Judging Freedom - Prof Glenn Diesen : How Strong Is Iran?

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

Prof Glenn Diesen : How Strong Is Iran?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Undeclared wars are commonplace. Tragically, 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 the issue of the, 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 Wednesday, April 8th, 2000 and 26, my friend Professor Glenn Dieson from the University of Southeastern Norway, joins us now. Professor Dieson, a pleasure. We have so much to discuss. Let's go back a day or two. How was President Trump's apocalyptic threat to destroy the Iranian-slash- Persian civilization? received in Europe.

Well, I thought was interesting because, well, you did see some articles by some journalists and some comments by politicians that this was, you know, too much. The rhetoric was too aggressive. But, of course, not enough objection, I guess, to actually, yes, stand up and make a point out of this, that is to speak out directly against Trump. I mean, what he was essentially advocating for was the greatest genocide in human history, that is, to wipe out a civilization. I mean, there's over 90 million people in Iran, one of the oldest civilizations we have on this planet.

And despite, yeah, this threat of mass genocide, there was not really much opposition at all. That is, politicians speaking out, that is. Do you know of any heads of state? that communicated with him privately? I mean, did Kirstomber call him up or Chancellor Mertz or President Macron and said, what are you crazy? I'm not sure what's being done in back channels, but it's more likely if something was done that this would be the format.

So they don't essentially do their laundry in public and something that weakens the NATO alliance, because this is also a top priority for the Europeans to not let the NATO, go down in this war as well to be another war casualty but so it is possible that they have more yeah behind the scenes diplomacy but there's also a great caution standing up against Trump I mean if you look at the British for example they they keep making the point that they do not participate in this they will not allow their bases to be used but but they are being used and

we know this so it's it's a bit of a balancing between not offending Trump and also not one not to be retaliated against you know by the Iranians so but again Europe I think overall it's losing its significance very fast political economic military and yeah even just basic dignity I think is falling apart very quickly one more thing that is the political West itself for the past decades are based much on this legitimacy and its collective identity on this commitment to humanitarian ideals and liberal democratic values. And still, they can sit by and watch these threats of, yeah, greatest whole cost in human history. And there's no real pushback.

So it is, it's also a threat, I would say, to the legitimacy of different European leaders. Let me go off topic for just a minute. will NATO with the U.S. as a member survive the special military operation in Ukraine? It could, but doubtfully in its current form, because, again, NATO was assumed to be just a rock solid. It was the ultimate security guarantee, and this was kind of the logic in Europe after the Cold War. That is, what would the new security architecture look like? And essentially, if you were part of NATO, you had security. If you were not part of NATO, then you would not have security.

This was the whole idea of monopolizing on security, which is why countries wanted to join NATO. And yeah, so I think that this is the main thing that has changed. I think everyone now recognizes that there's no real going back after this. that is both the Ukraine war and the Iran war has put a severe dent in NATO. And what began as an outlier position in the United States, that is Trump's position against NATO, is now gaining much support.

And also within Europe, once they believe that the United States won't be there for them, which Trump said very explicitly, then one has to already start looking for alternatives. I would have hoped that that meant getting along with your neighbors, but it doesn't look like European leaders are planning to do this. Instead, they're just going to try to replicate NATO with their own capabilities, which I think is a failed proposition. One more subject matter, and then we'll get back to the so-called ceasefire. Is Russia preparing for a final assault to bring the special military operation to a conclusion?

They could be again, they're not sharing this information with the public, but what we do know is that there's a lot of pressure mounting on the Kremlin to put a quick end to this, not to keep it going forever. Because for many people, the fact that this is dragged on now for more than four years with all the casualties and pain for society, that this is not something they want to continue with. Now, the alternative isn't to capitulate to the US and NATO and essentially welcome NATO missiles on the border in Ukraine, but instead, the alternative to this war of attrition is a more quick fix, that is, to go in essentially and try to knock out what remains of Ukraine. So I know that pressure is building. There's more criticism now of the Kremlin for choosing this slow and costly process, especially the war in Iran, I think,

