Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar : Does Iran Have the Bomb? Part 1

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

Pepe Escobar : Does Iran Have the Bomb? Part 1See 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? 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 Wednesday, June 3rd, 2006. Our dear intrepid friend, Pepe Escobar joins us now. Pepe, thank you very much for your time, as always. Greetings from Moscow, Judge. Very important. Yes, I know you're in Moscow and you will soon be in St. Petersburg, which I was attacked by drones today. You and I have a lot of friends there. I trust that everybody is okay.

I saw a comment from Dimitri Peshkov indicating that nobody was hurt. Of course, the government wasn't happy, but nobody was hurt. But let's get right to our topic. Just a second, Judge. It's important. This is the outskirts of St. Petersburg and slightly far away from the airport. So it's not inside the city. Got it. Got it.

Let's get right to the topic at hand. from you and Larry. Larry is on shortly after you in about two and a half hours. Okay. The two of you have opined to me and others that you have sources which have informed you that Iran has a nuclear device, a deliverable nuclear device. Is that true? What do they have?

And how do you know it? Well, first of all. all, we revealed that, I would say, the soft launch of a new platform called PowerShift. Larry and I are involved in this project. It's about deep info, deep intel, deep analysis, and we hope that it's going to work. And of course, we would like to invite many of our mutual friends in the weeks ahead to be part of it as well. Well, The information is absolutely a surefire, Judge. And I was very skeptical from the beginning.

I asked our Pakistani connection to, can you grill this guy again and again and again? And at the end, we got a definitive answer. Look, if I didn't want you to break the story, I would never have given it to you. Well, very, very important, the context. I think I sent you. judge the column that I published, I think, two or three days ago, which is more or less the

background that led to what happened last week. And the most important thing that happened last week was a phone call on May 28th, that was last Thursday, between Iranian President Pesachan and the Pakistani Prime Minister Shabas Sharif. So why did this? happened because Pakistan, as our audience knows very well, they are the sole mediator towards a possible memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran. So we had this phone call Thursday last week. And this is what our sources revealed to us. This is the bombshell in itself. Peshashkin to Sharif over the phone directly, he delivered a very well-structed. three-step sort of ultimatum that he said to Sharif should be communicated to the White House immediately.

Number one, which is something that Iranians have been insisting on for the past few weeks. No nuclear talks, that's it, unless we go to stage number one, end of our wars, stage number two, we start discussing Strait of Hormuz, then we have nuclear talks. Point number two, no more prospective nuclear treaty framework. These were the words that our source from a record. Meaning nothing like the JCPOA? Exactly. Not even getting towards a JCPOA, which, considering the circumstances,

the best the Trump administration can get now is a sort of diluted JCPOA. And the Iranians are saying, no, not even that. Because first you need to go to stage one and two. End of all wars. And then we start discussing Hormuz. Without that, we discuss nothing. And then the number three, which is at the heart of what we revealed on Monday. And of course, there's a lot of controversy, more than expected everywhere.

Pesachan said, if American threats persist, we can go for the detonation of a nuclear device on Iranian soil without specifying. Is this a bomb that Iran already has? Is this a bomb that only Iran developed? Is this a bomb that they could count on Russian input to develop? Or it was delivered, ready made, let's put it this way, by Pakistan or by North Korea, nothing. The source did not elaborate on that.

He was elaborating on what Pesachan actually told Sharif. So this detonation would happen in the words of Pesachan translated by our source. Executed not as an act of war, but as an irreversible sovereign demonstration of capability to conduct. control, escalation, dominance. So, my first interpretation, Judge, when I get this, and I start asking questions until we got the final answer from the, okay, this is it. It's more than reconfirmed.

Otherwise, I wouldn't even bother to give this information to you guys. If Azakin was telling Sharif all of the above, this means that he was cleared by Ayatollah Mostaba Kamenei. So this means this is a Mostaba directive. If the Americas go over every possible red line which is happening as we speak, there will be a demonstration. There will be no more nuclear ambiguity, and they will have an undeniable demonstration.

And obviously, we can imagine the consequences for the global non-proliferation system what's going to be, right? So this is it. So it's extremely nuanced and very, very important, Judge. And I'm breaking this to you now ahead of everybody else. I am waiting for a response, whatever that is, from somebody very, very close to Mostaba Kamene. This was organized via our friends of the cradle. I am the lead international columnist, whatever, for the cradle in Beirut. So I sent them my article, my new article, which is already written, containing everything that I explained to you a few minutes ago. So this is getting in front of this guy who is very, very close to the Supreme Leader.

