Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter: Can Israel Survive a War with Iran?

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Scott Ritter: Can Israel Survive a War with Iran?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, October 14th, 2024. Scott Ritter is here with us on whether Israel can win a war against Iran. But first, this. A divisive presidential election is upon us, and the winner is gold. Let me tell you what I mean. Since 2016, our national debt has grown a staggering 70 percent, and gold has increased by 60 percent do you own gold i do i bought my gold in february 2023 and it has risen 33 percent you've heard me talk about lear capital the company i trust let me tell you why recently kevin demerit who is the founder and ceo of lear, assisted the FBI in discovering a nationwide gold theft ring. And because of Kevin's good work, the FBI caught these people before they could steal anymore. That's why I

have been saying the people at Lear are good people. They believe in America. They believe in their product and they're honest to the core. So take action right now, my friends. Call 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com. Protect your savings and retirement before it's too late. 800-511-4620, learjudgenap.com. Remember, hope is not a strategy, but gold is. Scott Ritter, welcome to the show, my dear friend. Thank you, of course, as always, for all of your time. I have many questions to ask you about Israel and Iran and the United States. But before we do, just some weekend news involving Ukraine. We're going to play a very brief clip. It's about half President Zelensky and half Chancellor Scholz. I would like your thoughts on it.

Chris, cut number four. I would like to see the war end no later than next year in 2025 and guarantee that the aggression will not be repeated. The endeavor to achieve a just and lasting peace for Ukraine remains the guiding principle of our joint action. We will not accept a peace dictated by Russia. Paul Jay Is this serious or is it nonsense? Are the Germans about to deliver substantial military aid to the Ukrainians or is this just PR for both of them?

David Pérez This is just PR. The Ukrainian army's collapsing on the battlefront. The Germans don't have anything left to give. This is just a desperate effort to be seen as having relevance on the part of Germany. And I guess it's a hope and a prayer by Zelensky. The fact of the matter is this war only ends one way, and that's with the unconditional surrender of Ukraine on terms dictated to it by Russia. Germany has no vote. Angela Merkel ensured that when she lied to Vladimir Putin about the Minsk Accords. France has no vote. Francois Hollande and Macron after him, again, lied to Putin about the Minsk Accords. The West has no credibility. There's nothing the West can bring

to the table. Russia doesn't care. Russia's destroyed everything West has put on the table. And if the West wants to accelerate this battle to escalate, then Russia has told them, we will go up to and including nuclear war. That means a global ending event. That's how serious Russia is taking this. So no, this is just a joke. It's nothing. One last question about Ukraine. Are there, as President Zelensky claimed over the weekend, this sounds ridiculous, but he did claim it north korean troops on the ground in ukraine no first of all russia would never allow foreign soldiers to come in and fight their their wars this is a nation that took 27 million casualties during the second world war

and um they're you know they don't want to take those kind of casualties but they won't um let other people do their fighting for them. This is about defending Mother Russia, Zaporizhia, the new territories. And, you know, there was some talk that they may be sending some construction battalions in, but the idea of North Korea sending combat troops to fight on the ground in Ukraine is absurd. Switching over to Israel, over the weekend, the Israeli Defense Forces announced that a drone flown by or dispatched by Hezbollah killed four IDF members, all of whom were 19 years old, injured more than 70. Larry Johnson's sources reveal that one of the seriously injured was an Israeli general. How serious a blow is this?

The numbers are relatively small, given the numbers of people that the IDF have slaughtered in Gaza and even in Lebanon. But for the Israeli military and the Israeli people, how significant is this event? It's the shock of having Hezbollah inflict casualties on an Israeli base that wasn't on the front line. It shows that Hezbollah can reach out and touch Israel at any time and that Israel will never have a moment's rest. That's the shock. You know, Israel is not a nation that's accustomed to fighting wars where they suffer, you know, lots of casualties. And this is a war that's been going on for more than a year now. So,

you know, this kind of loss just piles on the loss they had the day before, the two losses they had the week before, the losses losses they had the week before, the losses. And so the cumulative impact of these casualties is devastating to the morale of the Israeli people. The IDF has apparently attacked UN peacekeepers. Do you know of any instance in which a UN member nation has attacked UN peacekeepers in another country? Israel does it on a regular basis. When I was a UN weapons inspector, I'd go to Israel quite a bit. And I remember being in Israel when there was this infamous incident where the Israelis

