Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson : End of an Alliance? NATO’s Uncertain Future

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Larry Johnson : End of an Alliance? NATO’s Uncertain FutureSee 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? 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, February 2nd, 226. My dear friend, Larry Johnson, joins us now. Larry, a pleasure. Thank you, as always, for combating my schedule. Before we get to NATO in your views of where it's going, do you think that Trump and his advisors will seriously contemplate a war, or at least an attack on Iran, as a means to divert the attention of the American public from Trump's dismal domestic woes? I doubt it because it would be the equivalent of setting their hair on fire, and, you know, why do that much more damage to yourselves? You know, I think the military planners at the Pentagon

finally got through to Trump and his team to say, this is a no-win situation for us. I don't know who started calling it the Armada, but as, you know, I think Alistair Crook, cleverly noted earlier on your show, that Armada, the Spanish Armada, didn't work out too well, you know, back when they went up against England. And in this particular case,

the reality is the United States does not have the military force to inflict the kind of damage he claims it wants to inflict on Iran. example. They're saying they're going to have, sorry about that. They're saying they're going to have to keep their ships about 1,000 miles offshore because of there are at least five different types of Iranian drones that can fly over 1,000 miles, some up to 2,000 miles.

That's number one. And they've got missiles. Now, some have said, well, yeah, it's tough to hit an aircraft carrier as a missile. generally that's true unless it's guided and the Iranians have already demonstrated they've got some hypersonic missiles that they can maneuver they can steer so once the U.S. is you know the weapon the U.S. is going to launch on Iran sorry do you need to stop or get water no we're good okay now the Tomahawk missile that is is going to be fired into Iran?

It's got a range of about a thousand miles, maybe 1,500 tops. Well, just, you know, if they're firing from 1,000 miles out, it's barely going to reach shore. So, you know, when you put all this together, coupled with the fact that these destroyers that accompany the carrier, the U.S. aircraft carrier and the cruisers, they launch what are called vertical launch system cells, they're think of a group of it's like they're like my cup only they're embedded in the deck of the ship

and missiles are placed inside those the defensive missiles or the tomahawks and once they're fired from that cell it's empty and once it's empty it's not a simple matter that the guys on the ship say oh let's go let's put in some new missiles nope you got a cell to a port to reload it have to be loaded with a crane So right away, this would put the U.S. Navy, and they'd have an ability to fire out maybe two to three days. And this is, you know, Alistair and I were thinking, reading the same script on this. And that means the U.S. Navy is going to have to pull out. Once the destroyers leave, the carrier's got to go with them because those destroyers are the only protection the carrier has. So really what you're looking at is the best the United States could do with just one

Carrier Task Force is stay in the fight for about three to four days because Iran's going to be fighting back with drones and missiles in a scale that the Houthis could never do, but Iran can and is ready to do so. So when you said the Pentagon's military planners finally got through to the president, I chuckled a little bit thinking that means they bypassed their boss. That means they bypassed Pete Hagseth because he'll say yes to anything. the president wants, whether it's feasible or not? Well, there is a, no, he was probably informed.

And there's something called the military terminology is SDOB. You know, in the military, you've got to have an acronym. SDOB stands for Secretary of Defense orders book. It's a way that orders for action are circulated. And it's been one of those warning signs along with the number of orders from a local pizza shop. that when you see these ordered SDOB starting to move and proliferate, that's a sign that a military action is imminent. What I'm hearing is nobody's seeing the SDOBs.

And the reason for the pizza shop is because that means they're working late and they don't have time to get a legitimate dinner and they're ordering in a lot of pizzas. Yeah, because the cafeterias are closed and they're out working after hours, which means you've got to go to the pizza joints. They also have used the, well, I'll ignore the other metric that you use, but it's pretty funny. Yeah, all right. So what is Trump's strategy?

Can you discern what his strategy is on Iran? Why would he even tell the American people he's engaging in this fight? He can't say I'm going to do it to protect Israel because Nizano doesn't want it done because he's fearful of the Iranian response. Well, we have to go back to the CIA, the intelligence covert action that was launched on December 28th. And Scott Besson, the U.S. Secretary of Treasury, admitted, yeah, it was an economic attack by the United States. The design was create protests and infiltrate those protesters with outsiders or with elements that are directly working with the Western intelligence. began a cycle of violence, attack protesters, attack government targets, try force the government into overreacting,

try to create enough of a swell of government opposition that then on January 13th, there would have been an attack. But that didn't happen because on January 8th or 9, the Iranians with the help of Russians and Chinese, intercepted and shut down the Starlink network, that was being used to communicate and coordinate these activities. So Trump had been promised up to that point that, you know, we do all this and all this unrest and all these protests, the government will collapse.