And we are waiting for a response. They said that it might happen tonight. So tomorrow we're going to have a response of total denial, plausible deniability, whatever. But if whatever he responds, we plan to be. publish the column because I tell the whole timeline, everything that happened last week, what led to this phone call between Peschekin and Sharif, and then what happened afterwards, which was Foreign Minister Dar, telling the whole story to Marco Rubio in person, one day after that in Washington.

Where did the Iranians acquire a nuclear device? Well, this is, we already have a story that might shed light on what has been happening for the past few decades, in fact, Judge. And, of course, with Pakistani help. We would like to tell the story next week, Larry and myself, once again. We're going to have to go through this intelligence, carefully get confirmation, and then we can reveal next week. Do you have a gut feeling or an instinct? Did they develop it on their own, or did someone sell it or bring it to them? In which case, there's a limited number of sources?

All scenarios are possible, a judge. First of all, because this is so sensitive that nobody will ever confirm anything on the wrong. record about what really took place. So this is the first time that we have, perhaps an indirect, a direct, indirect confirmation via the president of Iran in a phone call with the Prime Minister of Pakistan that they are able to detonate a nuclear device, without specifics, of course. And of course, I'm not expecting this gentleman, very close to leader Morsaba Kavanaay, to spill the beams about it. Right, right.

So there's going to be a lot of guests where, okay, how did they obtain that? Was that indigenous a scientific prowess by Iranian physicists and engineer? Quite possible because they are extremely capable. Number one. Number two, did they have outside help? There are three major candidates for that, Russia, Pakistan, North Korea. North Korea is a very, very good candidate. In my previous travels to Tehran in the 2010s,

I was always bumping into North Korean delegations, very, very interesting, but they would never talk to us because they don't talk to foreigners. They were always huddled in their group, but they would never talk to anybody. So there were a high level of North Korean delegations in Tehran all the time. So this might have involved a nuclear cooperation as well. And the Pakistani story, we hope to at least tell the story next week of how Pakistan have been collaborating with the Iranian nuclear program for the past few decades, in fact.

So all options are plausible. Wow. Do the CIA, MI6, and Mossad know what you have just revealed us? They obviously know it because you're saying it in public, but did they know about this beforehand? We would have to ask them. And obviously, there will be plausible deniability everywhere. But in the story that we plan to talk about next week, Larry, there is a most sad component. And there is an Indian component as well.

They are R-A-W Indian intel apparatus. They were aware that was very close nuclear collaboration between Pakistan and Iraq. And Mossad also knew. Mossad had to know. Does Russian intel, does Chinese intel know about this? I cannot. It's too early to tell, Judge. Russia, maybe I'll have a chance tomorrow in St. Petersburg or on Friday to talk to some of my connections.

In fact, I will present this directly to them and say, okay, how do you read this? China, well, and it's a pity because this thing broke when I was. leaving China. I left Shanghai this weekend. I was in Shanghai until Saturday, in fact. And we learned the final contours of the story when Larry and I were talking about it on Monday, only through the weekend. So this is something that we'll have to return to China. And obviously, China will, for them, this is an ultra-matter of national security. But there's an extra element that is very, very interesting that happened between yesterday and today, Judge. Guess who is the special envoy of the government in Tehran for high-level Iran-China relations?

Galibath. And Galibati... That's the Speaker of the Parliament. The Speaker of the Parliament. This is an extra role for Galibah. Very, very close strategic partnership, Iran-China. Do Galabov and Foreign Minister Arachi get along? Yes, they do.

Because the Americans are spreading words that these guys are antagonistic. President Poschkin is resigning and they don't know how to talk to. Sorry, Judge. This is total bullshit. First of all, because they are in the political sphere together, in the parliament and in the foreign ministry. The only difference is that Galibati is that Galibati, has an IRGC background, but it doesn't matter now because now, let's say, the political factors and the military vectors in Tehran, they merge and something that is absolutely impossible for people in Washington to understand. The agglutinator is Mostabakhamehameh. Under ultra-heavy

protection, of course, he has to be. But he is wounded. There's no question about that, but he's very, very sharp. And he's coordinating everything. So he has personal meetings with all of the above. From the foreign ministry to, of course, Galibati was very close to him as well, and the top ARGC leadership. Let me ask you what John Meersheimer raised. And that is, is there more than one nuclear device because if they only have one, are they going to waste it on a demonstration in the desert? That's another thing that we don't know. Nobody knows. And obviously we will have a confirmation from anybody, not to mention from Iraq. So they might have a few, quite, quite possible. If they had only one, they would never waste it on a demonstration. And this is very important, Judge.