fired artillery shells into a UN compound, killing UN personnel, but also slaughtering dozens of civilians who were hiding from the fighting. Israel has no regard for international law. Israel despises the UN soldiers that are there. They view them as providing cover for Hezbollah. And Israel has shown that it has no regard for the United Nations overall. So, you know, this is just part of Israel's ongoing escalation and, frankly speaking, a front against the international community and international law. Has Israel banned the Secretary General of the UN from setting foot in Israel? Israel has said that he is persona non grata, and they would not allow him to

travel to Israel if he were so inclined. Here's Prime Minister Netanyahu. Well, I'll let you characterize it, but here he is yesterday with his message, partly in Hebrew, partly in English, to the Secretary General. I would like to appeal directly to the UN Secretary General. It's time for you to remove UNIFIL from Hezbollah's strongholds and from the fighting areas. The IDF has repeatedly asked for this and has been met with repeated refusals, all aimed at providing a human shield to Hezbollah terrorists. Your refusal to evacuate the UNIFIL soldiers makes them hostages of Hezbollah. This endangers both of them and the lives of our

soldiers. We regret the injury to the UNIFIL soldiers and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injury. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone. Mr. Secretary General, get the UNIFIL forces out of harm's way. It should be done right now, immediately. We regret the injury to the UNIFIL soldiers and we are doing everything in our power to prevent these injuries. Who would accept that as truthful?

No one. I mean, no no one he's a liar Israel is deliberately targeting the U.N soldiers part of a process of putting pressure on the U.N to withdraw he's speaking to the wrong people though the United Nations forces in Lebanon are there as part of a Security Council resolution passed under uh chapter six so the Secretary General is not part of the chain of command. He has no authority over these soldiers. The Secretary General runs the Secretariat, the administrative and technical aspects of the United Nations, but the operational aspects of the United Nations are run by the Security Council. That's the United States, that's Russia, that's China, that's France, that's Great Britain. That's who he needs to be talking to, the permanent members of the Security Council. This is just pure showmanship for Netanyahu.

And at some point in time, look, back during the Bosnia conflict, the Bosnian Serbs were attacking UN peacekeepers in Bosnia. At that point in time, NATO intervened, the United States and NATO intervened, and provided protection for the UN forces. That's the precedent that has been set. And at some point in time, the United Nations needs to do the same thing for these brave Irish peacekeepers in Lebanon. If Israel continues to attack, then NATO, the United States need to come in and provide cover. And if Israel wants to continue the attack, then they should pay the ultimate price. That is the death of Israeli soldiers. That's what it's about. That's what we did in Bosnia. We sent in special forces. We had people calling in airstrikes to protect UN peacekeepers who were there under a mandate given to them by the Security Council of the United Nations.

This is a Security Council issue. This is an affront against the international community. This isn't an affront against the United States who voted in favor of this. Remember, you can't have Security Council resolutions if permanent members don't support it. If they veto it, then it doesn't happen. The U.S. has supported this and continues to support this, and this is Israel, you know, sticking a thumb in the eye of the United States and the entire international community. At some point in time, this absolute disregard for international law cannot be allowed to stand. Are any of the UN peacekeepers American troops?

No, there's no American troops there. We may have some American forces there as observers, part of the observer group on an individual basis. If you remember, there's the tragedy of Lieutenant Colonel Higgins, who was a Marine who was assigned to the u.n uh forces in lebanon on an individual capacity he was kidnapped and executed by uh hezbollah uh back in the 1980s i believe so uh we you'll have you know maybe one or two there i don't know what the status is right now but in terms of organized forces uh no we don't we don't send u.s contingents to le Lebanon. Ten days ago, Jeremy Lafredo, an American journalist who works for our friends at the Gray Zone, Max Blumenthal, Anya Parampol, and Aaron Maté was arrested, kidnapped by the IDF. They beat the daylights out of him. His lawyers filed an emergency application before

the equivalent of a federal judge in Israel who released him immediately from IDF captivity, but told them to be available to communicate with the IDF until Sunday when he is free to leave Israel. Why attack journalists? Well, Israel has always attacked journalists. Israel doesn't believe in a free press, especially when that press is broadcasting information that's not controlled by Israel. I mean, if you want to be the friend of the IDF, you embed with the IDF, you allow the Israeli censors to control everything that you publish. And then you're playing their game, putting out their narrative. Unfortunately for this journalist, he works for the gray zone. Max Blumenthal, Anya Parampil are

