Judging Freedom - *[MUST WATCH] - Col. Douglas Macgregor: Is War With Iran Coming?

Episode Date: September 4, 2024

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Thank you. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, September 4th, 2024. Colonel Douglas McGregor will be here with us on just a moment on how near is war between the United States and Iran. But first this. A divisive presidential election is upon us, and the winner is gold. Let me tell you what I mean. Since 2016, our national debt has grown a staggering 70% and gold has increased by 60%. Do you own gold? I do. I bought my gold in February 2023 and it has risen 33%. You've heard me talk about Lear Capital, the company I trust.

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Protect your savings and retirement before it's too late. 800-511-4620, learjudgenap.com. Remember, hope is not a strategy, but gold is. Colonel McGregor, my dear friend, welcome back to the show. Always a pleasure. I do want to explore at some length with you your views and analysis on whether or not war between the United States and Iran is likely, and if it were to happen, what you think it might look like. But there have been

some recent developments in Ukraine that I would like to ask you about. Over the weekend, two Russian ballistic missiles destroyed a Ukrainian military school. 50 people were killed, including several Polish instructors at the school, and 200 people were injured. Is a military school a legitimate military target, even if it's in a civilian area? Oh, absolutely. This was a place where they were training Ukrainian officers and senior NCOs to operate weapon systems and aircraft. So you're killing off the seed corn of any future operation. That's definitely something that you want to do. At the same time, or shortly thereafter, President Zelensky, who is not lawfully in office,

as we all know, but who has remained in power, has either fired or asked for and received the resignation of a substantial number of his cabinet, including his rather well-respected foreign minister. What's the significance of this, Colonel? Well, I don't know how well-respected Kuleba is. He's been a mouthpiece for innumerable lies and misinterpretations and fictions. I think the fact that Kuleba has submitted his papers indicates that the ship is sinking. Someone said to me, if you look at the various ministers that are there, most of them have been there from the beginning, but not all. And for them to resign at this point, you can't help but reach the conclusion that the ship is sinking.

If we could, Judge, I'd like to go back to this Poltava incident for just a minute. Sure. I think there are a couple of things that are very important about what happened. It's not just the selection of the target. In all wars, people do this Yamamoto when he developed the plan to attack Pearl Harbor the main goal of the plan was to kill as many of the United States Navy's officers as possible because he said that's the only way Japan has a chance to win because it takes years to train a naval officer well I think you had the same mentality on the Russian side but there's something else poltava was the site

of a very Titanic battle involving Russia and Sweden in a bid for dominance of Eastern and Northeastern Europe. The Swedes lost under Charles XII. They were virtually annihilated. So Poltava figures prominently in Russian history. Second thing, it was also the site of Hitler's advanced command post during World War II from 1941 mid to late 1941 and certainly until the beginning of 43 or mid 43. so you can't you can't overlook that symbolism if you're a Russian finally these Iskander missiles that were used they fly at roughly 4 500 miles per hour. These are hypersonic missiles. They carry a 1,500-pound warhead. They have various kinds. I don't know what they used, if this was just high explosive.

Can they be intercepted? No, absolutely not. You can't shoot down a hypersonic missile at this point. That was my other argument. And finally, we have a lot of evidence that suggested for the first time in the war that Putin has directed that officers, commanders on the tactical level, that is brigade, because remember the Russian brigades have different kinds. Some are quite large. Others are smaller. They're commanded by generals that the general who commands a brigade now has the authority to request and release and get the use of an Iskander missile. Up until this point, for Iskander ballistic missiles, which are very deadly and very, very, very, very hard to deal with because they're mobile, has been in the hands of higher commanders, at least at the army and front levels, or what we would call almost theater. Now, suddenly, a general commanding a brigade-sized formation can employ this weapon as he sees fit.

