Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer : What If the US Does Attack Iran?

Episode Date: June 21, 2025

Prof. John Mearsheimer : What If the US Does Attack Iran?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

you Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, June 20th, 2025. Professor John Mearsheimer joins us now, fresh from his European trip and speaking tour. Professor Mearsheimer, it's a pleasure. Thank you very much for accommodating my schedule and thank you for squeezing us in on what I know has been a hectic week for you. Is Israel prevailing in its war against Iran as the mainstream media is telling everybody in the West? No, Israel's in serious trouble.

And I listened to President Trump not too long ago say that Israel is winning. And of course, this is the mantra in the mainstream media. But the question you have to ask yourself is what does winning mean? It's a meaningless comment by itself. And the way you assess whether a country is winning a war is you ask yourself the question, what are the goals and what is the strategy that that state has for achieving those goals?

And Israel has three stated goals here. One is to eliminate the nuclear capability of Iran, their ability to produce nuclear weapons, and this is all about enrichment. The second goal is regime change. And the third goal, which is articulated by President Trump himself, is unconditional surrender. Of course, if you get unconditional surrender, that takes care of the first two goals, but these are the three goals. Then the question you have to ask yourself is, what is Israel's theory of victory? Tell us how they're going to do this. Well, with regard to the first goal, which is eliminating Iran's nuclear capability, it's clear they can't do that by themselves.

They admit that, and that's why they're begging the United States to come in and Trump is pondering whether to help them But I would submit that even if Trump comes in we're not going to eliminate Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons. Then there's the business of regime change We do not have a single recorded example in history of a state causing regime change With an air campaign. Remember we had to invade Iraq to get regime change. We couldn't do it from the air and we would have to invade Iran to get regime change and nobody in their right mind is talking about invading Iran. And in terms of unconditional surrender, this is a laughable argument, right?

We've put the Iranians in a position where we are threatening their very survival as a state. They're going to fight to the last person. They're not going to submit to unconditional surrender. So what you see here is that the Israelis have no way of achieving the goals they've set out for themselves. And even if we come in, that's not going to solve the problem. And in the meantime, Israel is being pounded with ballistic missiles from Iran. It's running out of its own missiles to knock down those Iranian ballistic missiles. And it's begging the United States to send air defenses to the Middle East

to help pull the Israelis chestnuts out of the fire. You call this winning? In my world, it's called losing. So Israel's theory of victory must be Netanyahu begs and the donor class demands that Donald Trump get involved and we start dropping 30,000 pound bombs. It doesn't solve the problem. Right. And the media is full of stories these days

showing to you that dropping 30,000 pound bombs on Fordow is just not gonna solve the problem. You probably cannot destroy the centrifuges down in the bottom of that mountain that are producing the enriched uranium. You just can't do it, even with American bombs. But let's assume I'm wrong. And you can destroy those centrifuges.

Almost everybody agrees when you look at how extensive, how comprehensive the Iranian nuclear program is that they can easily Rebuild that program in a year or two and we'll be back to where we started So there's just no Way that even with the united states coming into the fight that we can eliminate iran's nuclear capability Professor meersheimer president trump has insisted that Israel owns Iran's sky. Is there any accuracy to that, that Israel has destroyed Iran's air defenses and Israel now controls Iran's sky? I don't think so. It's very hard to figure out exactly what's happening here, in large part because the mainstream media coverage

is so terrible. But it appears that what has happened here is the Israelis have not penetrated into Iran and destroyed Iran's air defense systems. They're ground-based air defenses. You remember when the Israelis first attacked, this was on June 13th, and for about the first two days everybody was puzzled by the fact that the Iranian air defenses were just not in the fight. This was really quite amazing. So the question is what's happening here? My

sense is that what the Israelis are doing is they're using drones and they're firing missiles from places like Iraq into Iran. And they're doing all the damage that they're doing. And I don't want to make light of the damage that's being done to Iran with cruise missiles and ballistic missiles and other kinds of missiles that are fired from outside of Iran's border or barely inside Iran's border. But I think the argument that the Israeli Air Force completely controls the skies over all of Iran is not true. You would have needed a big battle, a big air battle against Iranian air defenses for this to be the case.

