Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer: What I'd Tell Lavrov

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

Prof. John Mearsheimer: What I'd Tell LavrovSee 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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electricity. I guess he thinks he can get away with this. I think that's probably the case. I mean, his history with the United States is quite straightforward. He always gets his way. And in fact, whenever he's in political trouble in Israel, he flies to the United States and he meets either with the president or talks before Congress or does both. And he props up his standing in Israel and he lives to fight another day. So in terms of Netanyahu's dealings with the United States, he is in a win-win situation. And is the answer to my question the lobby? Why is Donald Trump, who is a man of peace and willing to frustrate the entire foreign policy establishment on Russia and Ukraine, simply going along, even doing more

than Joe Biden, about which more in a moment, on Israel and Gaza? It's the lobby. I mean, the idea that the United States has a special relationship with Israel that has no parallel in recorded history tells you that something extraordinary is going on here. This is an unbelievable relationship. Israel is a country that is effectively a strategic albatross around our neck, number one. And number two, it is in the process of committing genocide in Gaza, yet we support it unconditionally. The United States is a liberal democracy. For a liberal democracy to be supporting a state that behaves like this is truly remarkable. And again, we're not just supporting Israel.

We give Israel unconditional support. And the question you want to ask yourself is, why is this the case? And the answer is clear. It's the Israel lobby. They basically have so much power in the United States that they get their way almost every time. So yesterday, Secretary of State Rubio, in my opinion, committed perjury when he certified under oath to the Congress that Israel was in a state of emergency and required the immediate delivery of $4 billion worth of military gear, so immediate that there wasn't time to bring it to the Congress for the ordinary appropriations.

There's a statute that allows, as you know, that allows the Secretary of State to do that. When Tony Blinken did that, I accused him of perjury and I accuse false swearing under oath. I accuse the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, of the same thing. What emergency? Is it a political emergency? What conceivable emergency is there

that they don't have time to go to the Congress, which they know will give them whatever they ask for? I mean, there is no emergency, at least emergency involving Israel. But this kind of thing just happens all the time. And I'd put it in a slightly different way. I think the dishonesty in our mainstream discourse about Israel is just off the charts. It's really hard to believe. The discourse that we engage in in newspapers like the New York Times and especially the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, and the discourse that our politicians are involved in about Israel is almost laughable when you actually look at the facts and then compare the facts to what's being said. But this has been true for a long time, and there's no reason to think it's going to change.

So not only can Israel commit genocide and receive financial aid from the United States in violation of two federal statutes, not only can Israel have an atomic weapon without authority of the United Nations in violation of a treaty as well as a federal statute, Israel can benefit from secretaries of state lying about the immediacy of its need for all this gear and military equipment. All right, I get it. Is there an organized resistance to Israel in the Middle East? No. I mean, there's no question that there are lots of countries in the Middle East that are deeply dissatisfied with what Israel is doing, but the Arab states have never organized in any meaningful way to stand up to Israel. And in a number of cases, they've thrown the Palestinians

under the bus. To the extent that there is resistance, it involves Iran, it involves Hezbollah, and now it involves the Houthis. That is the real resistance here. It's had some effect, but not much effect in terms of stopping the genocide. What about Turkey and Egypt? Colonel McGovern seems to feel that both are under tremendous leadership of both, are under tremendous pressure from their own people to do something militarily, particularly President slash General, I don't know if he's still a general or not, al-Sisi in Egypt. And Colonel McGovern, who's a former tank commander, says the Egyptians are

amassing huge numbers of tanks in the Sinai. Does that tell you anything? Look, I think there's no question that in countries like Egypt and Jordan, more so than Turkey, but even in Turkey, there is tremendous pressure from down below on the leadership in those countries to do something about the genocide in Gaza. But the question you have to ask yourself is, do those countries have the military wherewithal to challenge Israel? And I think if you're talking about an armored battle involving Israeli tanks and aircraft up against Egyptian tanks and aircraft, that the Israelis would win easily, as they did in 1956, 1967, and 1973. And therefore, I find it hard to believe that the Egyptians would pick a fight with the Israelis. I don't

think the Jordanians would under any circumstances. And I find it hard to believe that the Turks would either. The fact is that the Israelis pretty much have a free hand. And you want to remember that backing them up at every turn is the United States of America. So if they pick a fight with any one of those countries or any combination of those countries and they get into trouble, the United States of America. So if they pick a fight with any one of those countries or any combination of those countries and they get into trouble, the United States will come racing to the rescue. Do you think maybe the kerfuffle in the Oval Office on Friday between the president and his vice president and President Zelensky might have sent a message to Prime Minister Netanyahu? Not at all. Not at all. I'm sure that Netanyahu is fully confident that he can manipulate the Trump administration in all sorts of ways and prevail over them. There may be some cases where there are domestic political forces inside of Israel

