Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer : Iran War is the Worst Blunder in U.S. History

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

Prof. John Mearsheimer : Iran War is the Worst Blunder in U.S. HistorySee 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 Monday, August 31st, Professor John Mearsheimer will be with us in just a moment on just why the war in Iran may be the worst U.S. foreign policy blunder in history. But first this. If you're serious about preparedness like I am, head over to preparewithachadge.com right now. Let me tell you why. Our partners over at My Patriot Supply are the experts when it comes to emergency food,

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This is not the time to assume you'll find out what you need later. Build your 90 days of real food security. This offer ends on September 30th, so go now to prepare with the judge.com. Professor Mearsheimer, welcome here, my dear friend. Why is the United States military still engaged in these pinprick type attacks on Ukraine if the president is stated between 40 and 50 times the war has already been won by the United States? Well, I think it's certainly clear that the U.S. military from top to bottom has little interest in, restarting the tit for tat campaign, which appears to be happening after yesterday's American attack. So it must be President Trump and one or two of his close advisors who were in favor of doing this. But it does not make a lot of sense to me. I mean, we've played this tit for tat

game before. In fact, it covered almost all the month of July, and we finally quit at the end end of July because it just wasn't going anywhere. We weren't getting any coercive leverage over the Iranians. And it made no sense to continue, especially when you took into account that we were using up precious munitions. And the military was perfectly happy to see us put an end to that tit-for-tat campaign. And by the way, you just saw in the Washington Post yesterday, this is Sunday, a big story saying that the military is very interested in not restarting the war or not starting a military, restarting a military campaign in the Gulf against Iran because it would use up precious munitions that we can't afford to expend. So it's kind of puzzling

what's going on here? That picture of Pete Hegseth is not AI. That's him angry with clenched teeth because people on the inside have revealed what he thinks the public doesn't have a right to know, which is that our military supplies are at a dangerously low level, and military commanders are recognizing this.

This is the spokesperson. and he used to be at Fox when I was there. This is the spokesperson for the Defense Department, Sean Parnell, publishing highly classified assessments from the Secretary's Orders book as a crime. It's a betrayal of the force and much of what their publishing is inaccurate,

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. These people don't like when the public finds out what's going on, and they threaten to prosecute those who leak this information. I don't know. Is it classified if General Kane says to Secretary Hegs, hey, Pete, we're running low on fill in the blank type of ammunition. We probably shouldn't use it.

And somebody else overhears that and repeats it to the media. Is the person who repeated it to the media committing a felony? No, I think in that circumstance, the answer is clearly no. And you remember that General Kane said before the war started, and he said since the war begun, that we were short on munitions and that we had to be very careful and that we had to limit our military operations. So people on the inside of the military at the highest ranks have been saying the things that were reported yesterday by the Washington Post. But the fact is that what was in the Washington Post yesterday was based on a highly classified document.

So I think there's no question that whoever leaked that was breaking the rules or breaking the law. Right. And when you see what was actually being said in a formal document like that, and you see that the heads of all three of the major services, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, plus the sinks of the European Command, the Pacific Command and the Latin America Command, And all of those senior leaders were in favor of not restarting military operations against Iran.

It really has a punch to it. How colossal an error. I know I'm deviating a little bit on Iran, but I've been meaning to ask you this, how colossal an error was it for the United States and Israel to assassinate Khomeini on day one? Well, I think it was a huge error in the sense that it was, number one, immoral. The idea that you were going to go assassinate all of these civilian leaders is just something you don't do. Number two, it was guaranteed to cause the Iranian people to rally around the flag. And if one of your principal objectives is regime change, and you're hoping that that regime change will be a result,

from a popular uprising, going in and decapitating the regime and killing these civilian leaders is going to have exactly the opposite effect. And then the third point that I'd make is that it's quite clear that the Iranians are bent on revenge. And it appears at this point in time that it's mainly aimed at the Israelis, not aimed at the Americans, but it could be aimed at the Americans as well. For example, it's quite clear that the Iranians had a price tag on Mike Pompeo, who was seen to be principally responsible for the assassination of General Soleimani in 2020. So, I mean, you want to understand when you assassinate foreign leaders that they have a second strike capability in many cases. Right, right.