That's a dramatic change. And I think the big signal is, look, we're playing for keeps now. No more nonsense. We're coming. And we know exactly where you are, because there were, as I recollect, three Swedish officers who had come on board down at Poltava to teach people about the use of their form of airborne warning and control systems. And they were killed. So I think there was also a message here for the Swedes. You want to join NATO? Welcome to the party. Just as an aside, does the United States have the equivalent of an Iskander? Not that I'm aware of. Sounds like a terrific or horrific,

depending on whether you're on the sending or receiving end type of weapon. Colonel, is it your understanding of the Russian mentality in 2024 that fighting a battle to commemorate something that happened hundreds of years ago is significant? Oh, absolutely. The Russians, most Europeans, frankly, anybody who's lived in Europe for any length of time, most Europeans know their history. This is bound up with their national identity. Now, of course, there's been a big effort in Western Europe to destroy national identities, we all know. But I don't think it's succeeded. And certainly in Eastern Europe, it's an impossibility. So when you mention something like Poltava, everybody who is a Russian, and for that matter, Ukrainian, knows what that means. The 1709 battle, Hitler's headquarters,

which was eventually, as we know, overrun when the Soviets finally advanced to the West. So this has symbolic meaning on many levels, but the real message is we're coming for you. It's over now. And I think that's what we're going to see more of in the near future. Well, how much longer can Ukraine last? And if I were to give a snarky answer, I might say at least until November 6th. But is that a realistic answer also, Colonel? Well, that decision lies in Russian hands. And I think most people that consider themselves to be Kremlinologists, I'm not one of them. I don't pretend to know what happens on a daily basis in the Kremlin. But there are people out there who are making the case, and I think John Helmer is one of them, who says that Putin is now under enormous pressure from the Russian public,

from his own inner circle, from the parliament, from the various political figures, oligarchs in the country, to get this war over with once and for all. And I think we're going to see some movement in that direction. Does it happen before November? I'd frankly be surprised if it didn't. I would think that by November, this thing really ought to be at an end, at least insofar as Zelensky and his regime are concerned. Zelensky should certainly be gone by then. But, you know, I've been wrong before. And Putin has always been the individual who wanted a reconciliation with the West, who wanted peace with the West.

He was always the one exercising restraint. I think it's much harder now since the Ukrainians have been attacking civilian targets in Russia. That's intolerable. President Zelensky has boasted about the capture of 500 square miles in Kursk. Andy has boasted that this has produced an exchange of prisoners because he's captured Russian prisoners. Are either of these boasts of any military significance or is Kursk just a pimple? Well, if you want an analogy, you're from New Jersey. You know the Pine Barrens in New Jersey, correct? Yes. Well, the Pine Barrens, for the audience, this is a desolate area of,

you know, hundreds of square miles of woods. Getting in there and coming out again is a challenge in and of itself. There aren't very many roads. The roads that go through there are blacktop and they go from Philadelphia to Atlantic City or north or something. This is like you or I getting into a Jeep, driving into the Pine Barrens and then announcing to the world that we've conquered the Pine Barrens.

That's the oblast of Kursk. It's just endless dense forests, swamps, woods, woods. The only thing of significance that I know of in the, in the Pinelands and you may have been there is Fort Dix. That's about it.

Fort lost in the Pine Barrens. Right. All right. The real estate isn't worth much. And, and the PR advantage to this, even though Zelensky keeps pushing it, seems to have faded because other events have come to the top of the fold. Well, the only thing he achieved was to take some of the best forces he had left with the best equipment he had at his disposal to essentially launch a PR stunt. Most of those troops are either killed or wounded. They're trying desperately to get back to Ukraine, but they're caught. They're in little pockets of perhaps 2,000 or 3,000 each

along the main highway that goes to Kursk. This thing is a disaster for Ukraine. It was entirely ill-advised. I've heard it called the Cavoli plan. I hope that's not true because if General Cavoli is responsible for this, that reinforces my low opinion of the senior leadership in the U.S. military. No one in their right mind would have sent these Ukrainians on that wild goose chase. And remember, elsewhere things are falling apart and the Russians continue to advance. The only thing holding the Russians back, in my judgment right now, is President Putin. Just to remind everybody that General Cavoli is not just an ordinary four-star, he's the commander of NATO, so the commander of all European troops, is he not? Yes, U.S. and European forces. Yes. Okay. Switching over to Israel and Gaza, Colonel.