that combine with some pressure from the United States to get Israel to do what it doesn't want to do. I think this explains why Israel agreed to the ceasefire with the Palestinians that took place on January 19th of this year. You want to remember that Steve Witkoff went over there and told Netanyahu that President Trump wanted a ceasefire by the time he was inaugurated, which of course was on January 20th. But the only reason Witkoff was successful was because the IDF, the Israeli military, desperately wanted to ceasefire, as did some other forces in Israel, and they were putting pressure on Netanyahu. So there you had the combination of pressure from President-elect Trump at the time and from

down below in Israeli society to cause Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire. Why does the donor class still have a hold on Donald Trump? He can't run for re-election. He doesn't need them anymore. Well, the fact is that he has a broad agenda, and he has basically four years left as president. He has to worry about midterm elections, and he doesn't want to challenge the lobby this early in his presidency, because it will just lead to one headache after another. The lobby is incredibly powerful. If they put their

gun sights on Trump, it will cause him enormous trouble moving forward. And he has enough, you know, other problems without having to pick a fight with the lobby. So he'll just go along with Israel. Does Ukrainian President Zelensky have a hostility to peace? Does he really, in your view, think he can defeat the Russians? Or is he afraid for his own tenure in office or tenure on this planet as a living being if he were to agree to some sort of a negotiated standstill? Well, it's not going to be a negotiated standstill because that equals a ceasefire. And the Russians have made it unequivocally clear that there's not going to be a ceasefire. The question is, will Zelensky agree to the peace terms because he would, in effect, be conceding what has been Ukrainian territory to Russia. He would have to accept Russian annexation of those four oblasts in the east and Crimea.

And he would have to accept that Ukraine would be demilitarized. And at the same time, it would be a neutral state. He can't accept that, not only because of- But it's inevitably coming. There's no way around it. There's no question about that. But he just refuses to accept it. And it will probably be the case that somebody else has to accept it, that he won't accept it. I mean, maybe he will accept it, but it is what's coming. I mean, look, the United States, the West Europeans, East Europeans, and Ukraine, all four of those actors together, could not defeat the Russians on the battlefield. The Russians are winning up against those four

actors. Now you're talking about taking the most important actor out of the equation besides the Ukrainians themselves, and that's the United States. Do you really think that the Europeans plus the Ukrainians can stand up for the Russian steamroller if they couldn't with the Americans in the mix? And the answer is no. So he's destined to lose, as you say. And you would think under those circumstances, it would make sense to accept the peace deal that Trump is trying to work out. But no Ukrainian that I see at this point in time in a leadership position is likely to accept those terms. Why do you think the heads of most of the European countries, not in the EU, not Italy, not Hungary, met in London and endorsed this silliness out of the mouth of Prime Minister Starmer? We're going to make a $2 billion loan. It's going to be repaid by the interest on the Russian money that's frozen in European banks. Oh, and we're going to put

some British boots on the ground and planes in the air. I mean, this is absurd. But yet they said it with a straight face and all of them went along with it, except for the ones that weren't there. It is absurd. I mean, I think your word choice is excellent. I mean, the deal was that we'll get a ceasefire and then after a good month, we'll put British and French peacekeepers into Ukraine and peacekeepers from other countries that are part of this coalition of the willing. This is crazy. The Russians have said, number one, there will be no ceasefire. And number two, they've made it unequivocally clear that British and French troops, whether you call them peacekeepers or not, located in Ukraine is categorically unacceptable, and they'll shoot at them if the British and the French put those

troops in there. So this is a non-starter. It's just not going to go anywhere. What is motivating the European leadership? Do they go to bed at night fearing an invasion from Vladimir Putin? No, I don't think they fear that at this moment. I think they're just so deeply committed to the Ukraine war that they can't bring themselves to abandon Ukraine. You want to remember that the Republican establishment and Democratic establishment here in the United States are profoundly committed to Ukraine. And those two establishments would not do what Donald Trump is doing, right, if they were in charge. Trump is an anomaly here. He doesn't represent the Republican mainstream, and he

certainly doesn't represent the Democratic Party's view on Ukraine. So Trump has come into the White House, right, and his hands are clean on this whole matter of starting this war and keeping it going. And he's decided, as the new kid in town, that he's going to put an end to the war. And of course, the Republican establishment behind closed doors is deeply concerned about this. The Democrats are deeply concerned. And the Europeans are in the same boat. They all bear responsibility for this war, and if I had been in charge, we wouldn't have the war. I believe that. So he's coming now. He wants to put an end to the war, but he's really one of the few actors in the system who wants to end the war. Isn't it amazing how people have changed their minds just because there's a new president in town. Here's one of the least reputable people in the Senate, but he's expressing two different views. Here is Senator Lindsey Graham, then and now, cut number eight.