Here's the president yesterday. Actually, before I go there, who is controlling the Strait of Hormuz today? I think it's quite clear that the Iranians are largely in control of the strait. There's no question that the Americans are getting a few ships out every day. That's happening. So the Iranians don't have total control. but they by and large have control the strait. I think the number of ships that were going out of the strait before the war started

were somewhere on the order of 130. Some people say 140, 120, but let's say about 130 ships a day we're going through the straight on February 27th and before that date. Since then, I think we've reached a point where every day there are probably about 10, maybe 11, some days nine or eight ships going through the strait. That's a drastic reduction. And the Iranians are actually letting a number of those ships out. If you read carefully on this issue, it's quite clear that the Iranians are transferring oil to Iraqi tankers and then allowing those Iraqi tankers to get through the strait. Furthermore,

or the Iranians are allowing tankers to get through, or cargo ships in some cases to get through that are headed for China or other countries that have contracts with the Iranians and have friendly relations with the Iranians. So the Iranians are letting some ships through, and we're getting some ships through surreptitiously, but it's a drastic reduction from the number that we were getting through before there were a 28th. The reason I asked you that is because I'm going to play a clip of President Trump yesterday in which he says some odd things. He does say, as soon as we win the war, as soon as we win the war, even though he said between 40 or 50 times that we've already won it,

then he said we've got total control, meaning of the Strait of Ramoose, and then he says, I would say almost total. So I'll play this clip and then, ask you how these ships can go through there if they don't have insurance, how they could get insurance if there are mines there, and how the United States can claim that it is blockading the strait when the United States Navy is between four and six hundred nautical miles away. But first, President Trump yesterday, Chris, cut number three. These are very violent. I've largely taken care of inflation.

By the way, the gasoline is going to go down. the oil is going to go down like a rocket going in the opposite direction as soon as we win that war, complete the war. Already, you know, we've got total control. I would say almost total. They could be a nuisance, but we have control of the hormone strait. We've swept it of all the mines, you know, we don't have mines there now. We have all of the international.

We got rid of them with very little help from other countries. All right, where are we going? I mean, I don't know where to start. But just on the blockade line, I think we do have a formidable blockade. I think we have enough ships to cover what you have in that picture as the U.S. blockade line. Whether we can sustain this blockade over the long term is another matter, because the wear and tear of this blockade on the Navy is significant. But we have enough ships now.

This is not to say that an occasional Iranian tanker doesn't get through. But I think by and large, even the Iranians admit that the blockade has been quite successful. With regard to President Trump's claim that we control the straight, this is ludicrous. With regard to his claim that we have won or almost won or on the verge of winning the war, however you want to put it, this too is ludicrous. As I've said many times on the show before, we went into the war with four objectives. We have achieved none of those objectives. We were zero for four. And furthermore, we're worse off than we were before the war because they now basically

have shut down the straight for all intents and purposes. That's the Iranians. I mean, again, a few ships get through, but only a few. And furthermore, we have wrecked our alliance structure in the Gulf. And furthermore, the bases that we had in the Gulf have been wrecked as well. beyond me, how those London insurance groups could insure any tanker, which could be exploded by a mine, attacked by the Iranians or blocked by the Americans. I don't know how the owner of the oil or the owner of the tanker could get a ship through there without maritime insurance. And I don't know how the insurers in London would insure in this environment.

Well, it must be the case that some of these ships are getting insurance. But the other thing is that you can head towards the straight, and then if you turn back, you can go back. But if you're not turned back, you're going through at nighttime. You don't have your transponder on, and you find yourself getting through. Then you're through. But if you think about it, not that many ships have been sunk. And I think a lot of this has to do with.

the fact that the Iranians, in my opinion, have not laid a lot of minds. There's all this talk about all the minds that the Iranians have laid. And then President Trump was saying last week that we've cleared all the mines. I don't think there were many minds to begin with, because if we had had to clear a lot of minds, that would have taken a lot of time. And it would have been the subject of a lot of discussion in the media. I just don't think the Iranians have laid many minds. And therefore, it's, I don't think it's that bigger risk for a ship to try to get through. I mean, there is some small chance that that ship will be hit. But if you think about it, over the past six months, not a lot of ships have been blown up in the strait.

as secondary tariffs possibly accomplish? It's very interesting. Besson said, you know, D-Day has come and we're going to strain. Throw down your arms, he said, to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Yeah, and it looked like the secondary sanctions were imminent, that countries like China and the UAE, who are two Iran's biggest trading, partners were going to be throttled if they didn't cut off all economic intercourse with Iran. But, of course, they haven't cut off all economic intercourse with Iran. Nobody has.

