Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer : More War and America’s Collapse

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

Aaron Maté : Lindsay Graham: The Uniparty’s War HawkSee 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 Tuesday, July 21st, 2006, my dear friend, Professor John Mearsheimer joins us now. As you know, it was away. Professor Mearsheimer missed you terribly, as do a lot of your fans in Europe. And it's great to be back with you, my dear friend. Thank you for accommodating my schedule today. When President Trump threatens to annihilate the entire Iranian-slash-Persian civilization, What do they think when they hear that in Beijing and in the Kremlin?

Well, I think they're hardly surprised. I think that people in the Kremlin and people in Beijing understand that the United States is a mortal enemy. And not only is the United States a mortal enemy, it's a ruthless great power. You want to remember that the United States, both under the Biden administration and the Trump administration has actively supported the genocide in Gaza. That is a real genocide, and we have supported it, both under President Biden and under President Trump. So when President Trump uses genocidal language, is this surprising?

Not at all. And I'm sure the Iranians, as well as the Chinese and the Russians, are fully aware of just how dangerous the United States is. Do you think that they question Trump's mental and cognitive faculties? I'm sure they do, because both you and I do. There's no way you can avoid not sometimes wondering if the man is playing with a full deck. Sometimes he does look very rational, and you think maybe it's wrong to question his cognitive capabilities, but there are other times where you surely wonder what he's thinking.

because it just doesn't make any sense at all. He says a wide variety of things that are nonsensical, if you ask me. Should the Kremlin be concerned about the bellicose language from EU leaders? They are concerned. There's just no question about that. The Kremlin now fully understands. They only partially understood recently up until recently, but they now fully understand that.

that the Europeans and the Americans are out to wreck Russia. President Trump made this clear in mid-June when he was at the G7 meetings in France, and then in early July when he was at the NATO meetings in Ankara, the United States is fully in support of what the Europeans are doing to help the Ukrainians. And the Ukrainians, the Europeans, and the Americans are trucked, clearly trying to weaken Russia to the point where it suffers a significant defeat in Ukraine and is, hopefully, from their point of view, knocked out of the ranks of the great powers. I guess you weren't surprised that the comments made by Russian foreign minister,

Sergei Levrov, over the weekend. Russia is prepared for war. Russia doesn't trust the West. Russia doesn't trust the signature of Donald Trump. For sure. I'm just surprised that he didn't reach this conclusion earlier. The same with Putin. I mean, it's been clear for a long time now that the United States and the Europeans, and of course the Ukrainians have their gun sights on Russia. And do you expect the Russians to do anything against a NATO nation in order to diminish its ability? to fund Iran?

Well, I think in terms of the battlefield, there's no need for the Russians to strike into Europe. Events on the battlefield are moving Russia's way. Ukraine is in serious trouble, and therefore, the situation on the battlefield does not compel Moscow to attack into Eastern Europe. The really interesting question has to do with the long-range drone war that the Ukrainians with the assistance of the United States and the Europeans is conducting against Russian territory. And for a while, it looked like the Ukrainian long-range drone offensive was causing huge problems for the Russians and that they might attack into Eastern Europe as a way of putting an end to that set of attacks. But at this point in time, it looks like the tide has moved

in the other direction, and those drones are not quite as effective as they once were. So it doesn't look at this point in time like the Russians will attack into Eastern Europe. Is the United States at war with Russia? I think it basically is at war with Russia. And I think the Europeans are at well, as well. There's no question that we're not directly engaged in the fighting in the sense that we have soldiers on the ground or pilots who are flying aircraft that are engaged with Russian aircraft. That's not happening. But we are providing huge amounts of weaponry for the Ukrainians. We are providing important, essential intelligence information.

We are helping them to plan various operations. And there's no way that Ukraine could continue to conduct this war if it wasn't for the fact that the United States and the Europeans are supporting Ukraine. So I think in a very important way, we are at war with Russia. I want to play a clip from a fellow academic of yours. I think you probably know him, treat a Parsi. If you don't, you probably agree with what he says. But his argument is basically, why should the Iranians come back to the negotiating table while the Americans are trying to shift the negotiating landscape by reigniting military activity? Chris, cut number six. It is a problem if the parties are going to the negotiating table while still trying to shape the negotiation landscape through military action.

And this is, again, part of the reason I think the Iranians are not likely going to come back to the table anytime soon. Because they see the United States failing to achieve what it wants to achieve at the negotiating table and then shifting back towards military action in order to be able to improve its situation. And as a result, Iranians are not going to go back anytime soon, but rather than want to try to make sure that this round becomes as painful as possible for the U.S. So the temptation to go back to military action on the American side becomes significantly diminished. Until we have a full commitment or diplomacy and truly setting aside military action or other efforts to try to shape the landscape, we're not really going to be able to see diplomacy succeed.