Two Sundays ago, Hezbollah and Israel exchanged hundreds of rockets and drones. Prime Minister Netanyahu went on national television and said, we shot everything down that came at us and then quietly ordered a blackout and prohibited the IDF from telling Israeli media exactly what happened. Alistair Crook, our dear friend and colleague, says this whole thing lasted about 20 minutes. It was more or less theater, but there was damage done in Israel, and Netanyahu is being, as usual, deceptive about it. So my question, Colonel, is, is the United States, is the White House naive enough to accept everything Prime Minister Netanyahu says, even when they know he's being deceptive or outright lying. No, they're not naive, and I think they know he's lying, but the White House and most of Capitol Hill that has followed along with this

is so caught up in a series of lies and fictional accounts and narratives that to renounce any of them and walk away from it would amount in their minds to a revelation that they have been part of the lie. They don't want to admit that. So they're going to do everything in their power to keep this fiction going. If you go back to the Pentagon Papers, that a lot of people don't even remember it today, but once you read the Pentagon Papers, it was clear that everyone knew that what we were doing in Vietnam made no sense,

that the war was somewhat different from what had been shown on television. And of course, everyone in Washington was angry because the truth had let out, if you will. So I think, no, I'm sure the White House knows this is nonsense. They're all playing for time. That's what it's about. Play for time, get through the election, and then you can make whatever decisions you want. You can pull out. You can do anything you want. Nobody cares. Is the U.S. support for Israel, the United States? I'm not talking about the back-slapping of Netanyahu and the public claims that Israel is our ally, but the tremendous financial and military support. Colonel, last weekend, the 500th flight had left the United States and landed in Israel with heavy-duty

military equipment. Is the U.S. military support for Israel unconditional? No matter what Netanyahu says or does, we will continue to give him the weaponry with which to slaughter the gazans and the people and the palestinians in the west bank yes i would say to this point that's a good formulation judge and increasingly i think people in the region are concluding that it will make no difference who wins in November, that this will continue without interruption. Other than bankruptcy or a dramatic military setback to our forces, I don't see much evidence that anything will change. Now, we have to understand, and we've talked about this before, that most Americans on any given day are the victim of three things. First of all,

they only know what the mainstream tells them unless they listen to you or a few other people who are referred to, as you know, as alternative media. So they're not going to get the truth about anything. Secondly, they have been subjected to an unrelenting stream of invective and criticism and hatred directed at anyone Israel doesn't like, whether it's Iran or Hezbollah or anybody else. And people don't have a positive picture of Muslim Arabs, Muslim Iranians, and so forth. And then finally, I think there's the other problem, is that most Americans don't pay much attention. Look how long it took us to finally extricate ourselves from Vietnam, how long it took us to finally extricate ourselves from Vietnam, how long it took public opinion to swing away from that catastrophe. I just don't see

animated people in the United States. They're saying this is a terrible mistake. You know, we're cultivating hostility all over the world. The entire world is turning against us. And I would say that if we go to war with Iran, that is absolutely what's going to happen. It's not just a question of Israel's survival. Our position in the world will be damaged for decades. But Colonel, you have argued a common understanding here, which is that Prime Minister Netanyahu's goal in all of this is a war with Iran, not between Israel and Iran, but between the United States and Iran. You have told us that Israel alone could not survive a full-fledged war with Iran,

and they would expect the United States to back them up. How looming, that's the wrong word, how likely is there to be a war, a serious full-fledged war between Iran and the United States over Israel's provocations? Well, let's not forget that when Norman Potteretz was supposedly John McCain's national security advisor, whatever that means, he said that he woke up every morning and prayed that war between the United States and Iran had broken out the night before, so that he was always praying for a war with Iran. This has been a fixation of the Israel lobby, its supporters, the Jewish diaspora, as well as the Israeli state for a very long time.

And this is their best shot at achieving it. Now, why do I say it's the best shot? You're asking, is there a possibility that someone with some sense of reason or rationality could intervene in this and say no more? I suppose there's always that possibility, but let's look at the facts. From the Israeli standpoint, you either destroy Iran or you are going to be forced into some sort of agreement by the international community that is unacceptable to you. And that includes the possibility of a Palestinian state. That's not on the table for the Israeli state. They want nothing to do with it.

They want to continue their cleansing operation and remove all of the Palestinian Arabs from Israeli state. They want nothing to do with it. They want to continue their cleansing operation and remove all of the Palestinian Arabs from Israeli soil. So that's off the table. So that means there has to be a war. Will there be a war? Well, we have at least, well, we have several hundred vessels,

three carrier battle groups, submarines. We have over a thousand fighters, bombers located in different places from Diego Garcia all the way to Italy and probably beyond. We also have bombers in the United States. All of them are loaded, prepared, and ready to launch. When you have that kind of military power sitting there, it doesn't take much to start a war. On top of that, you have the Iranians and their supporters, their surrogates, the Iraqi militias, Hezbollah, the Houthis and others are all arming to the teeth. And they're waiting for the attack to come that tells them to launch. in the region that has made a case, not just to Iran, but to Saudi Arabia, to the Turks, to everyone, to exercise patience, to restrain themselves and wait, has been Vladimir Putin.