it really intensified the pressure. For one, the way the United States deceived the Iranians with the fake diplomacy and the surprise attack, killing the political leadership. So this has had an effect, but also the way that the Iranians were able to stand up against the United States. Why couldn't Russia do this? Secretary of Defense,

who calls himself the Secretary of War, Hegeseth said today that for the past two weeks, the Iranians have been begging his word for a ceasefire. Foreign Minister Arachi says for the past month, Messrs. Whitkoff and Krishna have been begging for a ceasefire. Who do you believe? Well, we already had this round before where Trump argued that the Iranians really wanted a ceasefire and they're having this constructive talks only to have the Iranian foreign ministers say that there's no talks at all. So I tend to believe the Iranians on this. And indeed, this idea that the Iranians were so desperate to talk that they were, you know,

they just wanted to get this war over with while the US was standing strong. it doesn't really sit well with the facts on the ground. Furthermore, it's worth keeping in mind that a month ago when this war started, Trump was arguing that only the unconditional surrender of Iran was an acceptable outcome. Now, in these negotiations, now instead of negotiating Iranian enrichment or ballistic missiles, it appears that the negotiations will be around the terms of Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz and removing sanctions on Iran. I mean, this is something the media reported on this world,

that is that Iran will essentially put up a toll booth and take about $2 million per ship transiting through the strait. So this is not something, you know, the US wouldn't bend to these demands because these are quite strong demands unless the Iranians have put the US in a very vulnerable position. And I think that's what happened. So, no, I don't buy into the Trump's rhetoric or his secretary of war.

Or that of his secretary of defense, who's known for flamboyant rhetoric. New York Times has a piece this morning blaming the war on Netanyahu, or I should say, Netanyahu's persuasive powers over President Trump. It says that General Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says, said, we can't win this in 48 hours. Secretary of State Rubio, the same thing. Vice President J.D. Vance, we shouldn't be fighting them. Only Pistol Pete Hedgeseth said, we'll do whatever you want,

we'll bring home the bacon in 48 hours. Then the president spent three days with a guy named David Barnaya. You know the name. He is the head of Mossad. he stayed as a guest of the president in the Blair House, the residents across the street usually reserved for just heads of state, and spent hours tutoring Donald Trump. Does this make sense to you? Well, I don't think it's any big secret that Israel has an immense influence over the United

States and also Trump specifically. So it's still hard to believe, though, that Trump actually brought into this rhetoric. I mean, it doesn't make any sense at all that a country like Iran would somehow be toppled and defeated over the weekend using only air power. It doesn't, again, it doesn't have anything, well, nothing similar has ever happened in history. So it's very strange that he would think this. But there's been plenty of reports, though, that the Israelis oversold the weakness of the Iranian government, the undersold the strength of Iran. So I don't doubt that Trump bought into this,

the idea that they would be able to topple the government within 48 hours. Were you surprised that Iran was able to cause the destruction that it did at the U.S. bases in the Gulf, caused the destruction that it did in Israel. We don't know the extent of it because of Israeli censors, I guess one day, We'll find out and cause the White House to be reeling to the point where the president needed an end to hostilities because he's bleeding here politically. No, I think a lot of what happened should have been predictable. I mean, I was in Tehran myself back in May last year just shortly before the Israelis began to bomb. And my impression walking around society there was that this idea of this authoritarian regime,

which oppresses people, has been exaggerated to a huge extent. I mean, we get the impression that they are the Shiye version of the Taliban. What I saw walking around the streets was like 20% of women choosing not to have, you know, wearing any headscarves. And, you know, if you read the Western media, this is like a death penalty or something. It's very strange. So the society has been vilified. I also visited some of the, well, not a military site,

but at least where they have missiles and different form of air defense systems. And based on what I heard, they had significant capabilities, not just their missiles, which they have all this underground storage bases where they store all of these things, but also the drones and not a huge just not only a huge amount of quantity but they also have the production capability to quickly ramp up production and it's more decentralized so it can't really be knocked out during war so i knew that their military capability was quite great and also when i interview and speak with different iranians they also made it very clear what exactly would happen i mean during the 12-day war they went a bit easy because it's also a war with israel and But if the United States would attack, they made it very clear. This would be an existential threat because the U.S. would seek to destroy Iran. They might call it regime change, but without the replacement government,

it meant the balkanizing, destroying the country along the line of Libya or Syria. So do the same with Iran. So for them, it was an existential threat. So they have the intention, the desperate need to survive, and they have the capabilities to launch this massive strikes. And they also made it clear. On the first day, we're going to shut down the strait of her moves. We're going to destroy all the bases of the U.S. in the region.

