Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer: Can the US Say NO to Israel?

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Prof. John Mearsheimer: Can the US Say NO to Israel?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, October 17th, 2024. Our dear friend whom we missed last week while he was in China, Doha, and Indonesia, Professor John Mearsheimer joins us now. Professor Mearsheimer, thank you for joining us. A little bit later, I want to ask you about your trip. I want to dig deep into history, a history that I know you have studied and lectured on. Was the Cold War avoidable in 1945 before the American security state was established and before the neocons even existed, much less ruled the roost?

No, I don't think it was avoidable, just like I don't think a U.S.-China security competition is avoidable. I think any time you have a powerful country like the Soviet Union in 1945, remember by May 1945 when Germany surrenders, the Soviet Union is by far the most powerful country in Europe. And it is therefore a threat to dominate all of Europe. It's just the outcome of World War II. And the United States does not tolerate the idea that any other country can dominate its region of the world the way we dominate the Western Hemisphere. So unsurprisingly, unlike after World War I, after World War II, we stayed in Europe to contain the Soviet Union because nobody else could do it. And the end result is that you had a Cold War. And massive displacement and suppression of liberty and waste of assets and all that time period.

We still have the Cold War today, don't we? In a funny way, we do with regard to Russia. I think a lot of American foreign policy elites have been unable to get it out of their heads that the Cold War is over with and that Russia does not equal the Soviet Union. Russia is not a threat to conquer all of Ukraine, much less a big chunk of Eastern Europe, much less all of Europe. We should have good relations with the Russians. Ukraine should be firmly intact. And the fact that we're in this totally disastrous situation today in Ukraine is in large part because of our inability to work with the Russians. What is the origin of their belief that is the neocons and the

establishment that think alike? The establishment's not all neocons and not all neocons are in the establishment, but you know who I'm talking about. What is the origin of their belief that Russia, under Vladimir Putin, wants to expand like the Soviet Union under everybody from Khrushchev to Gorbachev? I think they tend to see everybody like that. I mean, that's how they talk about the Iranians. That's how they talk about the Russians. That's how they talk about the Chinese. I mean, everybody is bent on aggression. And if you argue otherwise, you're seen as an appeaser. I mean, this is 1938 over and over again. But I think in the case of Russia, you want to remember that there are a

number of other factors at play here. First of all, a huge swath of the Democratic Party believes that Vladimir Putin is responsible for Trump defeating Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. And furthermore, the fact that the Russians- They believe this without evidence. They just want to believe it. Absolutely. I mean, there's just no evidence to support this. But as you know, evidence doesn't matter a lot in Western discourse anymore. In my prior career, when I wore a black robe, I can attest to that. From my prior career, I can attest to that.

Go ahead, please. But the other big issue you don't want to lose sight of is the fact that on issues like gay rights and transgender and so forth and so on, the Russians have a very conservative view and they're very hostile to those, you know, diversity, equity, inclusivity, and so forth and so on, those programs that are so popular in the liberal West. And this just drives lots of people crazy. And animates them to a hatred of all things Russian and an exaggeration of the fears of Russia. Yeah. And by the way, you see a similar thing with Viktor Orban in Hungary, who shares a number of Putin's views on these social issues. The animosity towards Orban is off the charts in certain circles in the West. You know, I had dinner the other night with two college classmates. We've been friends for 55 years. Two of the smartest guys I know from my youth and today. And they both looked at me and said at dinner, don't you expect Putin to charge into Poland as soon as he triumphs over Ukraine. Of course, I was taken aback by

this attitude. And I said, well, if the Chinese had offensive weaponry in Tijuana and aimed it at Dallas and Chicago and San Diego, don't you think we would want to get rid of it? And of course, they were completely taken aback and couldn't take the analogy. But the analogy, I think, is an apt one, is it not? Oh, absolutely. And by the way, it's why the Chinese don't like the United States military in East Asia. No country wants another great power on its doorstep. Whether you're Vladimir Putin worrying about NATO moving into Ukraine, or whether you're JFK

worrying about missiles in Cuba, or whether you're the Chinese worried about the American military, especially the Navy and the Air Force, right on your coast. Is China contemplating the starvation, the economic starvation, I'm not talking about a Gaza-like starvation, the economic suppression of Taiwan? Not yet. I think that they're definitely interested in what I would call harassing the Taiwanese, making it clear that they're not going to sit still and allow Taiwan to pursue its de facto independence and even hint that it wants de jure independence. This is just intolerable to the Chinese. I've never met a Chinese person in my entire life who wasn't completely committed to getting Taiwan back. And the fact that the United States is now sided with Taiwan, and that makes it

so difficult for China to contemplate taking Taiwan back militarily, and it's not going to happen because the Taiwanese decide one day that they want to become part of China. That's not going to happen. So the Chinese are kind of behind, between a rock and a hard place on this one. And what they're doing is upping their harassment policies toward Taiwan every month. Am I safe in concluding that when you were in China, you were on the mainland? You were not in Taiwan? No, I was not in Taiwan, you were on the mainland. You were not in Taiwan. No, I was not in Taiwan. I was on the mainland.