very well known for their strident and vociferous opposition to what Israel is doing in Gaza. And the Israelis are sending a signal that, you know, if you're going to say what you say, then there's going to be a price that you're going to have to pay. You know, they charged him with, you know, aiding and abetting the enemy by broadcasting information about Iranian missile strikes. But the same information that he broadcast had been cleared uh by the israeli censors for other outlets including npr um and so he didn't you know transmit anything that was new or or could threaten israel this is purely a ploy by israel to send a signal to max and anya and the Gray Zone and any other journalistic outlet there

that if you don't broadcast what Israel wants, then if we get our hands on you, we're going to hurt you. The United States announced that it is sending a THAAD, T-H-A-A-D, defensive device along with 100 or so American troops to operate it to Israel. What can you tell us about THAAD? Is it effective? Is it top of the line or why are we sending it? Well, it's interesting because some of the reports that came out said this is the first time the U.S. has ever done this. It's not. During the Gulf War in 1991, we sent Patriot batteries to Israel and they were actively involved in trying to intercept Iraqi Scud missiles. In 2003, we sent Patriot batteries back to Israel under fear that Iraq might be firing missiles into Israel. In terms of the FAD, we sent the FAD there a couple of years ago, 2019, I think, as part of an exercise. After the October 7th attack, we sent the FAD unit back to Nevatim Air Base because that's where we fly in our equipment. That's the main receiving base. So we sent the FAD there and along with about 60 soldiers, I guess we pulled that out because now we're sending it back. The FAD is an advancement

on the Patriots, an advancement on the Arrow 2, the Arrow 3, David's sling that the israelis have um it's it's a missile that allows intercept at a higher altitude and it's linked to a radar very effective radar um that uh that um i think an s-band radar that's able to detect uh and and develop firing solutions on multiple targets at once in theory um you know it's supposed to be a good system. The fact is, though, this is not a new system. It's been around for a while, and it's using technology and techniques that predate the hypersonic missile capabilities. This is not a system that's capable of intercepting hypersonic weapons, especially if the hypersonic weapons flood the system, flood the zone, as Iran has shown its tactics. So again, this is a system that's put in to try and enhance

the defense of Israel. Clearly, it failed on October 1st. And the feeling is right now that Israel and the United States don't have a solution to the Iranian missile threat. The FAD is supposed to provide additional capabilities to deter. I guess that's the hope is that you tell the Iranians, now we have something that can shoot you down, but it doesn't. There's nothing they, the fad will not be able to stop an iranian missile attack first of all even if they fire everything my understanding is there's 48 interceptors very expensive system by the way and um you know if iran files 200 missiles and all 48 work now i'm i'm a simple marine but that still tells me that there's a you know 152 uh inbound missiles that thad

didn't get so um you know this is just part of the political game the us is playing by telling israel we have your back defensively in an effort to prevent israel from carrying out offensive operations against iran what do you think will happen uh if Iranians destroy the THAAD and kill Americans in the process? And maybe before you answer that, why are Americans going there? Are Israelis not trained or trainable in a short period of time to use this? Are only Americans able to operate this equipment? This is an American-only system. The Israelis don't have this system, and so only Americans can operate this. At some point in time, I guess we could

sell this system to the Israelis, but it has more capabilities than the Israelis need, and I think the feeling was that by jointly working with Israel to develop the Arrow 2, Arrow 3, and David Sling interceptors, that they would provide THAAD-like capabilities. Clearly that's not the case. So now the THAAD is deployed, but what would happen if it gets hit? Well, I mean, the US has no legal argument. If the US engages Iran, then it's an active participant in this conflict and it will pay the price. They're not neutral, they're not innocents, they are active participants. And then the question is, what does the United States do in response to that? I don't think Iran would deliberately target the FAD system.