The Iranians had significant amounts of assets on the ground that had to be dealt with, and there's no evidence that that fight took place. So I don't think they control the skies over Iran, that's the Israeli Air Force, but I do think they have the capability to lob missiles into Iran and lob bombs into Iran and put drones in Iran that can do lots of damage. Did Israel destroy or damage Iran's oil refineries? There has been some of that for sure. And the Iranians have done the same to the Israelis.

So far, the Israelis have limited the amount of damage they've done to Iran's ability to produce oil. I think if the Israelis really unleash the dogs and they destroyed Iran's oil infrastructure, that that would in all likelihood lead to Iran shutting the Persian Gulf and getting the Houthis to shut the Red Sea. And that would have, I think, disastrous consequences on the international economy. So the Israelis have not gone that far yet. But you know, the question you want to ask yourself here is if I'm correct that the Israelis are in trouble, and I do believe I'm correct

What are they going to do to get out of this problem? Called Donald Trump, but again Donald Trump is not going to solve the problem for them, right? What what is the what is the level in depth of the trouble that they're in? What is Israeli society politics? economy culture like today? Well, the thing you want to remember is that the Israelis depend very heavily on the idea or the notion that they have military superiority over everybody in the region, that they are invincible. And if they start a war and they lose that war, they don't win that war, and indeed it looks like Iran wins the war, this is a significant defeat

for Israeli deterrence. It's just something that's almost unthinkable. They started this war thinking that they were gonna win a relatively easy victory, and they were gonna do to Iran what has been done to Syria, But that's not going to happen. The Iranians are going to stay in this fight. You want to remember that Iran fought against Iraq for eight years from 1980 to 1988. And those days we were on Iraq's side, right?

That's correct. So the Iranians, I think, will stay in the fight. And I don't think Israel can maintain this fight over the long term. Does their enormous international airport, the Ben Gurion airport, is it operative? No, I think it's shut down at this point in time. I don't think that any airline would fly in there even if the airport were open for fear that a ballistic missile would come in and destroy the aircraft. This is one of the principal problems that the Israelis face. This is taking a huge toll on their economy. People can't go to work, the airports closed, and you

want to remember that the Iranians are targeting Haifa, which is an important Israeli port, and ships are not going to be willing to go into that port for fear they'll be blown up by a ballistic missile coming in from Iran. and these people at Palantir actually believe that Iran has nuclear weapons? I don't think any of them believe that Iran has nuclear weapons. I think the question is whether you believe Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. In other words, it's on its way to getting nuclear weapons. As you know, Netanyahu has been arguing for 30 plus years that Israel, I mean, excuse me,

that Iran is on its way to getting nuclear weapons. And it's only a matter of a month or a year, depending on when he's making the argument, before Iran will have a nuclear arsenal. That's never proven to be the case. And there's no evidence now that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. But there's no question, as I've said before on the show, that Iran has significant nuclear enrichment capability. And that takes them close to the point

where they will have enough fissile material for a bomb. But even then, it would take them a good year to build a bomb and then create a delivery system for that bomb. So they're a good distance away from a bomb and there's no evidence that they are getting a bomb. But you can't tell President Trump that or the Israelis. Don't Israeli military planners understand the basic rubric or even truism that you talked about earlier? That you can't win a war from the air alone? I would have thought so. I was actually quite surprised that the Israelis attacked on the 13th. I didn't think they would do it. I think they're basically jumping off a cliff here. And I would imagine that at the lower levels

in the planning process inside Israel, a good number of people understand that. The counter to that is that they did understand it. And what they were counting on was that the Americans would come in and pull their chestnuts out of the fire but I would imagine that even a Good number of Israeli planners Understood that there were limits to what the Americans could do and furthermore you can't be sure that the Americans will come in

I mean if you look at what President Trump is doing now It does look like he's beginning to back off that doing now. It does look like he's beginning to back off. You know, you don't know with him, and I think he loves to create that impression. His deceptions in Saudi Arabia, his pretense of negotiations prior to the attack on June 13th, as reprehensible as they were, may be part of this plan. Who knows if this two week thing is is for real or if like our friend Cy Hirsch Maintains he's already decided to send the 30,000 pound bombs on there on their way

well, they're not on their way and He's never said that he has decided to send the bombs Which I think changed over the past two days as he's toned down his rhetoric quite significantly And it's the same time if you look at the newspapers the mainstream media newspapers over the past two days More and more newspapers are talking about the problems that we would face If we go after Fordow or more generally if we get into the war and furthermore more and more newspapers are talking about the fact that Israel is in deep trouble. My comments about Israel's losing the war at this point would not have resonated with many people last week. But today is a different story. I think if you look at the mainstream media, people are beginning to sense that the Israelis are in trouble.