Well, it didn't. So this was, so they went back for phase two, which was, okay, we're going to attack, we're going to, you know, attack them ourselves. And that's why they started moving the carrier strike group to the Arabian Sea and started deploying F-35s in the region. Well, Iran countered and said, in the 12-day war, there were negotiations behind the scenes where the United States was allowed to make a strike on the nuclear sites up north in Iran. And in exchange, Iran got to launch a missile strike in Al-Udid, Air Force Base, and Qatar.

And then we called it a day. And this time, the United States apparently made the same kind of offer. Iran said, hell no. If we're bombed, if we're attacked at all, we're going to go into a complete regional war. We're going to attack every U.S. military base in the region. We're going to attack Iran and we're not going to sit back. Yeah, we'll suffer casualties.

We'll suffer losses. But we're going to shut you down. And we're going to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. So no oil comes out of the Gulf. Well, at that point, a number of countries, particularly the Saudis, the Emirates, as well as Chinese and Russians, they're making, communicating Donald Trump, don't do this. This is going to cause major disruption.

And in tandem with that, apart from sort of this standoff on the military front, you have a complete chaos in the economic. international economic system. It was highlighted by the dramatic rise and then fall of the price of silver and gold. On top of that, you saw the spike in the price of oil out of the Persian Gulf. The Brent went up to $70, I believe.

And as the backdrop to all of this, you've got Scott Besson insisting that the tariff program's working. Meanwhile, what has actually happened is China has diversified, its economy, it's basically shifting away. So not only what Trump was facing was if he went forward with the military operation against Iran, you're going to trigger a financial crisis as well. And I don't think with his domestic standing fading that he was wanting to take that

additional step to cut off another one of his limbs. So how is the average American harmed? by the government of Iran. Not at all. In fact, the reality is Iran's never carried out terrorist attacks against, a terrorist attack is to find his attack against civilians for political purposes. Iran's never done that. Some people say, well, what about to take over the embassy in 1979 in Iran?

Well, that was different, and we had a hand in provoking that by providing safe haven for the Shah of Iran who was seen as a criminal, and that needed to be tried, imprisoned, or killed. But when you go back to it over the years, Iran has not been attacking the United States. To the contrary, it's the United States that's been attacking Iran. We encouraged Saddam Hussein not only encouraged him to attack Iran back in 1980, but we also provided him with chemical precursors that were used to make mustard gas, which cailed hundreds of thousands of Iranians.

And we can see the picture of Don Rumsfeld glad-handing with Saddam Hussein back in it was 81 or 82. So it's the United States that's been killing Iranians. We've been running a terrorist group called the Mech, sending the Mech into Iran who's carried. And this group has killed scientists, nuclear scientists. And we're using it as the excuse over preventing the development of a nuclear bomb, which Iran has never developed. Right. I'm smiling when you mentioned Rumsfeld. When I interviewed him, when I had my show on Fox,

I started the interview by putting up on the flat screen, a twice-life-size photograph of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Tom was saying when the interview was over, off air. He exploded at his PR person. Why didn't I know that that GD photograph? Why didn't you tell me the judge? was going to do that. Here's a pathetic plea to the present of the United States.

You can guess who this is from. Mr. President, please take down Iran. Chris, cut number four. The biggest thing you could possibly ever do to the Mideast is take this regime down and there's weakest they've ever been since 1979. Mr. President, you can do it. I hope you will do it. And if you do it, if you do it, this is Reagan bless.

It's always good to hear from the little old lady from South Carolina. That's what my mentor, Pat Lang, who was the head of the Middle East Division at DIA, called Lindsay. The little old lady from South Carolina. You know, he is completely divorced from reality. The United States does not have the military power to take down the regime. Tehran. We keep diluting ourselves. You know, we got run out of the Red Sea by the Houthis, and Iran has multiple, multiple times military capability, missiles, drones, intelligence. I mean, it's really like the difference between a t-ball league for eight-year-olds and a professional

baseball team. That's the difference between Yemen and Iran. in terms of their military capability. And if that T-ball team in Yemen could run us out of the Red Sea, and we think somehow we're going to prevail against Iran. And that's why I think Trump is finally realizing that he faces some real serious blowback to his administration, which is actually already in trouble. I mean, the Republicans just lost another Republican-south. seat in the House of Representatives, one that had been with the Republicans for some years

just the other day in Texas. Right. Just some breaking news from Mal Jazeera is really warplanes, target buildings in southern Lebanon. So here we go. Well, they haven't. Yeah, they violated the ceasefire. However, there is other breaking news as well that reports that Arakshi, the foreign of Iran is meeting with Steve Whitkov Friday in Istanbul.