Commitment for diplomacy and truly setting aside military action or other efforts to try and shape the landscape, we're not really going to be able to see diplomacy succeed. Why should the Iranians trust any commitment from the United States? The Americans duped them in June, duped them in February, and probably duped them with the memorandum of understanding. Well, let me make two points that answer your question. The first is that treatise right that the Iranians have a vested interest in not going to the negotiating table at this point in time,

because the longer the war goes on, the more coercive leverage the Iranians have over the United States. One can make a very powerful argument that the Iranians were foolish to sign the memorandum of understanding on June 17th, and instead what they should have done was continued the war, because in that process, they would have gained more coercive leverage. But there's no question in my mind that at some point the two sides are going to have to sit down. It will become apparent to the Iranians as well as the Americans that they should negotiate.

This leads to my second point, which I think is a very important point. The Iranians will drive a much harder bargain this time than they drove in the lead-up to the June 17th memorandum for exactly the reason that you said, you cannot trust. the Americans. Now, it's very important to understand that in the run-up to the June 17th memorandum, it was the moderates inside of Iran who were basically in charge and got their way. The hardliners lost in that fight. But given what subsequently happened, i.e., the June 17th memorandum of understanding fell apart, the hardliners are now in the driver's seat. And what I'm saying to you is not only are the hardliners in the driver's seat, but the longer this goes on, the more coercive

leverage they have. So when we go back to the negotiating table, which I'm assuming that we will, the Iranians are going to drive our harder bargain. They're going to make it perfectly clear in the new memorandum of understanding who controls the straight. Furthermore, I would imagine that they will insist that they get almost all of their frozen assets up front, again, because of the trust issue that you raised. I wouldn't be surprised if they insist that the United States pressure Israel to get out of southern Lebanon, which they kind of didn't do with regard to the first memorandum of understanding. So the Iranians are going to be much tougher and what Trump is going to have to swallow the next time around will be even less attractive than what he swallowed on

June 17th. Well, I was going to ask you what more they were going to demand, but you answered that. Take a look at this poll from the Washington Post. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Trump is handling Iran? Approved 29 percent. Disapproved 69 percent. Those are extraordinary numbers. Are they not, as we are four months shy of the midterms? I'm surprised the numbers are not higher. You want to remember that there was no enthusiasm for this war before it started. And then what's happened since February 28th is that we have failed to defeat the Iranians. We have failed to get them to cave to any of our demands.

And furthermore, they've won on a number of other issues that were not apparent before February 28th. For example, the strait was open on February 27th. They now control the strait. We had a huge basing structure in the Middle East or in the Persian Gulf on February 27th. That basing structure has basically gone away. we had a formidable alliance structure involving the Gulf states on February 27th. That alliance structure has been badly fractured. We're much worse off today than we were on February 27th. And many Americans fully understand that.

I'm just surprised that more don't. I don't understand the American or the Trump administration attitude about the straight. It's roughly 25 miles long. international law and custom gives the government of the land adjacent to the water, control of 12.5 miles. The U.S. claims this all around American land, 12 and a half miles to the Iranians, 12 and a half miles to Oman. Where does the United States come in here? Well, the fact is that the United States has basically forced the Omanis to let us,

use the channel that in effect belongs to them, given the limits that you just described. But I don't think you want to talk about international law here. The interesting question is what is said in Article 5 of the Memorandum of Understanding. Article 5 was written to directly address the question of who would control the straight-of-hormuz during the 60 days of negotiation, and then who would control it afterward. And if you look at the memorandum, it makes it clear, at least to me, that Iran would be responsible for controlling the strait, the flow of traffic through the strait during the 60-day negotiating period. And once an agreement was reached, the final settlement on who controlled

the Strait of Hormuz would be between Oman on one side and Iran on the other side. There is no mention of the United States in that article. And what happened is, after it was signed, the United States decided it could work with the Omanis to send ships through the Omani channel that basically the United States controlled or the United Straits monitored. And of course, the Iranians found this unacceptable, and as ships began to go through that channel, the Iranians started firing at them. And then the United States retaliated with airstrikes, and now we're in this tit-for-tat campaign.