Just about an hour ago, the Wall Street Journal posted a piece that the Israelis are running out of, whatever supplies their golden dome, whatever missiles their so-called golden dome uses, and they're scrambling to get that stuff replaced by the United States. The journal has been a mouthpiece, a lot of these people are my friends, but the Wall Street Journal has been a mouthpiece for the Israelis and the Zionists. For them to acknowledge it, they must have evidence of it. Well, some people say that the Wall Street Journal is two newspapers in one.

One is the stories that are news stories in the first part of the newspaper. And then there's the editorial page and the op-ed page. And there's no question that the editorial page and the op-ed page is basically the propaganda arm, the most important propaganda arm of the Israeli government in the United States. But many of the news stories that they run about the war are actually quite good. And you're now beginning to see articles appearing in the news section of the Wall Street Journal

that say in so many words that the Israelis are in deep trouble. Perhaps Bibi Netanyahu wants regime change in Tehran in order to stave off regime change in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, wherever the capital of Israel is today. Well, there's no question that if he does not succeed, if I'm basically right, that he is going to be in deep political trouble. He has started a war that involves huge costs for Israel. I mean, if you look at the damage that's being done to Tel Aviv, that's being done to Haifa, that's being done to the Israeli economy, the costs here are huge.

And if he can't produce a victory, if he has to quit without victory, this is going to have devastating consequences for him personally. And as I said before, it's going to be a disaster for Israeli deterrence. Is the government about to run out of cash? No, no, I don't think the situation is that dire. And furthermore, as you well know, if it was that dire, we'd bail them out. What are the likely consequences of an American attack from the perspective of the Kremlin? Well, I think the Kremlin has a vested interest in seeing this war shut down.

I think Putin has made it clear that he would like to shut the war down. I think the Kremlin is worried about Iran. I think that the Kremlin is closely allied with Iran and China, and they do not want to see Iran defeated. And I would imagine that people in the Kremlin, people like Putin, worry about that. But they don't have to worry. That's my argument. I think the Chinese have a vested

interest in seeing this war go on. This is not to say that they are extremely happy about that situation, but I think the Chinese understand that the Americans are using up, they're burning up valuable assets in this war that are otherwise needed to contain China in East Asia. You do not want to underestimate the negative consequences of what we're doing on Israel's behalf for our situation in the Pacific. The United States has been pinned down for a long time in both Ukraine and the Middle East, which makes it very difficult for us to pivot to East Asia. And this conflict now as it heats up and puts greater and greater demands on American military assets is a nightmare

for the purposes of containing China. By the way, you want to remember here. This is a very important point We fought a 30-day war against the Houthis. You remember when President Trump declared war against the Houthis? Yeah, right, right was there unconditional surrender then? No, after 30 days we quit right and by the way, the main reason we quit is that we were burning up valuable And by the way, the main reason we quit is that we were burning up valuable ammunition that we didn't wanna burn up. And it was all to no effect

because we were not defeating the Houthis. But I would ask you this question, if we couldn't beat the Houthis, why do you think that either we or the Israelis can bring Iran to its knees? Do you foresee a circumstance under which the Russians or the Chinese would get involved militarily? No, if you're talking about them getting directly involved in the fight, absolutely not. If you're talking about them providing support for Iran, economic support, military support,

providing support for Iran, economic support, military support, and diplomatic support? I'd say the answer is certainly yes. These four countries, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, all have a vested interest in hanging together because they understand they're basically up against the United States, Israel, and Ukraine. And there's no way they can let their guard down. They have to support each other. But at the same time, I don't see the Russians or the Chinese getting into the fight. And by the way, as I'm saying here, there's no need for them to get into the fight because I think the Iranians can take care of themselves, especially if China and Russia are to provide aid, military aid and economic aid. What role might the Pakistanis play if the Ayatollah is