They don't need to. It's not a game-changing technology. As I said before, the number of interceptors does not shift the balance of power to Israel. And if the Iranian goal and objective is to take out critical infrastructure and the THAAD is being positioned to protect, you know, Nevatim airfield, then, you know, never the two shall meet perhaps. But, you know, what would happen if dozens of Americans were killed or injured? Then America would have to retaliate. We have to. I mean, I'm not saying that I would like this, but as a military commander, I would tell my president, and I would have told him before we go in, I said, by deploying these

troops, you do understand that if they take casualties, we must respond decisively because we cannot create the conditions under which nations around the world believe that they can strike Americans and flick casualties and get away with it. We have to deter people from doing this. So if Iran strikes us, we must hit Iran back hard and we must be prepared to do that right now with the forces on hand. Are you ready to do that, Mr. President? That's really the conversation. Do you think somebody spoke to him that way or spoke to Lloyd Austin that way or Lloyd Austin told him what you just said? I can guarantee you if a Marine was involved in this, that's exactly how they would have been spoken to. I can't vouch for the Air Force and the Army. I don't think General Austin was a Marine. No, he was Army. But he's dealt with Marines before.

Look, I'm not going to denigrate the professionalism of the other branches. Anybody who is entrusted with the lives of American service members must protect those lives, which means you don't irresponsibly deploy them without a plan on how to defend them. And if they take casualties, then you must take out that which inflicted the casualties. You must do so decisively, or else we have a USS Liberty situation all over again. I'm going to read to you from Israeli Channel 14, which was sent to me by one of our colleagues, Alistair Crook. This is about 15 minutes old now. Iran will not be moderate. Instead, it will be significant and will likely cause Iran to respond. Israel will need to prepare for a significant exchange of blows that might drag the Americans in, which Iran certainly would not want. Israel will attack Iran before the U.S. elections. Netanyahu approved the attack plans on Iran, and the attack is expected

soon. What do you think will happen? Well, it's interesting because in parallel to this, we have a statement by a senior Iranian foreign ministry official, a spokesperson, basically saying there will be no more back channel communication with the United States. Apparently, the Iranians and Americans were talking behind the scenes to come up with a scenario on how to avoid escalation. And somebody in the United States leaked out that Iran had agreed to absorb a limited Israeli strike and not retaliate, which is a complete deviation from, you know, Iran's stated posture. And by leaking this, this was a huge embarrassment to the Iranians. And so the Iranians said, we're done. And now Israel's left with, you know, the following options. Don't strike. Do a moderate strike, but now we don't know,

we being Israel and the United States, how Iran will respond because the US blew it. You can't have these behind the scenes back channel talks and then go public with them. It's something the United States does on a regular basis because we have to feed the press, but it embarrassed the Iranians, put them in a very difficult situation, and now they've withdrawn. And so I think Netanyahu had come to the decision point that he can't not respond. He has to respond. And since you can't differentiate between a moderate and a severe response in terms of Iranian retaliation, you might as well go severe, and now you're daring the United States not to do

anything. This is the ultimate goal. This is a huge gambit on the part of Israel. They're going to begin something that left to their own devices, they will lose in a conventional exchange, meaning that they will start to strike Iran. There's no way they can bring the firepower to bear on Iran that can suppress what Iran is prepared to fire into Israel. And when Iran attacks Israel this next time, they will take out $100 billion worth of critical infrastructure and shut Israel down as a modern nation state. At that point in time, Israel is desperately hoping that America will join them in continuing and furthering the strikes against Iran of an existential nature, meaning

that they will seek to end the Iranian regime. That's where we're heading. And what I also say is that in the past months and weeks, the Iranians have made it clear that the fatwa, the religious edict that was passed by the Supreme Leader that prohibited Iran from having nuclear weapons is no longer in play, that that can be reconsidered by a change in conditions, and the conditions have changed. Iran is ready to go nuclear if Israel pushes them in that direction. And if Israel starts targeting Iranian leadership, command and control, or nuclear facilities, Iran will have a nuclear weapon in less than a week. They'll have three to five in less than two weeks, and they will use them against Israel and take Israel off the face

of the earth. This is the direction we're heading, Judge. This is a very dangerous situation. What direction are we heading with respect to American involvement three weeks before a presidential election? Well, what I will say is there's no congressional, I mean, we don't see Congress convening, discussing the war and the reasons why we would go to war. We don't see any effort by the president to come to Congress and say, hey, this is a dangerous situation. I think we need to have congressional hearings that empower me to carry out massive military operations if the conditions are met. I know we have a War Powers Act, but those are supposed to be for events that weren't predictable. We were surprised attack,