So I think this will be Trump's exit from this confrontation. Here is that foreign minister making a very credible, in my view. You tell me what you think of its statement yesterday. Chris, cut number one. If war starts, that would be a disaster for everybody. In the previous war, we tried hard to limit the scope of war between Iran and Israel. This time, if it is between Iran and the U.S. Since the U.S. bases are spread all over the region,

then inevitably, you know, many parts of the region would be involved, engaged. And that could be very dangerous. Our missiles were tested in a real war last time, and we were able to, you know, understand their problems, their weak points and their strength. So we learned many lessons from those 12 days of war. And I think we are now very well prepared. But again, being prepared doesn't mean that we want war.

We want to prevent a war. I think he's very credible. Oh, yeah, very much so. Look, they got burned last time. You know, they were supposed to, they were anticipating peace talks in Oman with the Trump administration, and then they got blindsided, did a Pearl Harbor style attack from Israel with the U.S. backing. And during, you know, what was hilarious in the first days was initially, Trump disavowed any knowledge of it, then he said he had full knowledge about it.

So, you know, he couldn't make up his mind. But this time, Iran took a different tact, and they made sure up front, they told everybody what they were going to do. You know, sort of the Babe Ruth move, you know, pointing to center field. I'm going to hit it out there. Right, right. Iran said, all these U.S. bases, we're going to hit them. And we'll destroy them. The straight of her muse, we're going to close it.

And that's going to cut off at least 20 percent of the world oil supply. What happens to the price of gas in the United States? It's gasoline for your car in the United States if the streets of Hormuz are closed. It won't be as bad for the United States because we have alternative. We're largely self-sufficient with oil, but it would be devastating for Europe and Asia. And I think that's one of the reasons that Iran got out front like this was to energize other countries to intervene behind the scenes diplomatically to warn Trump off. And again, all of this is taking place against a change. changing financial system in which the previously the united states we could tell other people

what to do because we owned the dollar the dollar was king everybody had to use the dollar now that's not the case in fact that's one of the reasons we saw prices of gold and silver go up a decreasing number of countries they're buying gold and silver to keep it as an alternative to the u.s. dollar demand for dollar is dropping and the sales of U.S. treasuries are not going up, they're going down. So across the board, United States is now looking at possibly becoming economically isolated within a decade if this trend continues.

Sales of U.S. treasuries are going down. That means the interest the United States has to offer to get people to buy the treasuries, has to go up. Exactly. Yeah, we're caught in a real bind. And we've seen with the financial markets over the last five days, they're not acting normally. And what's normal? It's like you had the price of silver in New York now is down to like $75.

And in Shanghai, the price is still up around 105 or it was. That's, you know, when you got that kind of gap, that's what they called arbitrage. That means you go to New York, you buy up to silver. there and then you take it over to China and sell it there and that $30 spread, you're going to make... That's exactly right. And that's huge.

Normally the arbitrage we're talking about is 50 cents to a dollar. Yeah. And that means the system is not, it's broken. Tell me about the naval war games engaged

in between, I mean, to mean it, by using the word games. so correct me in the terminology between Iran, China, and Russia. Yeah, started back in 2018, the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians had discussions. It's okay, we need to start doing joint military exercises in the Arabian Sea, right outside the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. So they ran their first exercises, as I recall, in 2019, and then they have continued to do it annually.

And you need to understand these military exercises, They're not dreamed up on a spur of the moment. I mean, I spent 23 years involved with scripting military exercises. And the process usually starts 18 months, sometimes 24 months out. Because, you know, you have to agree upon a scenario and you have to identify which units are going to be involved. And then you produce what's called a measle, which is master sequence of events list. It's, you know, a sequence of events so that because you're trying to create a scenario. in which the different military units that are involved

will be able to exercise their command, how they communicate internally, how they do their own planning, what they need to do, how they assemble resources to carry out a particular mission, and then they may, in a real, in what we call a field exercise, an FTX,

they actually put, you know, do it. You know, they simulate. So the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians, They've been doing this now for eight years. So this is not new, but it is a reminder to the United States and the rest of the world that Iran is not alone. You know, the real irony here, Judge, is that Donald Trump walked away from the JCPOA. Now reportedly, they're going to, the United States is going to negotiate with Iran on Friday. And if Trump's smart, he'll take the deal.