assassinated or if Trump drops the 30,000 pound bombs? Or something dramatic like either of those events happens? I think the only plausible scenario, and it's barely plausible, is one where Iran, excuse me, where Israel uses nuclear weapons against Iran. Question you want to ask yourself moving forward is that if I'm correct that Israel is in real trouble and the Israelis are in desperate straits, will they turn to nuclear weapons

to deal with Iran's nuclear infrastructure? And I think that's possible. I do not think it's likely, but it's possible. And you're seeing more and more talk of it in the media. And by the way, as the situation continues to deteriorate in this fight for Israel, there'll be more and more talk about using nuclear weapons. And then the question becomes, what will Pakistan do?

I don't think it would launch a nuclear war on behalf of Iran or any other country, because that would be suicidal. But there is talk that the Pakistanis might give a bomb to the Iranians or give a bomb to the Turks if they needed it. So all bets could be off then. And you do want to remember this is sort of a separate but not really separate point that all of what is taking place is having hugely negative consequences for the non-proliferation regime. First of all, you're

giving the Iranians powerful incentives to go out and get nuclear weapons, right? Or over you're sending a powerful signal to virtually every other country on the planet that might view itself as an adversary of the United States or Israel to make sure it has nuclear weapons And this is just disastrous and furthermore What is Israeli behavior and American behavior these days say about our respect for international law It says that we don't pay any attention to international law unless we think it's in our interest So I think in terms of the proliferation regime, which has been very successful at curbing proliferation Since it was set up in the late 60s and early 70s. This is bad news to put it mildly

professor Mearsheimer Shouldn't there be a great debate in America about the nature and extent of our involvement and in a war that could be as Disastrous as As is happening. Why should a person who changes his mind every 10 minutes? Meet in a windowless room with five people tell him what he wants to hear make this decision rather than great debates on the floor of the house and the floor of the senate about the role of America and the world and we really want to kill Iranians. Oh it's very simple you can't have a great debate on any issue involving Israel it's

just impermissible. The lobby won't allow it. And all the lobby's cutouts, you see them in the Senate, you see them in the House, you see them in the media. These cutouts working with the lobby will not allow us to have a debate. And the reason that they won't allow us to have a debate is it won't come out in Israel's favor.

You want to understand that the main reason that we have an Israel lobby that goes to enormous lengths to shut down discourse about Israel and to smear anyone who is critical of Israel to ruin their career is because if you had an open discourse, Israel would come out on the losing side. I wanna play, you alluded to this earlier and a lot of these you're familiar with.

These are instances of Prime Minister Netanyahu in various venues testifying before Congress, speaking before the United Nations, addressing a joint session of Congress, claiming that Iran is within months, or perhaps his word, possibly his word, weeks of having a nuclear weapon. This is a CNN montage.

It's very effective. Watch this. The deadline for attaining this goal is getting extremely close. And Iran, by the way, is also outpacing Iraq in the development of ballistic missile systems that they hope will reach the eastern seaboard of the United States within 15 years. By next spring, at most, by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage. From there it's only a few months, possibly a few weeks, before they get enough enriched

uranium for the first bomb. The foremost sponsor of global terrorism could be weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons. That would place a militant Islamic terror regime weeks away from having the fissile material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs. If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year, it could be within a few months, less than a year.

This needs to be refuted. Certainly the last statement that he made needs to be refuted in a public forum. But he's not the only one here. I'm gonna play another one for you. This is the George W. Bush, Colin Powell lead up to the invasion of Iraq. History is repeating itself. Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small.

Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort, no effort, to disarm as required by the international community. Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction. At this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its

people, and to defend the world from grave danger. They have ballistic missiles that can now reach deep into Europe and soon could reach the United States. You want these people to have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to your cities? Today it's Tel Aviv, tomorrow it's New York. Same thing over and over and over again. Listen, I was one of the principal public opponents of the Iraq War before it happened on March 19, 2003. the principal public opponents of the Iraq war before it

happened on March 19, 2003. I wrote op-eds in the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. I helped pay for an ad on the op-ed page of the New York Times. This is when your humble host here first learned of and began admiring you. Thank you.