And the United States has done hardly anything. I mean, it appears that Besson has put secondary sanctions on one bank, and it's not the entire bank. It's an Egyptian bank that has different branches in the UAE and the United Arabam. And he's put sanctions on those branches of that Egyptian bank in the UAE. That's all we've done so far. And moreover, he hasn't told us when D-Day is coming. Or I should say, he hasn't told countries like China, the UAE, Russia, Pakistan, Turkey, on and on, when D-Day is coming. And my guess is that D-Day is not coming because Bessent has figured out that the Chinese and the Russians are going to tell them

go take a hike. And if he doesn't listen and he puts secondary sanctions on the Chinese, for example, the Chinese will retaliate economically as they did last year when we tried to play hardball over tariffs. And with regard to the UAE, I don't think the UAE can go along with us because if they do, the Iranians will go after the UAE economy. I just don't see this working. I had this conversation with Alster Crook earlier.

It was in Siberia today, by the way, out of earlier today. Why would a Chinese bank lending money to a Tehran oil refinery stop doing so because the U.S. threatened the bank when it is a crime in China to comply with American sanctions? I don't think I have to answer that question. Right, right. You don't have to answer that question. But I wonder how a Secretary Bessent, it's hard to take him seriously, Professor. I wonder how Secretary Bessent would answer that. I mean, was the stuff we heard last Wednesday or Thursday all fluff?

Yes, it was all fluff. Listen, you also want to remember, never forget this, that the Russians and the Chinese and the Turks have a vest. interest in seeing Iran defeat the United States. They do not want to help the United States defeat Iran. They do not want to help Secretary Besant. The UAE probably wants to help Secretary Besant, but the UAE can't for fear that the Iranians will retaliate against them and wreck their country. But those other countries like China are perfectly content to see the Iranians in the driver's seat. If Iran wins a clear victory here and the United States is really humiliated, which I would argue has happened already, but be that as it may, if it becomes more clear with

the passage of time, this is mana from heaven for the Chinese, for the Russians, for the Turks, and for many other countries around the world. Why have you characterized the Trump-Netanyahu who wore in Iran as the worst American foreign policy disaster in history? Well, first of all, if you look at the actual decision-making process, it was manifestly clear that the strategy was not going to work. The strategy was based on a set of ideas that made no sense at all. And this is the principal reason that virtually all of Trump's main advisors, except for maybe Pete Hexon, were opposed to the idea. This includes. includes the vice president, the Secretary of State, the head of the CIA, General Kane.

They all told them that this wasn't going to work because it was a cockamamie strategy. So when you look at the decision-making process, I think it's a case of irrationality. And then, if you look at what's happened in the war itself, as I said before, we have achieved none of our objectives, number one. And number two, we have lost control of the straight. I should put it differently. The straight is now closed in ways it wasn't on February 27th. We have done enormous damage to our alliance structure and our basing structure in the region.

We've put the international economy under the gun. And President Trump himself has said that he worries about being Herbert Hoover. He worries about an economic catastrophe. So he, like many other people, is really worried about what's happened to the international economy as a result of this war, and he worries about what will happen if the war continues. This is just more evidence of what a disaster this is. And then, of course, to judge how serious a disaster this really is, you have to compare it to past disasters. And usually Iraq is considered to be the worst disaster in our history before February 28th. And I think this is a case of a disaster that's worse than the Iraq disaster.

Yeah, well, there is Vietnam where we lost 58,000 Americans, but Trump can't compare himself to Herbert Hoover. Hoover didn't cause the Great Depression. He may have exacerbated it. Trump caused everything that's happening now. Trump and Trump alone. No, not Trump and Trump alone. Trump and Netting. Trump and Net.