the president must respond. This right here is a deliberate lead up to a predictable conflict. Congress needs to be involved because as I said, this is the kind of conflict, if it gets out of control, will involve nuclear weapons and will involve Americans perhaps being on the receiving end of nuclear weapons or maybe using nuclear weapons against Iran. I know the President of the United States has exclusive authority to use nuclear weapons, but war is war and Congress is the only entity constitutionally permitted to take us into war. This is not an emergency. This is deliberate regime change type conflict that Congress should be involved in. And yet there's no interest on the part of Congress to have any such hearings. I'm sorry to say that you're 100% correct under the Constitution. I say I'm sorry to say because of your last comment,

there is no interest on the part of Congress to do its duty, which is to debate war and decide whether or not we should go to war. We have signed several international treaties which say we can only go to war against a country where we are obliged to defend an ally by treaty, not the case with Israel, or where the other country that we are obliged to defend an ally by treaty, not the case with Israel, or where the other country on which we're going to declare war poses a serious, imminent, grave threat to American national security, not the case with respect to Iran. We also have a president, and it's not just him. His predecessors have been the same. We don't like to consult with Congress, they like to just do things on their own. In what form would American aid to Israel

take if Iran really unloads on Israel and Netanyahu feels trapped or defeated or desperate? The United States has said consistently since the administration of Barack Obama that it would not tolerate Iran developing a nuclear weapons capability, that this would be war. Obama took it straight up to the edge of conflict before he realized that he was going to war against a country that didn't have a nuclear weapons program and he had left himself no option. So that's where the Iran nuclear deal came from, to get us out of the situation. Donald Trump came in and said that if Iran develops a nuclear weapons capability, America will go to war against it. And he withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. And now we have Joe Biden saying the same thing. Under

no circumstances will Iran be allowed to develop nuclear weapons capability. Judge, I just told you, Iran has nuclear weapons capability right now as we speak. They don't have a functioning weapon, but they have the ability to produce a weapon in a matter of days. And they have made the political decision through declaratory policy that this is what they're going to do if pushed to it. There's no ifs, ands, or buts. Iran is a nuclear power, which means that if Israel gets hit with existential force by Iran, stuff that shuts the lights out,

shuts the water out, and Israel starts saying, we have to target Iran's nuclear capability. And Israel says, we need to use nukes. The United States understands that if Israel nukes Iran, Iran will nuke Israel. And so the United States may very well get into a preemptive attack against Iran using nuclear weapons. This is where we're at. This is the insanity. And we forget that Vladimir Putin just met with the Iranian president in Turkmenistan, where they have cut some sort of deal. They have an ongoing security relationship. I don't think Russia sits by and lets the United States use nuclear weapons against Iran. So now

we're talking about a potential U.S.-Russia conflagration that could go nuclear. This is why Congress has to be involved. These are things that the American people need to be assured of that their representatives are discussing. The potential of a world-ending nuclear event because Israel can't defeat Hamas and can't defeat Hezbollah. Israel is committing irresponsible, rogue nation, and Iran is part of the axis of resistance that is holding Israel to account in a managed, responsible fashion. Iran didn't start this fight. Israel did. By attacking Iranian diplomatic facilities in Damascus, assassinating senior Hamas leadership inside Tehran. Could you imagine during the inauguration of the next president on January 20th, that we invited somebody, we the United States, because the president represents we the people, invites somebody to the inauguration. They sit in and they are there. They're in the inauguration. The president has

them stand up. There's applause. They shake hands and all that. He goes back to his hotel and somebody assassinates him. Do we just sit there and go oh yeah that's okay no it's an act of war an act of war israel has committed acts of war against iran and now iran is responding in warlike fashion but measured iran said it's over we don't need to go on but if israel chooses to go on that's because israel is trying to make this an existential issue where only one side walks away from this. And the United States is going to get caught up into this. Has Israel been dropping depleted uranium bombs inside Beirut, as has been claimed? And what is a depleted uranium bomb?