Iran will be willing to take a deal where it will limit its processing and refinement of uranium. It will agree to limits on that, you know, take some, we'll get the highly enriched uranium from, say, Russia or China. But in exchange, it's got to have all the economic sanctions lifted. Well, go back when the JCPOA was in effect. Russia and China were aligned with the United States in Europe. in imposing sanctions on Iran. Now won't be the case. And, you know, the whole issue will be that Trump can get a deal where he'll have assurances

that Iran is not building a nuke, which intelligence community has been saying for the past 30 years, they're not building a nuke. It's against the religious directives of the Ayatollah. So the United States, Trump could come out of this with a deal where Iran has certified that it's not building a nuke and that there are procedures in place to detect and prevent that. But Iran's not going to give up its ballistic missiles.

Iran's not going to stop supporting Hamas and Hezbollah and other Shia groups that are fighting for their freedom. And what about Netanyahu? He'll have a fit. He can curl up in a fetal position. There's nothing Netanyahu can do to stop this. I mean, Netanyahu's got a pretty stark choice. either he he goes along with the united states negotiated a genuine agreement with iran that assures

Iran's not going to have nukes which in theory should give israel the comfort okay they're going to stop that but uh if he persists in trying to pressure trump into launching an attack on iran israel is going to be decimated because you know remember in october of 2024 iran issued a demonstration they launched missiles and drones and drones at Israel to say, here, here's what we can do. And it was in one of those attacks that they unveiled their hypersonic missile, where you could see it traveling as it came down to the ground. The missile deviated.

And then, I mean, it was in a flash of a second, but it did it. So they could maneuver. And but what the West took out of that is, oh, Iran's week. And then the January, the June 2025 attack started on June 13th. Again, they thought because of Iran's relatively limited response over the course of that, that Iran was weak. They've always interpreted Iran's restraint as weakness, and that has been a huge mistake. Before we finish, do NATO leaders really believe that the Kremlin will acquiesce

to permitting foreign troops on the ground in a post-war UConnish? Do they really think that Lavrov would go along and Putin would go along with that? If they do, they're wrong. I don't doubt that they believe that they could somehow force that through. But that's that's that is beyond a red line for Russia. Russia will never permit that. Won't permit U.S. troops on the ground. No foreign troops on its border.

That was one of what they call root cause. That's one of the root causes of this conflict. The fact that NATO kept putting. pushing, pushing to the east. And in the course of that period from like 1995, up until the start of the special military operation, the United States military and NATO conducted more military exercises with Ukraine, even though Ukraine was not a member of NATO,

but a military exercise that took place on Ukrainian territory, than the other, than 27 other countries in NATO. In other words, there were six other, five other countries that had as many exercises that have got more as Ukraine over that 35-year period. But within the total array of 32 countries of NATO, Ukraine was doing more U.S., NATO, military, exercises on its territory, then, you know, 85% of NATO. And that tells you something.

That's what Russia was pushing back at. That's what these crazies in NATO don't understand. We just got a copy of an interview. It's only about a 30-second clip with former Secretary of State and CIA director, Mike Pompeo, who's asked, why was there no help for regime change? Watch this, Chris. President Trump said help is underway. Iranian went to the street, but help didn't come.

Do you think, till now, the Trump administration lost an opportunity for a regime change during this uprising? No, I don't think so. By the way, help did come. Lots of help, Kim. You may not see it all. We may not know about it all, but I'm very confident that the United States is actively trying to do all all that it can to support the Iranian people.

Well, that was Channel 13 in Israel, so who knows what he's trying to say to please this audience. Is the United States still trying to bring about regime change? Did the CIA learn its lesson three weeks ago? No, it did not learn its lesson, and yes, it is still involved with trying to bring about regime change. United States is not going to stop until forced to stop. and, you know, the Iranians are going to enter into these negotiations. You know, clearly they would prefer to avoid going to war. The problem for the United States is we've become so accustomed to beating up

and killing people in countries that can't fight back that we have yet to really go up against a country that is capable of fighting back, like Iran is. and Iran will, its missile force is such that it will devastate U.S. ground forces and naval forces because there are ships that are birthed in Bahrain. And so this is, you know, Trump is playing a very dangerous game here.

And I think it's the combination of the chaos in the international economic markets, the pressure that's coming as a result of the Epstein revelations, the political defeat that facing the Republicans. All of this is coming together and I think forcing Trump to take a step back. Thank you, Larry. Great, great conversation. Very much appreciated. Thanks for all your knowledge, all your research. We'll look forward to seeing you with Ray on Friday afternoon. I'll be there. Thank you. Coming up later today at 2 o'clock this afternoon, Colleen Rowley, FBI veteran, retired FBI agent on all the things ISIS doing that's illegal and

criminal in Minneapolis. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.