Okay, because you obviously would have gotten a different view from the Chinese people with whom you interacted if you had been, as unrealistic as it may be, it is their view on Taiwan. There's no question. I was in Taiwan last year, and the difference in views between Taiwan and the mainland are like night and day. And when you think about this issue, it's a very dangerous

issue because Taiwan is sacred territory to the mainland Chinese. They desperately want it back. And the Americans have concluded, and the Japanese and the Australians, that keeping Taiwan on our side of the ledger is essential for strategic reasons. Well, when you take those two perspectives and marry them together, you can see where there's potential. Well, that is no longer the law in the United States. I mean, one may have argued against the one China policy from the Carter administration, but it's ratified, adopted by the one China policy from the Carter administration, but

it's ratified, adopted by the Congress and signed by the president. It's the public policy of the United States, is it not? It wasn't before then, but it has been that theoretically, not practically, but theoretically since then. I think that we have not violated that basic agreement. We still maintain that we recognize a one China policy. What is Taiwan from Washington's perspective, from John Bolton and Lindsey Graham's perspective? What is Taiwan? It's a de facto independent state. It's not a de jure independent state.

And we basically say that we understand that someday you're going to have one China, in fact, not just in theory. But for the time being, we are committed to making sure that China doesn't take Taiwan back by force. And that's a longstanding policy of ours. So I don't think that the Biden administration yet is doing anything that, you know, challenges the basic agreement that was struck long ago. Suppose Donald Trump wins the election and sends 100,000 troops and huge amounts of naval hardware to Taiwan. That would be insane, wouldn't it? It would be very, very dangerous. We have to be very careful. You remember when Nancy Pelosi went to Taiwan. That was remarkably provocative. I thought it was remarkably foolish on her part. I mean, again, you want to understand that for China, Taiwan is sacred territory. That's point number one. Point number two is we do have this dangerous security competition,

but we all have a profound interest in making sure a war doesn't break out. And a war could break out over Taiwan if we begin to push Taiwan towards independence. And the Chinese would see massive U.S. military forces on Taiwan as evidence of us supporting an independent Taiwan. So we have to tread very carefully here. From Taiwan to Israel, can Israel take on Iran without offensive, not defensive, offensive military assistance from the United States? Oh, there's no question it can. I think where they need us is if they're going to go after the nuclear installations. Almost everybody agrees that they do not have the capability by themselves to take out Iran's nuclear installations. It's not clear that the United States and Israel working together could do that, but we stand a reasonable chance of accomplishing that goal.

But the Israelis can't do it by themselves. But as far as almost all the other targets are concerned, I think the Israelis have the capability to take them out by themselves. And the most important set of targets here are the energy or oil facilities, the oil fields and the oil refineries. I think the Israelis could do enormous damage. Can the Israelis withstand an onslaught of missile and air attacks from Iran? Well, they can withstand it in the sense that the country is not going to disappear. But I think it's quite clear from what we saw on October 1st, that the Iranians have the ability to penetrate Israel's defenses. So if they launch a couple hundred missiles, and then they launch another couple hundred missiles, almost all of them are going to get through. And they, if they target them at certain places, could do one heck of a lot of damage. And the problem here, Judge, is that

you're going up the escalation ladder. And the question you always want to ask yourself is, what's the next step? And who wins going up the escalation ladder? Do you think that Netanyahu asks himself that? I don't know. I honestly don't know what the Israelis are thinking. I think the Israelis, as I've said before, are in deep, deep trouble. They've not defeated Hamas. They've not defeated Hezbollah. And I think they don't have escalation dominance over Iran. And Iran can pound them just as much as Israel can pound Iran. And you have to ask yourself in that situation, who wins? How do you tell a happy story for Israel at this point in time? How do you tell a happy story for Gaza,

the war against Hezbollah, and a war against Iran? I just don't see how you do it. Well, the Israelis will probably say, we killed Nasrallah, we killed Senwa. Isn't it interesting? They can find the leader of Hezbollah. They can find the leader of Hamas. They can't find their own hostages. Well, I think at this point in time, they probably can find some hostages. But the problem they face is if they go