And I can tell you, it is the same story all over again. You're up against the lobby, right? The lobby works behind the scenes to put enormous pressure on media figures and on politicians and on policymakers to support these crazy wars. And people who have facts and logic on their side can barely get a hearing. It's really quite remarkable. It was easier to get something of a hearing back then

than it is now. The situation has only deteriorated with time, in large part because the lobby has gotten more powerful. But here we are again. And, you know, for people like me, you know, the mainstream media has no use for us. And thank goodness we have shows like yours because it's, you know, the only way the word gets out. Chris, do we still have Anthony Wedgwood, Ben, two-minute version, not the intro or the follow-up, just Anthony Wedgwood-Benn on the floor of the House of Commons. You probably remember him,

unfortunately he's no longer with us. A great, great two-minute closing argument against the Tony Blair government joining George Bush's invasion. Of course, he lost that debate, but here's what he said. I'll finish up by saying this. War is an easy thing to talk about. There are not many people of the generation that remember it. The right honorable gentleman served with the six and the last war never killed anyone, but I wore uniform. But I was in London in the blitz in 1940, living in the Millbank Tower where I was born. Some different ideas have come in since. Every night I went down to the shelter in Thames House. Every morning I saw Dockland burning. 500 people were killed

in Westminster one night by a landmine. It was terrifying. Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Iraq and Iraqis women weep when their children die? Doesn't bombing strengthen their determination? What fools we are to live in a generation for which war is a computer game for our children and just an interesting little Channel 4 news item. Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the Government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will. Now, that is for their decision to take. But this is a quite unique debate, in my parliamentary experience, where we are asked to share responsibility

for a decision we will not really be taking, with consequences for people who have no part to play in the brutality of the regime we are dealing with. I finish with this. On 24 October 1945, the former Prime Minister from Bexley and Old Circuit will remember that the United Nations Charter was passed. The words of that charter etched into my mind and moved me even as I think of them. We, the people of the United Nations, determined to save future generations, succeeding generations, from the scourge of war which twice in our lifetime has caused untold suffering to mankind. That was the pledge of that generation to this generation, and it would be the greatest betrayal of all

if we voted to abandon the charter and take unilateral action and pretend we were doing it in the name of the international community. And I shall vote against the motion for the reasons that I've given them. Hard to imagine that Thomas Massey or Rand Paul or even Bernie Sanders would be permitted to make arguments like that on the floor of the House or the Senate. Well, they probably would be permitted,

but they would be assaulted, verbally assaulted afterwards. And everybody would go after them hammer and tong, as is so often the case. I would also note, just to add to what Mr. Ben said, that after World War II, it was not only the scourge of war that we were trying to eliminate, it was the scourge of genocide. And were trying to eliminate. It was the scourge of genocide.

And we don't want to lose sight of the fact that while this war between Iran and Israel is being waged, a genocide is taking place in Gaza on a daily basis. And we're continuing to fund Ukraine on a daily basis. Let's not lose sight of that. So the president of peace is funding genocide in Gaza and a losing effort in Ukraine and is acting like Hamlet with respect to or wants us to think he's acting like Hamlet with respect to Iran.

Who knows how this will end? What are your last thoughts on this, Professor Meir Shamer? Well, my last thoughts are I hope there's some way that this can be brought to an end. I hope Trump has the good sense not to take the United States into this war. And I hope that the fact that he's not been talking so hawkishly the past two days means that he's beginning to see the light. And then I hope he goes to great lengths to get the Israelis and the Iranians to do something

to bring this to an end. Am I hopeful that will happen? No, but that's sort of the best case I can make at this point in time. Professor Mirshammer, thank you very much. We went beyond our usual time limit, but appreciate deeply and profoundly your insight and your analysis. We'll look forward to seeing you your usual day and time

next week. I'm looking forward to it. Be well. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Coming up on Monday, our usual presenters, Alistair Crook at eight in the morning, Ray McGovern at 10 in the morning, Larry Johnson at 1130 in the morning, and probably one or two of your other favorites before the day is out. Justin Napolitano for Judging Freedom. you