And the Gulf states, we can essentially make it impossible for them to recover because they essentially have energy. They depend on the desalination plants. They have some of these states. They have 85 to 90 percent of the populations are foreign expats working there, such in Qatar or in UAE. So it's, you know, who will flee during war. So there was a lot they could do.

and they kind of announced it in advance what exactly how they would do it so the way i see it if you want to assess a threat the iranians here they had both the intentions were clear and the capabilities so i i don't understand how they ended up with this idea of a government hated by all its people but was you know super weak and if you just throw a couple of bombs at them they would fall apart and the people would rise to rise up top of the government and greet their american and israeli liberators with flowers. I mean, I think it was fantasy. It's like it's fantasy in most of our regime change wars in that region. But yet this is what Mr. Barnay, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and apparently Secretary of Defense, Heggseth, talked the president into.

Well, this is my... Sorry. I was just going to say this is what intelligence services do. They can inform, they can provide great data intelligence information, but their goal is also to sell wars. They are there to push policies. And I think when they go to Trump, they're not just handing over the information they have. They're also doing what they can to sell a war. So when you sell a war, you want to, again, you want to make it seem as easy as possible. So any aversion to war can be overcome. Sorry for interrupting. Oh, no, no, no, quite right. It was a profound and needed observation. So regime change didn't happen. Nuclear enriched the uranium surrendered didn't happen. Iran's ballistic missiles neutered didn't happen. U.S. bases in the Middle East destroyed for the most part, yes.

U.S. sanctions and secondary sanctions to be lifted, yes. Strait of Hormuz under U.S. control. No, it's under Iranian control. Trump boast about? I think Trump has much to regret. Yeah, you would think so, but again, one has to sell the war as put a positive spin. There's, you know, the midterms, he might seek re-election. I know it's his second term already, but I mean, this is what governments, not just

Trump administration, but all governments do to a certain extent. They have to sell defeats as a success. And this is, you know, Pete Hegseth said the same thing, that every single one of our objective was achieved. And they worked very, very hard to sell this as a success. And you saw this with the same search and rescue operation. The way this was sold almost as a Hollywood blockbuster, this was, you know, this was not a success story. So, no, I think it's, yeah, an attempt to sell a fiasco as something that looks like a victory. And this has been Trump's main problem.

How does it walk away from this war? Because it's not sustainable. The economic pain, the ability to fight militarily, given that they're running out of interceptive missiles, their offensive missiles. They don't really have a plan. There's nothing to do with boots on the ground. Their ground operations failed.

So there was a need to try to scale back the US role, at least regroup and come back later. But you can't leave unless there's a story of success. So that's kind of what he had to put together. But again, there's nothing to reach for here. There's absolutely nothing. And again, the ceasefire might will probably not even last. I mean, I would say that it's already been severely broken

if you look at what's happened to Lebanon all day. Right, right. I mean, Netanyahu's people claim Lebanon is not included. The Iranians say Lebanon is included. I would imagine Netanyahu is a most unhappy fellow right now and is running the risk of losing the most right-wing members of his coalition for acquiescing in any of this. Yeah, well, you can also add the Pakistani Prime Minister who was working as a mediator between the United States and Iran. You know, he posted a tweet, you know, this is how diplomacists done this days, and we were also very explicit that the ceasefire also includes Lebanon.

by name. And then, of course, Israel goes on and spent the whole day bombing Lebanon now quite brutally as well. These are residential areas, you know, slaughtering a lot of men, women, and children. And then after this, of course, the White House asked, well, what do we make of this? Is Lebanon not covered because that's what the Pakistani Prime Minister says? Well, what's the White House going to do? Are they going to be risk being seen taking the side of Iran? Iran or are they going to stand by Israel? So, well, of course, 100 or 100 times they will stand by the Israeli side. So now you have the White House claiming that, no, Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire.