And Trump listening to Netanyahu, correct. You do not want to. I mean, Trump is in a very important way the ultimate decider to use George Bush's terminology. And he does bear full responsibility from a purely American point of view. But you want to understand that he was bamboozled by the Israelis, by David Barnaya, the head of Assad at the time, and by Benjamin Netanyahu. You'll appreciate this. this is Netanyahu yesterday at a campaign rally boasting about his influence in American society and government.

Just what you've been arguing. Chris, cut number five. I am involved in this matter. I have been against Iran for nearly 40 years and you need to identify the danger and you need to be able to bring. It took me a long time to get our security establishment to deal with Iran itself and not just its proxies.

And that is what we deal. in the end when this unity government I spoke of was formed and it also took a long time to bring the United States to that realization. I could do it because I had, I don't want to say thousands, but close to a thousand hours on American television with the ability to influence in the United States, with intimate knowledge of all its leaders, both those who support us and those who do not support us, the ability to navigate this field, without which, without which, what are you? Intimate knowledge of those who support us and those who do not support us.

Can you say Epstein? Well, leaving Epstein aside, I mean, the fact is that Israel has tremendous influence on the formulation and execution of U.S. foreign policy. It's due in good part to what Israel does. and especially Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is a genius when it comes to manipulating the American political system. But it's also due to the Israel lobby. The Israel lobby is fantastically powerful. And the combination of Netanyahu and the lobby together played a critical role in pushing the United States since President Trump came back to office into two wars against Iran. You want to remember that Trump went to war with Netanyahu.

Netanyahu against Iran in June of 2025. Then on February 28th, he went back to war against Iran. And with Israel, of course, and as President, excuse me, as Prime Minister Netanyahu just said, he played a key role, maybe the central role, in convincing Trump to launch both of those attacks. I mean, here we have Netanyahu basically saying that. If somebody like me got up on TV and just said what Netanyahu said, I would be accused of being an anti-Semite or a conspiracy theorist. But thankfully, we have Prime Minister Netanyahu telling the truth, something he usually doesn't do, but in this case, does. And he makes it clear that Israel played a truly important role in pushing President Trump to pursue this.

remarkably foolish policy. We're going to switch gears to Ukraine. Is the Ukraine more close to being over? Is it close to being over? It depends what you mean by close. Is it going to end, you know, in the next two or three months? I don't think so. Is it going to end by the end of the year, early next year?

I think there's a serious possibility that that's the case. I mean, I think what's really changed is not so much what's happening on the actual battlefield, although what's happening on the battlefield is definitely moving in Russia's favor and against Ukraine. But I think the air war at this point has taken a decisive turn in Russia's favor. And it started with the Russians basically turning Ukraine into a landlocked country by making it impossible for Ukraine to ship agricultural or industrial goods from the ports on the Black Sea. Ukraine just can't use the Black Sea anymore. And this has having devastating consequences on the Ukrainian economy.

And at the same time, it's quite clear that the Russians now are conducting almost round-the-clock attacks on cities like Kiev, And they are destroying infrastructure at rapid speed. It's really quite remarkable. And the Russians have said that what they're going to do in the weeks ahead is they're going to tear down the entire energy infrastructure inside of Ukraine. So I think what is happening is that the Russians are doing egregious damage to the Ukrainian economy, which is going to make it very difficult to sustain the war when you couple that basic fact with the fact that the Russians are doing better on the battlefield every day.

Well, next week, you and I and some of our colleagues are scheduled to spend some time with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. If he allows us to question, him and gives us one question each. What would Professor Meersheimer ask the Russian foreign minister? Gee, I'm not too sure. That's a very interesting question. The problem is there's so many questions to ask them. What question would you ask them? How will you define victory? How will you define when this is over? Not by a piece of paper. Does Zelensky have to die? Does Keeve have to burn? I said, I asked Alistair, and he said, how would you end EU provocation of Russia?

I asked Larry, and he said, can you trust Donald Trump as a negotiator? So I thought I would ask you as well, John. I know we're going to have time to talk about this before it happens. I'm just wondering if there's anything burning on your mind that would pop right out to ask him. Whatever it is, they're going to want us to tell them ahead of time. I've been through this before. Well, I think the question of how this all ends is an interesting question, for sure. The question of what Russian territorial goals are is one that I'm very interested in. Are the Russians merely interested in taking back all the territory and the four oblasts that they've now annexed?