If you want to analyze the words, at least the words that we assume were used by Pesaskan, in Farsi, that's complicated, because this is Farsi translated to English. And probably Farsi translated to Urdu translated to English. So we hope this is not lost in translation. But anyway, he said that if American provocations go beyond all the current thresholds, they will consider this nuclear demonstration as a test, as a symbol of sovereignty. So I'm already imagining what the man that we are in touch with close to Mostabha Kamene, what's going to be his response? Probably is going to be plausible deniability.

But if everything you're saying is accurate, this is a basis in the minds of Netanyahu. and his cohorts and Trump and his for the attacks in June and February. Is it not? Could be. Could be. But then you have to interpret it in reverse. I doubt if they had any evidence three months ago that Iran was on the brink of detonating a nuclear weapon. They don't have that kind of intelligence. With the top IRGC, they don't. Well, very important.

So if there is plausible deniability, which is probably going to be the likely response, we're going to hear something along the lines of, yes, leader Morsetabar Kamenei is reviewing the nuclear posture since the first fatwa by Komeini and the second fatwa by Kamenei. and this now is on the table because now we are in the middle of an existential threat. It's already discussed openly in Iran, Judge,

that Iran will have to revise his nuclear posture. Is the fatwa issued by his father still the law of the land, number one? Yes. Is he able to supersede that fatwa? Well, as supreme leader, now he has the institutional authority to do that. That's very, very important. Of course, he's going to have to explain this in, I would say, infinitesimal detail because this is at the heart of Shiite theology, according to which a nuclear bomb is un-Islamic,

because it kills civilians deliberately. So he would have to frame it in a theoretical. political way, which is a very complex exercise to explain the change. But now there is a widespread popular consensus in Iran that they need something like this. Otherwise, these provocations will continue at infinito. And that's what's changed. Let me switch gears for a minute before we conclude. Rassios reported, of course, on President Trump using very harsh, even vulgar language toward Prime Minister Netanyahu.

I'm sure you've seen this. Yes, sure. As the president said to Netanyahu, you're effing crazy. Trump fumes at Netanyahu in call on Lebanon. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.

Netanyahu basically said, I had a conversation with the president, and it's not going to change what we're doing. This position of ours remains unchanged. The IDF will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon. So first question, was this real or was it performative? Well, it looks like a very stage style or WWF kind of thing. Absolutely. Completely. But the main character... That would be the people that Trump is bringing to the front lawn of the White House.

You bet. It's like a cage match in front of the White House, which I cannot think of anything more bad taste than that. But that's another story. He's not exactly an aesthetic model or cultural model, right? But anyway, he confirmed it himself, Judge. If I'm not mistaken, I think I saw it on NBC or whatever. That was true. I'll run the confirmation.

Chris, I think it's number six. You were angry with him. You said, are you effing crazy? What are you effing doing? I helped you stay out of jail. Is that true? Did you speak to him in those terms? I did.

I always say angry. I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon. You know, at some point I said, maybe we've got to stop this. You've got to stop it. Oh, gosh. And this is very serious just because what's happening in southern Lebanon is Gaza 2.0 in a smaller scale, but it's exactly the same thing. Wow. Destruction of whole villages and civilian populations.

When I was in Lebanon last year, I saw what Israel did. during the fake ceasefire. They destroy everything inside. I visited two villages on the border, in different parts of the border, and they were completely destroyed. And this is exactly what they're doing again. All right, Pepe, I have to let you go.

This is all dynamite. Larry is watching us now, because he knows that he and I will be discussing the same thing in two hours. And if this matures into anything beyond what we've talked about, Chris will find you. Safe travels. Thank you. Russia, my dear man.

Tomorrow is another story, Judge. Tomorrow, there's going to be a lot of discussion about what's going to happen to Ukraine afterwards. All right. You let us know. You'll be with Ritter. I hope so. We have to find Ritter. If you can find Ritter, and Chris can find the two of you and the Internet works, we'll do a show together.

We could. Ask a Bar, Scott Ritter, what's going to have. happen in Ukraine. How about that? Excellent. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Judge. Thank you. Thank you. Well, my friends, this is dynamite stuff, and we will run it all past Larry Johnson. If you're watching us live in two hours and six minutes and two this afternoon, and we'll run it past the great Phil Giraldi, who has much to talk to us about at 3 o'clock today. Judge Lumpal Tano for judging freedom.