And who controls the straight as we speak? No, there's no question that the United States does not control the straight, despite the fact that President Trump and some of his lieutenants say that we do. the fact is the Iranians control the strait. And we don't have the military capability to change that situation. There are a good number of people, mainly on the right-hand side of the political spectrum, who think that we do have that capability and we should go out and open the strait and take it over ourselves. But we just don't have that kind of military capability.

Are we running out of the ammunition that should be kept in reserve for other potential purposes? Oh, there's no question about that. Look, the war started on February 28th with an air campaign. That air campaign lasted about 40 days. And it was a major strategic bombing campaign on air part and on the Israelis part. And we ended it in part, not only because it wasn't working, but because we were running out of munitions. Furthermore, if you go back to last year, You remember that President Trump basically declared war on the Houthis. This is in March 2025, two months after he moves into the White House. And after two months in May of 2025, he quit. He couldn't beat the Houthis, but we were also using up precious ammunition against the Houthis. So the point you want to keep in mind here is that we have a lot of boutique weapons. They cost a lot of money, but we don't have that many of them.

And when you get into a war with a country like Iran, which is firing ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones at American bases, at your allies in the Gulf and at Israel, you're going to end up using a huge amount of weapons in your inventory to deal with that threat. And therefore, and Larry Johnson, of course, has made this very clear and a lot of fine work that he's done, that we are in desperate straits when it comes. to the number of weapons in our inventory. And the fact is that we're not just concerned about the Gulf. We're also concerned about Europe, because we have commitments there, we need weaponry there, and more importantly, East Asia, where we're interested in containing China. Basically, you know, we're robbing Peter to pay Paul here, and we're taking weapons out of East Asia and shipping them to the Middle East.

So the longer this tit-for-tat campaign that President Trump is now engaged in goes on, the more precious weaponry we use. How effective will the various resistance groups be in assaulting, taunting Israel and assaulting American allies in the Gulf? Well, Hezbollah has been very effective at dealing with Israel in southern Lebanon. This is not widely reported in the Western media, but the Israelis are committed to occupying southern Lebanon and defeating Hezbollah. And they have not done that. With regard to Hamas, there are limits to what Hamas can do to retaliate against Israel at this point in time. But the fact is that the Israelis have not defeated Hamas. And very importantly, the third group, the Houthis, have just announced that they are shutting down the Red Sea to Saudi tankers that come out of the Red Sea filled with oil.

This is a major blow to the United States and to its allies in the Gulf. So you can see just how important the Houthis, Hezbollah, and even Hamas are for the Iranians and why the Iranians are deeply committed to maintaining close relationships with all three of those groups. What would the economic consequences be if Saudi Arabia can't sell its oil? Well, I think that probably about 20 million barrels of oil were coming out of the Persian Gulf on February 27th, 20 million barrels a day. And of course, this represented about 20% of world oil. Now, of those 20 million barrels, I would guess that 7 million barrels have seven million barrels. still been coming out from Saudi Arabia and from the UAE. And this is one of the reasons that the

price of oil has not gone up that high. In other words, only 13 million barrels are cut off. Seven of the 20 have been coming out. And of that seven, I would guess about five million have been coming out through the Red Sea. That's where the Saudi oil is coming out through the Red Sea, not through the Strait of Hormuz, because they can't get through the Strait of Hormuz. And then another two million barrels were coming out of Fugira, which is a port on the Gulf of Oman in the country known as the UAE. So the two million barrels from the UAE and the five million barrels from Saudi Arabia really mattered for keeping oil prices down. Now, it appears, and I underlying the word appears because you can't tell for sure that the Iranians have shut down

Fujaira. So those two million barrels are not coming out of Fujaira. And now the five million barrels of Saudi oil won't be coming out of the Red Sea. So this means that that seven million out of 20 million barrels will not be flowing into world oil markets. And that will have real consequences. You also want to remember not to get into too much detail here that another reason that oil prices have not been as high as one might have expected is the strategic petroleum reserve in the United States and in other countries has been tapped and a huge amount of oil has been taken out of the strategic reserves and put into global markets. And that's kept the price down as well. But there's all sorts of evidence that we have reached the point where

we're not going to be able to tap much more oil out of the strategic reserves. And that will cause all sorts of problems. And if you marry that simple fact to what's happening with regard to the Red Sea and the Houthis, this could cause lots of problems in terms of inflation in terms of the international economy. How unstable is Prime Minister Netany's? Yahoo's government or how unlikely is his reelection? Well, when you ask how unstable it is, the government has basically collapsed and you're going to have new elections, I believe, in October. And then the question is, will he win? It looks like he's not going to win at this point in time. But as many people say, and I agree with

them, you never want to rule Netanyahu out. He is a truly impressive politician who has more than nine lives, and I wouldn't rule him out. But nevertheless, I think that it's become clear to lots of Israelis that he's failed to achieve almost all of his objectives in the various wars that he's fought, and that if you look at Israel's standing, not only in the United States but all around the world, he's done great damage with his policies to Israel's position in the international system. So I think there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with him. And then I'd marry to that the fact that his health does not appear to be good. He is said to have had prostate cancer and nobody denies that. And apparently he has heart problems as well.