I want to tell you and your people, you're the ally I've been hoping for all my life. Not one American has died defending Ukraine. You've taken our weapons and you've kicked their ass. And I'm very proud to have you as our ally. So what I think, complete, utter disaster. What I saw in the Oval Office was disrespectful. And I don't know if we can ever do business with Zelensky again. He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change. I think a lot of people have flip-flopped in deference to the president. I don't necessarily hold, I don't think you do either, Senator Graham, out as a paradigm. He's a bit of a goofball, but he does manifest this remarkable switch.

I mean, we'll learn tonight when the president addresses Congress how they react, but I think they're look at the commentary among Republicans and Democrats on the meeting that took place last Friday, the infamous meeting in the White House, very few Republicans are criticizing President Trump. They're backing him to the hilt. And this is reflected in Lindsey Graham's second set of comments there. With regard to the Democrats, almost all the Democrats that I see or I've heard from have been criticizing Trump. And I would imagine that divide will remain in place for the foreseeable future. But Trump is in control of the Republican Party. It's quite amazing. And he is determined,

number one, to end the Ukraine war. He's determined, number two, to improve relations with Russia. And he's going to go ahead with it, regardless of what the Democrats say, and even regardless of what some Republicans might say, and certainly regardless of what the Europeans say. Here's the smartest foreign diplomat in the world saying, oh, the U.S. wants peace and Europe wants war. Cut number 13. After Joe Biden, new people have come into power who are guided by common sense. They say outright that they want to end all wars. They want peace. Who demands a continuation of the war?

Europe. If you could ask him anything, what would you ask him? Ask Lavrov? Yes. I'm not sure what I'd ask him. I think it's very clear what Lavrov's views are on all of these issues. I have no need to ask him any questions. I just hope that he and Marco Rubio or Steve Witkoff, whoever he works with, are able to work out a deal that is as favorable to the Ukrainians as possible. I mean, I think, as I've said to you before, the Ukrainians are going to get a bad deal no matter what. I'd just like to see them get the best deal possible. And hopefully, you know, Lavrov and Putin will be able to work out a deal with Witkow, Rubio,

and Trump that works to the Ukrainians' advantage, at least to some extent. But this is going to be a deal made between Russia and the United States. It's not going to, Zelensky is not going to be at the negotiating table. No, I don't think Zelensky will be at the negotiating table, nor will the Europeans. I think that Trump and the Russians will work out a deal. And then the question is, will Ukraine accept that deal? And will the British accept that deal? I mean, we're in this bizarre situation where Donald Trump wants peace, and he wants to improve relations with the Russians, and he wants to help create a security

architecture in Europe so everybody can prosper and we don't have any more war. This is Trump's goal, whether you like it or not. I wish he had the same goal in the Middle East. He apparently does not, but we've been through that. Yeah, he does it, and we know why. But the point is, we know what he wants to do in Europe. He's not a warmonger. He's a peace monger in this case. But if you were to say, or if I were to say to Sergei Lavrov, why do you think the Americans hate the Russians? How do you think he would answer? Well, I think he would probably point to some of the same factors that we point to. Number one, the fact that the Russians have stood up to the Americans, first in Georgia in 2008, and second over Ukraine. Second, he understands full well that we blame, or many Americans blame Russia for the fact that Trump won in 2016 and that Hillary Clinton lost.

And I think he also understands that there is an ideological disagreement between Russia on one side and the United States on the other side, at least as it applies to the Democratic Party, and that has to do with the whole issue of LGBTQ. There are just fundamental differences on those sorts of issues. So I think he'd point to the same issues we do. I can remember as a child in grade school being taught to demonize Nikita Khrushchev. I don't know if you remember those days. We're about the same age. It was like you were supposed to hate Khrushchev. Absolutely. I mean, the difference between then and now was that you had a wicked ideological dimension to the competition. It was communism versus liberal democracy. It was communism versus capitalism. And they were seeing the communists as the font of all evil.

And, of course, Khrushchev was, in the 1950s, the head of the Soviet Union. He was the archvillain. And we were brought up to believe that we should loathe him, if not hate him. And you don't have exactly that situation today because the Soviet Union is not, excuse me, Russia is not a communist state. But you do have an ideological dimension to this conflict. Some of it has to do with the fact that Putin is seen as a soft autocrat, and we are seen as liberal Democrats. And some of it has to do with social issues like LGBTQ and whether or not the United States is a Christian nation or

Russia is a Christian nation. These issues matter for fueling the hostility between the two sides. And I think what Trump is interested in doing is ameliorating these ideological tensions as much as possible and establishing good relations between the United States and Russia. Professor Mearsheimer, just like all of our conversations, scintillating, challenging, and informative. Thank you very much for your time, my dear friend. Thank you for accommodating my schedule this week, and we'll look forward to seeing you next week. For sure. I look forward myself. Thank you. All the best. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.