And he went there and he said, wait, exercise patience. You will outlast the Israelis. And I think there's something to be said for that because the situation in Israel grows worse with each passing day. Their economy is very much dependent on the largesse of the American people. And that's not a good position for any state to be in. They've had at least 500,000. Some people say as many as 800,000 or a million Israelis leave the country. The country itself is in turmoil. As you know, they've got almost anarchy on some occasions because people want an end to the Netanyahu leadership. I don't know that they

want an end to everything, but certainly him. So I would say that right now, you're going to get a war. That's going to happen. Unless we, we're the decisive actor in this equation, step forward and say no. And again, this has always been what we've argued, that historically every president until Biden has always stepped forward and urged restraint or directly told the leadership of Israel to stop this far and no further. There's no danger of that happening now. So the armed forces of the United States, its air and naval power, its intelligence services, its space-based surveillance, these things are at the disposal of Mr. Netanyahu, and he would like to use them. But he's trying to figure out how to provoke the Iranians into doing it on the

assumption that everyone will believe that it was an unprovoked attack. The sort of same nonsense that we continue to preach about the Russian unprovoked attack when everybody with a brain knows that we've been provoking the Russians for years. We finally got what we wanted. At least we think we do. Here's the, not to irritate you, but to amuse you, here's the neocon in chief on this very subject, cut number three. If you want the hostages home, which we all do, you have to increase the cost to Iran. Iran is the great Satan here. Hamas is the junior partner. They're barbaric religious s**ts, Hamas. They could care less about the Palestinian partner. They're barbaric religious Nazis, Hamas. They could care less about the

Palestinian people. I would urge the Biden administration and Israel to hold Iran accountable for the fate of remaining hostages and put on the target list oil refineries in Iran if the hostages are not released. I mean, that is, you know, a typical Lindsey Graham provocation. Hopefully it won't resonate with the White House. Who the heck knows? But how crazy would it be for us to begin bombing Iran oil fields? Well, to quote Henry Kissinger, who was not always entirely successful, but nevertheless had some interesting things to say, one of which was that American action in the international arena has to be guided by concrete interests, interests founded on a sober assessment of what

was good or not good for the United States, as well as its allies, instead of emotion, which he railed against. Yet it's emotion that seems to be driving everything, because there is no strategic interest that would compel us to go to war with Iran. There's no reason why we should be interested in killing several hundred thousand Iranian citizens. There's no evidence for that. Does Iran pose even a scintilla of threat to the national security of the United States of America? No, no. And see, this is the problem. You know, we've been treated recently to the great myth that Iran was behind some sort of attempted assassination of President Trump. That's pure nonsense. There's no basis, in fact,

for any of those things. All of this is part of the effort to rationalize a war between the United States and Iran. So, you know, I just think it's all emotion. And our friend Lindsey Graham knows who is going to support him in his future bid to stay in office, who is going to enrich him and make him happy in retirement. And those people are the people that want war with Iran. Is Israel, you alluded to this earlier, about to collapse? I mean, the economy is collapsing. There's almost a civil war going on in the north between Ben-Gavir's militia and regular police. The head

of the IDF criticizes Prime Minister Netanyahu. The head of Shin Bet criticizes Prime Minister Netanyahu. Recently retired generals, apparently speaking for still active duty generals, are extremely harsh in predicting Israel's collapse. There was a general strike for a full day on Monday. There were 250,000 people demonstrating outside of Prime Minister Netanyahu's house, and he went to the Knesset and made a statement that was as bellicose as ever. How much longer can all this last? Well, as long as we provide the support we do, I think it could go on for some time. But, of course, the Israeli people themselves do have a voice, and you're beginning to hear it.