I don't know that for sure. But he does not look healthy. And I think when you marry that to the fact that his policies have failed, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he's used up all of those lives that he has. Is he still invading southern Lebanon? He's still there. The Israelis are there. They have no intention of leaving any more than they have any intention of leaving southern Syria. Israel is interested in the Greater Israel Project.

And when we talk about the Greater Israel Project on this program and other programs, we usually just talk about the West Bank and Gaza. But the fact is that Israeli ambitions go beyond the occupied territories to include the newly occupied territories of southern Lebanon and southern Syria. Do you have an opinion as to why the Iranians have not been striking Israel in retaliation for the American strikes that Trump ordered resumed last week? I don't think the Iranians have a vested interest in getting into a fight with Israel at this point in time.

I think what they want to do is they want to engage in a tit-for-tat strategy. And in that tit-for-tat strategy, what they want to do is eliminate all of the major American military installations, not only in the Gulf, but also in Jordan. Because you understand what's been happening here is that as the Iranians have tore apart American bases and military installations in the Persian Gulf area, we've moved lots of assets to Jordan. And now they're tearing apart those bases and assets in Jordan. And of course, what we're doing is moving those bases and assets to Israel. But for the time being, I think they're interested in just reducing greatly America's military presence in the Gulf region. And they'll let the Americans go to Israel. Now, the Israelis themselves have no interest in getting back in the fight.

The Israelis who led us into this war are now content to sit on the sidelines and let us wage the tit-for-tat strategy, because they understand if they get engaged in the tit-for-tat strategy, Iranian missiles and drones will rain down on top of them, and that is the last thing they want. So both the Israelis and the Iranians at this point in time have a vested interest in Iran not attacking Israel, and Iran concentrating its fire on the Gulf states and on Jordan. The wild card here is the United States. You want to remember that President Trump said that this week, he would ramp up the tit-for-tat campaign in a really serious way

if the Iranians didn't come to the negotiating table. He, President Trump, would start to go after civilian infrastructure, power plants, bridges, oil facilities, inside of Iran in a major league way this week, if Iran didn't come to the negotiating table. Well, they've not come to the negotiating table. But he is not ramped up the tit for Tatkan campaign in any meaningful way. But if he does, I think that would bring the Israelis in. I think if President Trump really started going after civilian infrastructure inside of Iran in a big way. The Iranians would go after the bases in Israel, because you want to remember what I was saying, and others have said this, of course,

as well. What the United States has done is moved its bases out of the Gulf to Jordan, and now it's moving them from Jordan to Israel. So there are all sorts of KC-135 refueling tankers that the American Air Force needs located at Ben-Gurian Air Force Base inside of Israel. Those tankers, and that base inside of Israel would be a big fat target that the Iranians would want to go after if the war escalated. Aren't they setting ducks? Of course. There's no question about that. By the way, the military bases, the military aircraft, the naval forces in the Gulf, and then in Jordan, we're sitting ducks. If you look at the attacks that took place recently in Jordan, There's no question that not only were military personnel killed, but aircraft were killed,

and Black Hawk helicopters were destroyed. A large number of Black Hawk helicopters, because helicopters sitting out on a runway or aircraft sitting out on a runway, or even if they're in hangers, are remarkably vulnerable to those Iranian attacks. Wow. ABC News reports that the Iran, just as you said, the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, said on Monday, that's yesterday, professor, that they were attempting to blockade Saudi Arabian shipping, saying they will shut down a key waterway connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean credit Martha Raditz of ABC News. Yeah. also want to remember, not to get too technical here, but even if the Houthis did not shut down the Babal-Mandab Strait, which is the straight at the bottom of the Red Sea that the Houthis

basically can control if they want, even if the Houthis didn't play ball with the Iranians, the Iranians have the capability with their missiles and drones to hit the Saudi port on the Red Sea, where the oil starts its pilgrimage from Saudi Arabia out into world oil markets. Wow. So the Iranians can easily shut down the flow of Saudi oil. One other point on this, it was just the other day that the Iranians attacked an airbase that houses American aircraft in Saudi Arabia. I think it had been about four months since Iran last attacked Saudi Arabia,

because the Saudis are very smart, and they understand that they want to work out of Modus Vavendai with Iran. They do not want to be a target for Iranian missiles and Iranian drones. So the Saudis have been remarkably reluctant to let us use the air bases in Saudi Arabia to launch attacks against Iran. But nevertheless, last week what happened is that the Iranians attacked a major airbase inside of Saudi Arabia. I think they were reminding the Saudis that they, the Iranians, are playing hardball.