Or are they bent on taking Crimea, not Crimea, Odessa and Kharkiv, and Archev and other oblasts in between, that would be very interesting to know. Also, do they envision having control over who is politically in charge in the rubbed Ukrainian state that is left over? I mean, there are just all sorts of questions that need to be asked. I'm not sure that he'll answer them, by the way. Yeah, I don't know the format in which we're going to chat with him. It's going to be a cocktail party or a formal Q&A across a table, which it was the last time I was there. And his answers ranged from 10 minutes to 40 minutes in length. So it's not going to be a conversation like you and I are having. Before we go, I got to play this clip of my friend and former colleague Tucker Carlson, who erupted with rage at the thought that President Trump might seriously be considering the use of

nuclear weapons in Iran and made a very strong response. This is about a minute in length. But the United States is a country most Americans never imagined would seriously consider lobbying nukes into another country unless it was attacked first. But it is a fact that that that is now under consideration. And not just under consideration, it has been proposed in writing within the Pentagon. Reports in the last two weeks indicate that during meetings within the Pentagon about how to respond to Iran in that current war, the possibility, the option has been floated of using what are called tactical nuclear weapons, which are just nuclear weapons, detonated at a higher altitude or at a lower strength, but there's still nuclear weapons,

that discussions about their use have taken place in the Pentagon. And we're here to confirm that that is absolutely true. And not only have there been discussions about the use of nuclear weapons, tactical nukes against, say, Karg Island or Pickax Mountain, or various spots within Iran, those discussions have included slide decks, which is to say somebody wrote down on a computer screen, hey, maybe we should use nuclear weapons in this war, this war of choice, this war that we started for objectives that have nothing to do with America's national security or national security. interest. Now, you would think at that point, the meeting would stop, and the person in charge of

the meeting would say, who wrote that? Who's suggesting that? Who actually put on a screen in letters in English the idea that we would use nuclear weapons in the Persian Gulf? It's where we are today, Professor. Yeah, I don't think that they are seriously considering using nuclear weapons. I think the issue has been raised, especially by President Trump, and there have been all sorts of news reports to that effect. But I don't think we would use nuclear weapons because I think it would not be in our interest. I think that Tucker loses sight of just how ruthless the United States is. He's quite shocked that we would even count doing something like this because it's so terrible.

But you want to remember the United States is the only country in the history of the world that has dropped nuclear weapons on another country. And that's what we did in August 1945 against Japan. And by the way, we were bombing Japan. We were firebombing Japan before we dropped those nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nakasaki. And the first night we firebombed Tokyo, March 10th to 11th, 1945. we killed more people in Tokyo than were killed at either Hiroshima and Agasaki. If you look at the American bombing of North Korea during the Korean War, it's just awesome how many people.

How about the fire bombing of Dresden? I mean, this stuff just goes on. Yeah. So if it made military sense for us to use nuclear weapons against Iran, I would bet that we would bet that we're, We would use them. I'm not advocating that. I'm just saying you do not want to underestimate how ruthless the United States is. And by the way, the Iranians understand this. The United States, you know, I recently got an email from a friend of mine in Iran. He's an Iranian moderate. And he told me that he was quite shocked by how much devastation we have caused in Iran since February 28th.

our attacks on hospitals, schools, civilian buildings, firehouses, police stations, and so forth and so on. And when I read his email to me, I wasn't surprised at all because that's the way the United States operates. When the United States employs military force, it employs it in incredibly ruthless ways. And when it comes to using nuclear weapons, again, if it made sense militarily, the United States, United States would do it. And the winners don't get prosecuted for war crimes. Occasionally even the losers, Vietnam, Iraq, don't get prosecuted for war crimes either. Professor Meersheim, we're a pleasure. My dear friend, I'll look forward to seeing you on the other side of the world in a couple of days. Likewise, Judge. Thank you. All the best.

later today at 5.30 this afternoon. If you're watching us live in about three hours on all of this, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.