long-term food crisis, right? A lot of fertilizer, the components that end up creating the fertilizer come from the Middle East. And so if that's cut off now, the fertilizer isn't being produced. Farmers can't buy it to feed their crops.

And so this is going to make the food crisis worse. And there's already the war in Ukraine going on that's cut into the world food production, global food production. And so this is going to add to that crisis. Maybe that's what it's concerned about. One of the things here is that I don't know if he's right saying that Donald Trump could just stop this himself. Donald Trump has to figure out how to rein in Benjamin Netanyahu. Also, the Iranians get to say how and when this war ends.

Now, I suppose Donald Trump could agree to pay the Iranians war reparations, but I'm not sure Congress would go along with that. I think there's a lot of people in Congress who are beholden to the Israel lobby. If Netanyahu wasn't prepared for this war to end, he would put pressure on people like, Chuck Schumer to say, no, we're not going to pay the Iranians' war reparations to end this thing. And so then it continues. Trump put himself in this position, but it's going to be hard for him to get himself out now. Nicely put, Kyle. Thank you very much for your time, my dear friend. All the best to you. Thank you very much, Judge. Sure. Thank you. Tomorrow Tuesday, at 8 in the morning, Ambassador

Chaz Freeman, at 9 in the morning, Professor John Mearsheimer, at 1 in the afternoon. Scott Ritter at two in the afternoon, Matthew Ho, at three in the afternoon, Colonel Karen Koukowski. If you're interested in my views on personal liberty and a free society, I'm recording about a five or a six minute little talk each week. We just take the one for this week. Chris will have it posted soon. It's audio only, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, I heart, Amazon music, wherever you get, judging freedom, audio only. Judge Napolitano Weekly, defending freedom, defending personal liberty in a free society. We'll see tomorrow. Thank you for watching. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.