And if the Iranians see any evidence that the Saudis are cooperating with the Americans, they will pay a serious price. What is the likelihood of Pakistan getting involved in any of this? Hardly at all. I don't know anybody who talks about the Pakistanis getting involved. It would certainly not be in their interest. They couldn't tip the balance, the military balance, in any meaningful way. It's quite clear that the Saudis and the Pakistanis have very good relations,

but I find it hard to believe that Pakistan would enter the fight on the side of of Saudi Arabia. As you know, Pakistan has been trying to act as an arbiter or a mediator here. The Omanis and the Pakistanis have been working with the Iranians and with the Americans to see if they can fashion some sort of deal that puts an end to this war. And of course, the Pakistanis played a key role in fashioning the June 17th memorandum of understanding. And I would imagine that moving forward they'll be involved again with the Omanis. And both the Omanis and the Pakistanis want to avoid a fight. And what they want to do is serve as mediators and just shut this one down.

Last topic. The mayor of New York recently caused a stir when he said the following. When it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu, we're speaking about someone who's the subject of an international criminal court arrest warrant. and he's the subject of this arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity, for war crimes, and he's the architect of the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza as Israel's prime minister. These are not facts of my personal assessment. They are facts of public record. And I believe that when someone is charged with an international criminal court warrant,

it's something that should be taken seriously, whether it's Benjamin Netanyahu or it's Vladimir Putin or whomever else. Said that, of course, in defense of other statements he made, indicating that he is legal team, is preparing advice as to whether or not the New York Police Department has the authority to arrest Netanyahu when he comes to New York in the fall to address the General Assembly of the United Nations. Where do you think this will go? I think that President Trump will go to enormous lengths to make it clear that that's unacceptable. And my guess would be that Mamdami would concede in the end that Trump is the president and given that Netanyahu is coming to talk to the United Nations and that this is

an international issue that in this case he won't arrest Netanyahu. That would be my guess. I think the lobby will go to enormous lengths to make sure that Netanyahu can come and address the United Nations. And that means that President Trump will go to enormous lengths. And I don't think it's in Mamdami's interest to pick a fight with Trump on this issue, because Trump would probably win in the end. And I think, therefore, Mamdami will back off. But I'm not 100% certain of that. I agree with you.

There is, of course, the precedent of Mayor Giuliani arresting Yasser Arafat in the middle of a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. This is crazy, but it happened at Lincoln Center. His people stormed into the middle of the performance, ruined the performance, which to me is a mortal sin. I'm a Beethoven fan, as you may know, and dispatched the Arafat not to a jail cell, but back to his hotel room because Giuliani said he's a terrorist. Well, this just shows you the power of the Israel lobby.

I mean, you want to ask yourself, why was Giuliani doing this? Was it because he really felt that Arafat was a terrorist and that this was something the United States of America could not tolerate? Of course not. What happened here is that the lobby got. got wind of the fact that Arafat was in town and they went to work and Giuliani did their bidding. I mean, this is just the way it works in American politics. And when it comes to an Israeli leader, you get the exact opposite kind of behavior. We celebrate the Israelis.

At some point, President Trump will probably name some avenue in Washington, D.C. after Prime Minister Netanyahu. because that'll curry favor with the lobby. Just the way things have worked up till now in the United States. And the key question, of course, that we've talked about many times is whether there's been a sea change that will have an effect on policy. We know there's been a sea change in public opinion on Israel. But the question is, will that sea change on public opinion have an effect on policy? And what would happen if President Trump decided,

to name an avenue in Washington, D.C., or maybe even in New York after Prime Minister Netanyahu. I'm not even going to go there, John. Thank you very much for all of this analysis. Cheerful, brilliant, courageous, as always. Thank you, my dear friend. I look forward to seeing you next week. Likewise, Judge. Have a good week in the meantime. Thank you. You as well. Coming up, if you're watching us live at 23 minutes at 10 o'clock, Aaron Mottay at two this afternoon, Matt Ho at three this afternoon, Karen Kutkowski, Justin Paltona for judging freedom.