Now, what precisely do they want beyond Mr. Netanyahu's removal? What are they prepared to accept or what will they reject? That I don't know. And I think that's what keeps Mr. Netanyahu in power, because he reasons, not unreasonably, that the Israelis don't want a Palestinian state, which they see is inevitably becoming an organized crime state on their border that would, you know, continue to cause them innumerable miseries. And so as long as that's the case, it seems very unlikely that you're going to get a profound change because anyone who steps into Mr. Netanyahu's shoes is going to have to make hard choices. And the hardest, of course, is do you end the conflict? And if you end it completely, where does that leave you? And if you end it, what happens to the United States? Do the Americans say, all right, we gave you everything, we did everything,

you fell apart, we're out of here? All of those things must be on the minds of Israelis. It's not an easy situation. But to get back to your question about Iran, remember Iran has a population of what, roughly 79 million? Iran is going to survive the war. It doesn't make any difference what the Israelis try to do. They know that. Iran now has enormous assistance and support from Russia and increasingly China and other countries. And if you look at the BRICS, which started out as Brazil, Russia, India, China and Saudi Arabia, now you're talking about perhaps as many as 90 or 100 members eventually joining that particular union, which has strategic implications, even though it's largely economic. And they're looking at alternative monetary systems, alternatives to the system we have built and that we abused in our efforts to

bully people in the direction that we wanted them to go, they are now in a position to walk away from us completely. I think we've already seen that with Saudi Arabia. I think we're going to see more of it. So the cost to us of supporting Israel is high, but if it goes to war with Iran, the cost could really be devastating to us. Professor Jeff Sachs agrees with you entirely on BRICS, and by his calculation, the gross domestic product of the BRICS countries exceeds the gross domestic products of the vaunted G7, you know, the supposed seven wealthiest countries in the world. They used to be G8 until they decided to exclude President Putin. Were you surprised when President Erdogan of Turkey announced last weekend

that Turkey had applied for membership in BRICS? And if he gets it, can Turkey stay in BRICS and NATO at the same time? No, I wasn't. And you have to go back over the last, I would say, 30 years. We have to go all the way back to our original Gulf War in 1990 and 91. And the Turks, of course, were supportive of us, but they begged us over and over and over again, whatever you do, don't destroy the stability in the region. Don't destroy the balance of power. It will not only work to Iran's advantage, but it's going to have terrible consequences for us. And of course, you know what we did. We intervened ultimately and helped the Kurds to become de facto

an independent or autonomous state. We insisted they stay in Iraq, at least in a public way, but truthfully, the Kurds have their own state. This has grown into a cancer that threatens to destroy the Turkish Republic. In 2003, we wanted to go back in and we wanted to move the 4th Infantry Division from ships in the Mediterranean across Turkey and into northern Iraq. And the Turks said, absolutely not, forget it, you're not coming through here. So I think we have been on thin ice for a long time. I like to follow the Turkish cinema and the numbers of films that have been produced over the last couple of decades that show Turkish soldiers defeating hordes of American soldiers in the mountains of northern Iraq are pretty substantial. The message is obvious.

They have seen us now as the by the way the Iranians and the Turks have gone to war almost as often as the Turks and the Russians in the last 300 years but if you go back and look at their disputes they have managed to put most of that aside because everyone can agree the problem is Israel and ultimately the United States for backing Israel none of this is good news for us it spells spells the end, I think, of our financial dominance. NATO is already crumbling. You've had others come on and say that. And I thought as soon as we involved ourselves in Ukraine, it would ultimately destroy NATO. That too is an empty facade. All of these institutions that grew up in the aftermath of World War II are increasingly

empty facades. And new institutions, in spite of us, are going to emerge. The handwriting's on the wall. I'm glad that Dr. Sacks said that, and the fact that he feels that way reassures me that I'm not completely leaving the planet on economics. Oh, you have a pretty good grasp on these things, Colonel. No question about it. There are sort of hints in the Washington establishment about an October surprise, and the October surprise may very well be a United States attack on Iran.

I can't imagine what the pretext for it could be. Well, we're getting closer to the year anniversary, 7 October. And this thing has dragged on for a year without resolution. None of the original objectives have been achieved. The populations, the Arab populations, have been brutalized, but they're still where they are. They haven't left. Every country in the region has turned against Israel, and every country in the region, even though it may not be able to engage directly,

certainly will support whatever Turkey, Iran, Hezbollah, others do in the region now against Israel. The question is, is what are we going to do? And as we approach 7 October, I think there's gonna be a lot of pressure to get this war going against Iran. Thank you, Colonel. Thanks very much for your insight and analysis as always. A pleasure as always. I hope we can see you again next week.

Sure. Thanks, Judge. Thank you. Coming up later today at 1230 this afternoon on these very topics, Scott Ritter, and at four o'clock this afternoon, Aaron Maté, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.