Then there's no ceasefire. No, I agree. From what I understand, there is now Iranian missiles already in the air launched towards Israel, which they will retaliate for what has been done all day long to Lebanon. So it depends how this will work. I mean, the Iranians, from what I understand, have not launched its missiles against American targets. So it could be that if Trump wanted to walk away from this, this could then change from a U.S. Iranian war to simply Iranian-Israeli war. But it's going to be very hard for the United States to sit this one out because the Israelis are already stretched pretty thin and weakened.

But no, the ceasefire, as it was negotiated apparently, is no longer working. Or it's just getting off to a very, very slow start. I don't think that Trump's boasting and bluster, We Won, We Won is going to be believed by the American people or by the political class. However, if the ceasefire lasts, most people will breathe a sigh of relief that at least the bombing and the killing has stopped. But obviously I'm just predicting Trump's reputation for telling

the truth is totally shattered. Well, if Iran wouldn't get anything out of this, he could sell it as a victory in terms of having simply weakened Iran, that is, to kill its, many of its leadership,

weakened its economy by destroying a lot of civilian infrastructure, degraded its military power, And then he could claim victory. Indeed, Pete Texath spent some time today doing this. He was naming all the leaders in Iran, you know, and just, you know, all their names and going dead, dead. You know, essentially, you know, presenting all the people he killed and selling it as victory. Of course, killing people doesn't translate into victory necessarily. And the big flaw in the whole argument from the White House now is if Iran holds on to the Strait of Hermuz. if they keep enriching uranium, this is going to be very hard to sell this as a victory. So this is the main problem for Trump, I think. So I assume that the war will continue, that this could have been a way of at least walking back this idea of exterminating Iran as a civilization. But no, it's going to be very hard for Trump to sell this as a victory.

Again, the Strait of Hormuz was really what was required for at least pretending this was a victory. The Strait of Hormuz was open to all maritime traffic before this war. Nobody collected a toll and nobody claimed they own it. Now, of course, you with $2 million to get a tanker through there and it goes to Iran. How could Trump claim that's a victim? No, that's a good point. And that's a great irony here, that now, you know, the objectives of this war, they started off from saving, helping Iranian protesters and liberating literal girls.

Of course, a lot of this was undermined by the genocidal rhetoric, but they kind of changed the objectives. But now this seems like the main objective has been to open up the Strait of Ramos. As Trump tweeted something along the lines opened the Strait of Ramos, sorry, effing a straightover moose, you crazy bastard. So this is now set as a key objective for a very good reason. But as you said, the straightover moose was opened. No one was charging any fees for transit.

But the Iranians see this as, I guess, almost an unavoidable consequence of the war because they want reparations. They need to recover and rebuild what the United States and Israel destroyed. So now they can achieve their reparation by putting. a toll in the Strait of Hermuz, at least until everything has been rebuilt that was destroyed. But they can also do other things. They can push for the trade in other currencies than the US dollar. And if this is achieved, then they would begin to decouple some of the Gulf states from the US

and the whole petrodollar system. They could also pressure the Gulf states to reduce their security dependence on the United States. And this is another thing. If the U.S. can't protect them and their whole livelihood, their ability to exist by exporting oil, depends on the good grace of Iran, then they would have to change their policies very dramatically. So, Iran can, by controlling the Strait of Moose, they can mitigate the threat from the United States and Israel, they can get the reparations, and they can essentially transform parts of the entire global economies. So it's a huge, it matters a whole lot, which is why the Strait of Hermuz is now the main objective of Trump. But as you said, if they had never attacked, the Iranians would never have put any toll on it anyways.

Right, right. Professor Deeson, thank you very much. Great. Great analysis, as always. Deeply appreciate it. I know you're busy, but you're giving us so much time. All the best to you. We'll see you next week.

Thank you. Always look forward to talking to you. Oh, thank you. Likewise. If you're watching us live in 34 minutes at 3 o'clock, the great Phil Giraldi, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.