Well, first of all, I don't know. So I'd have to see the, I'd have to see, do forensics on it. Depleted uranium is basically just that. When you have uranium that has a certain amount of the elements that we need to enrich it enrich it uh when you as you enrich uranium you you pull the radioactive aspect out of it and you're left with depleted uranium it is basically very dense metal um and and we like this because it uh it can penetrate things. We use depleted uranium on bombs. A depleted uranium tip allows

that bomb to penetrate concrete. We use it to take out tanks and anti-tank shells. We use it on 25 millimeter and 30 millimeter rounds, again, to take out certain armored vehicles with its penetration capability. Depleted uranium isn't so much about the radioactivity, it's a toxic metal. And when you hit and it catches on fire or it pulverizes, it creates a dust. And even though it doesn't have the kind of radioactivity that we normally associate with nuclear activity, it can emit low grade, I think it's alpha particles. So if you breathe it in and it gets in your lungs, you're going to get cancer. That's just a guarantee. You're also going to be poisoning your body. It can lead to birth defects. It can lead to any number of

things. So it's a toxic substance that if we had any rational thinking we would ban from being used but we have integrated it so much into our weapons systems that uh you know we have put depleted uranium tips on bunker busting bombs and we have provided israel with bunker busting bombs whether those bombs actually have depleted uranium tips i can't say't say, but there's a high likelihood that they do. And if these bombs were used as they were in, as the Israelis claim, to take out Hassan Nasrallah, 84 2,000 pound bombs dropped in one area to collapse the underground bunker, then that's a significant amount of depleted uranium that's been injected into the soil of Beirut. And they will, if you just go study what happened in Fallujah and in Basra, areas of Iraq where the United States made extensive use of depleted uranium,

the birth defects of the children there is mind-boggling. The health impact on people, high cancer rates, et cetera. But the thing that will turn your stomach is to go and take a look at the images of the birth defects. Massive spike in this. This is directly related to the depleted uranium. The United States pretends it isn't happening because we don't want to be held accountable for our actions. But Great Britain has acknowledged this in using depleted uranium in Kosovo, that there is an exposure threat to their troops. Other nations, Italy has recognized this.

The whole world recognizes that you can't use depleted uranium except the United States and apparently now Israel. What does your gut tell you will happen if the Israelis strike Iran in some forceful way between now and election day? There will be a nuclear war between Israel and Iran. Iran will strike back decisively. We're talking between 1,000 and 2,000 missiles. Israel will be devastated. The destruction will be absolute. The infrastructure will be destroyed. The destruction will be absolute. The infrastructure will be

destroyed permanently in many cases. And the level of casualties could be quite high, although Iran, I believe, will do its best to avoid civilian casualties. But when you put that many missiles in, there's going to be loss of life. Israel now is faced with an existential issue. They will use nuclear weapons as a signal to Iran to cease the escalation. But the moment they use nuclear weapons, Iran will activate its nuclear weapons and use them against Israel. Does Israel have the ability to reach Iran with this weaponry without having to use jets that either require refueling or must fly over territories that won't give Israel permission to do so? Yes, they have Jericho III missiles, which are intermediate-range missiles that have more

than sufficient range to be launched from Israel and strike targets inside Iran. They also have German-made electronic submarines that can operate in the Red Sea and get up into the Gulf of Arabia off the Iranian coast and fire nuclear-armed cruise missiles if that's something that they wanted to do. So they have a nuclear capability. It is operational. It can strike Iran.

Can anything the United states of america gives israel protect it from iran hypersonic missiles no because we don't have anything in our own possession that can protect us from hypersonic missiles uh we are defenseless in this uh in this case um you know that's just the That's just the fact. I know that the US defense industry is desperately trying to adapt the Patriot to the operational parameters that we've collected about the use of Russian hypersonic weapons. And I know that we collected a tremendous amount of intelligence about Iran's capabilities are being fed into the system, again, to see if we can do tweaks in terms of the radars and what we can do with guidance, et cetera. But it's too late at this point in time. I'm not saying that if given a year or two that we couldn't come up with

something. But right now, the fact is Iran has a weapon system that cannot be intercepted on a regular basis. And that if Iran floods the zone, as they have done in the past, the majority of their weapons will get through and strike the targets that they intend to strike. Scott Ritter, deadly stuff, but thank you very much for your incredible analysis. If this thing gets out of hand, will you come back here and help us follow it? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you.

You're a good man and your knowledge is vast. Thank you, my dear friend. Thanks for having me. Of course. Coming up at 5.30 this afternoon on these very same topics, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.