after the hostages that they can find, Hamas will kill them. Hamas has made it clear that that's the policy now. And that deters the Israelis from going after the prisoners. I wouldn't be surprised if the Israelis know where some of the prisoners are, but just are not willing to go after them because it would end up with those prisoners dying. uh post deep into israel and killed four special forces uh injured 75 to 80 others uh one of the israeli newspapers reported that one of the injured was the chief of the army major general the israelis will not admit or uh or deny that given not given the numbers that the israelis kill but given the small population of Israel and the small size of the IDF, is such an attack significant? Yes, I mean, it's usually significant. The casualties don't matter that much. What matters is that when Israel

went to war against Hezbollah, when they assassinated Nasrallah, when they invaded southern Lebanon, when they started pounding southern Beirut and a lot of the villages in southern Lebanon, all of this was designed to stop the firing of rockets and missiles into northern Israel. That's why the Israelis turned up the heat on Hezbollah. And what's happened is, if anything, Hezbollah has increased the number of rockets that it's firing at Israel. Killing Nasrallah did no good. Invading southern Lebanon did no good. Bombing southern Beirut did no good. So this incident where at least four Israeli soldiers were killed, this was the Golani Brigade, it was an elite brigade that they targeted very effectively, is just evidence that Israel's policy against Hezbollah is not working, just like its policy against Hamas is not working,

and just like its policy against Iran will not work. Well, where do these assaults, the one on Gaza, clearly genocide, the one on southern Lebanon, clearly war crimes with the exploding pagers and attacking civilians. Where do they lead? I mean, I don't have a good answer to that. I mean, one thing that's really happening here is that Israel's reputation around the world is being wrecked. This is going to be a permanent stain on Israel's reputation. And you want to remember at some point, most of this shooting is going to stop and people are going to then take stock of what's happened. And given that this is a thoroughly documented genocide in Gaza and all the murdering that's taking place on the West Bank and in Lebanon

is being documented as well. Lots of books, lots of articles, lots of videos and films are going to be produced showing what the Israelis have done. And I think this is going to be disastrous for Israel's reputation. Now, you can say that doesn't matter. All that matters is that they have this big stick that they use against anybody they don't like, and plus they have the Americans in their back pocket. While that's all true, I do think a country's reputation and how the people in that country think about themselves does matter. And I think moving forward, this looks like a terrible situation for Israel. What are your thoughts on the Israelis attacking UNIFIL and the very strong response by a legislator from Spain and by the president of France and by the troops themselves?

There are 400 Chinese troops in UNIFIL. I didn't know about this. The commander blasted the Israelis, consistent with what you told us earlier. This is par for the course. They do this all the time. They did this in 2006, right? They've killed huge numbers of people who were affiliated with the United Nations in Gaza. The Israelis kill whoever they want, and they get away with it. Are they capable of compassion for the innocents that they kill?

No. No. It's quite clear. What is your understanding of the current relationship between the Kremlin and Tehran? It appears that Putin did not sign, they're going to be together next week at BRICS, but they did not sign the joint defense agreement. I really don't know what to make of what's going on here. I think that the Russians have a deep-seated interest in working with the Iranians and helping the Iranians deal with Israel and deal with the United States. I mean, what's really happened here, if you think about it, is the United States, Europe, and Israel, those sort of three blocks working together, have forced Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea all close together. They form a big block

themselves. And the Russians and the Chinese, they're working closely together. And the Russians are the ones who are working closely with the Iranians. The Russians understand they have a vested interest in helping Iran. And of course, Iran is helping Russia as well. We know how Iran has given Russia all those drones and has been giving Russia drones for a long time now. So I think the Russians are helping the Iranians, but I don't know exactly what's going on in terms of this agreement that they're said to be formulating. Interesting. Does China have an interest in stopping the Israeli killings? Oh, there's no question about it. You talk to people in China, you talk to people in Indonesia, you talk to people in Doha, you talk to people outside the West, what Israel is doing and what the United States is doing by supporting Israel. And what you see is that people are almost unanimous in their intense feeling of

animosity towards Israel and towards the United States. You know, one of the things that struck me on this trip, and again, I went to China, I went to Doha, and I went to Indonesia, is how once you get outside of what we call the West, people think and talk in ways that people think and talk on your show. By the way, quite a few people talked about your show to me, because your show is quite widely watched outside of the West. But people outside of the West have a very different discourse and think about the world very differently than the vast majority of people in the elite inside the West. And with regard to what Israel is doing in Gaza,

and now with regard to Hezbollah and on the West Bank. People are horrified, and they want this to stop. It's just that in most countries around the world, nobody is in a position to really exercise any leverage against Israel and get it to change its behavior, or to influence the United States for that matter. Where does the Israeli unbridled slaughter in Gaza and the incipient stages of war crimes in Lebanon lead? Or stated differently, who or what will put a stop to it or stated differently? I'm sorry for the compound question. Can the United States say no to Israel? Maybe that's the easiest answer. No, I don't think the United States can say no to Israel. Certainly Biden has been unable to do

that. There's no evidence that he's going to put any meaningful pressure on Israel to change its behavior. It's hard to imagine either Harris or Trump putting pressure on Netanyahu when one of them gets into the White House this coming January. I mean, the fact is that the Israel lobby is just enormously powerful. And it's not only enormously powerful in the United States, it's enormously powerful across the entire West. And therefore, not only the Americans, but the Europeans as well are incapable of putting any meaningful pressure on Israel. I mean, when Macron starts barking at Netanyahu or barking at Israel, I think that Netanyahu just laughs.

I mean, are you serious, Macron? What are you going to do? You're not going to do anything. Joe Biden's not going to do anything. Kamala Harris, does anybody seriously think that Kamala Harris is going to get tough with Israel? Well, might the Europeans impose an embargo on Israel, an economic embargo? Well, I hope they do. I would be knocked out of my mind if they did. I mean, you know, it could be that the next president will

do a 180-degree turn and I'll be proved completely wrong. Let's hope that's the case. I know you don't think this will be taken seriously by Netanyahu, but I want you to hear what President Macron said. And then we'll put a full screen up because he didn't he didn't say what's on the full screen in front of the camera. And I'll read what's on the full screen. Cut number two, Chris, followed by the full screen. It is totally unacceptable for UNIFIL troops to be deliberately targeted by Israeli armed forces. We condemn it. We do not and will not tolerate it happening again.

Mr. Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN. Therefore, this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN. Does any of this stuff resonate with the Israeli leadership? No, they just laugh at this. This is just not serious. Might this turn out into some sort of an embargo, which would hurt an already failing Israeli economy? Again, I'd be shocked if that happened. The United States will protect Israel no matter what. We support Israel unconditionally. It's just hard for me to imagine any president getting tough with Israel. The lobby is just so powerful in this country.

If Netanyahu gets into any trouble with the president, he knows that he can just go to the lobby and let the lobby go to work up on Capitol Hill. So the lobby can even suppress satire that mocks it in Washington, D.C. Here's a clip from an arms convention, a convention of arms dealers. And there's a guy, he's a Max Blumenthal type person. It's not Max because you don't see the face, but it's not his voice, but it's that same in-your-face way that Max has. I'm mentioning Max because he posted this. He sent this to us. And this guy is going around and approaching the arms dealers saying, I'm looking to buy baby shredders. Do you have any?

Watch this and watch what happens to him. Excuse me. Is this where the baby-killing technology is? This is the baby-killing technology. We're. Is this where the baby killing technology is? This is the baby killing technology. We're trying to acquire a couple baby shredders. This guy looks like he shreds babies, sir. Do you shred babies? Sir, do you know where the baby shredding technology is?

We're looking for something that shreds them to pieces. Do you have that? We're with Levantine Defense Industries. Sir, do you have that tech, sir? Can you please move from here? Can I? Yeah. Do you have the baby shredding tech, sir? Can you please move from here? Can I? Yeah. You have the baby shredder tech.

Sir, don't touch my phone. Don't touch my phone. Stepping towards me, sir. Sir, relax, sir. Sir, you need to relax. This is America. You're a foreign citizen. Can you please go ahead and...

Can you please go ahead? I got you, sir. But there's no reason for you to be here, and we don't need a problem. No surprise. No. Not at all. Not at all. Satire, protected speech. The convention was in a building that's a public accommodation.

The building is also owned by the government. The First Amendment applies, but you saw what happened. They didn't beat him up or arrest him. They just silenced him. Look, more importantly, the Israelis have killed lots of Americans over time, starting with the Liberty. And what has the United States government done? Nothing. Nothing.

There you go. Right. Professor Mearsham, always a pleasure. I'm glad that your trip to China was so meaningful to so many people. I'm ecstatic to learn that some people there know of judging freedom, but I'm happiest that you have returned and can resume being with us once a week. Thank you, John. All the best. God love you. Okay. See you next week. Thank you, John. All the best. God love you. Okay. See you next week. You got it. Thank you. Coming up on the remainder of the day at four o'clock, Aaron Mate at 5.30, midnight in Moscow, Pepe Escobar, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching! I'm