Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Israel vs. Iran Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUBTkJi3pxU
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, August 6th, 2024. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson will be with us in a moment on the impending Israel versus Iran war. Oh, and who or what is Israel's worst enemy? Might have been Netanyahu himself, but first this. You all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital, but I'm also a customer, a very satisfied customer. About a year ago, I bought gold and it's now increased in value 23%. So $100 invested in gold a year ago is now worth $123. You have $100 in the bank, it still shows $100, but $100 in the bank is now worth 24% less. Inflation has reduced all of your savings, all of your buying power and mine by 24% and gold is largely immune from that. If you want to learn how gold will soon hit $3,200 an ounce, call Lear Capital, 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com. Get your free gold report. Same experts who predicted the 23% rise that I've enjoyed have predicted this $3,200 an ounce gold. Learn about how to transfer this to an IRA. Protect your savings, 800-511-4620, learjudgenap.com. Tell them the judge sent you. Colonel, welcome to the show, my dear friend. Always a pleasure to chat with you no matter how gloomy the news may be. Wouldn't Prime Minister Netanyahu or whoever authorized the assassination of Hania in Tehran have known that by killing the chief negotiator on the other side, you are delaying, undermining, maybe stopping forever the ceasefire negotiations? Yes, of course, and that was Netanyahu's intent. That was his strategic intent, just as his strategic intent in terms of attacking the Hezbollah operatives in Beirut proper was to make Hezbollah attack him. Lloyd Austin said it all the other day when he was asked the question, point blank, would the United States defend Israel? He said, if Israel is attacked, we will come to their defense. That's a pretty categorical statement. Netanyahu takes that and has taken that all along for gospel, and so he's going to make Israel be attacked by Hezbollah, by Iran. Whomever he can get to do it, he's going to do it. Lloyd Austin doesn't care that Israel has provoked the attack, that the Prime Minister of Israel, probably while he was addressing Congress, was contemplating murdering civilians. And while he was talking to people like Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, and others, he was telling them that this is basically what he was going to do, and they were reassuring him that they would go along with it. Well, by the way, while he was talking to Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, and others, he was accusing you and other demonstrators outside the Capitol building of being funded by Iran. Is there any basis for that accusation whatsoever? Isn't that laughable? It is laughable. That's like accusing Viktor Orban being president of the EU is not having any responsibility for diplomacy at all. Absurd. What are you president of the EU for? Well, back to Bibi. Let's run this clip, and if you've seen it before, my apologies. Chris, the clip where he attacks the freedom of speech and attacks the demonstrators. We don't have it. Okay, Chris, we'll find it. There's so many in our bank. I don't know how you keep up. He's very good at what he does. Colonel, is Israel a liberal democracy or a dogmatic authoritarian state? It has not been a liberal democracy for some time. I would argue since George W. Bush came to reach his own in the Oval Office Commission to do anything he wanted to do, and he forthwith started to do it, and Netanyahu, of course, multiplied that 100 times over. What kind of state is it? It is more now, I think, and I listened to Alistair Cook the other day, talk, I think it was on your show. I think it's more of a radical theocracy now than anything else. I think it is very much on the path of the original hugely radical Zionists who want, just like on the other side, the Christian nationalists want the Messiah to come back and establish his thousand-year kingdom. These Jews, these radical Zionists, and Netanyahu is rapidly looking like he's one of them intellectually as well as for political purpose, they want their Messiah to come back, and so they want a kingdom. It's almost as if they are like ISIS wanting a caliphate for the Islamic world, only they don't call it a caliphate. They call it a kingdom in Hebrew, and so you're looking at a guy and you're looking at a state now that is taking on increasingly theocratic trappings, especially with people like Ben-Gavir and Smotrich, and now you've got this movement amongst the 800,000 plus settlers that is antagonistic to the IDF, particularly to those IDF members who are tiring of seeing no strategy but killing people in Gaza. So you have the potential, you have the kernel right now of a civil war in Israel. Wow, a radical theocracy. Isn't that an interesting handle, Colonel? That's exactly what Netanyahu accuses Iran of being, a radical theocracy. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, different theology, obviously. We have that clip. I don't know if he had you in mind. It would have been something if he knew that you were there since he knows you, but here's Prime Minister Netanyahu attacking you, Colonel Wilkerson, and other courageous people who demonstrated in the street that day. For all we know, Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building. Not that many, but they're there and throughout the city. Well, I have a message for these protesters. When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting, and funding you, you have officially become Iran's useful idiots. He's praising, promoting, and funding you. Totally made up. And he's speaking to the greatest congregation of useful idiots on the face of the earth, the Congress of the United States. Yes, you know, it occurred to me, it is a felony to lie to Congress. You don't even have to be under oath. It's not a felony for Congress to lie to us or members of Congress to lie to people they're interrogating at Congressional hearings, but it is a felony to lie to Congress. I wonder how many felonies he committed that day. He's talking to an audience he bought and paid for, Colonel. Quite a few. I remarked the other day, Mark Twain once said, there is no distinctly criminal class in America, dash, save the Congress. Yes, yes, yes, he was. He also once said, excuse me for being a member of Congress, but I'm not an idiot. I may have blown that a little bit, but we all get the point. The resistance to Israel's assassinations and murder of civilians. I want you to listen to a clip from the foreign minister of Turkey, Chris, the shorter version, cut number seven. It is no longer acceptable for America to try to sweep aside and mitigate every evil Israel does. The region is not in a position to tolerate further Israeli provocations. I underline this. The emotional atmosphere the region is going through, the psychological state of the people, the images of massacres they see on the screen every day, the fact that no help is being extended to the helpless Palestinians. In the face of this, Muslim countries are constantly being lectured on other unnecessary issues, have long since exceeded the limits of tolerance in terms of democracy and human rights. Israel has exceeded the limits of tolerance in terms of democracy and human rights. Colonel, will the resistance calculate and coordinate its response to Israeli terror and slaughter? I think it's inevitable that they do. And I think U.S. diplomacy, such as it is right now, principally focused on Bill Burns, is probably in Qatar or Oman or wherever, trying desperately to affect what we affected before in April, when Iran attacked Israel and Israel attacked back. The same kind of deal, whereby whatever Iran decides, it is not war provoking. I don't think he's going to be successful. I think this time Iran feels like and probably will execute something that is in their eyes comparable to what he has done to them. That could be quite disastrous and it could be war. It could be also, he said it, and that's not his strategy. His strategy is non-existent in Gaza except for killing people. That's the reason he has problems with the IDF now, at least a sizable number of them. His strategy, though, is to bring about a wider war. First, to deflect attention off Gaza, which it definitely will do. Everybody will forget about it when he's in battle with Hezbollah or even worse, Iran, and bring the United States in. That's his whole strategy now. That is his ultimate ask of the United States. I'm going to be attacked. I might be attacked on two fronts, even, and you're going to come to my assistance and you're going to wipe out my enemies. That's his strategy. Colonel, yesterday at this time, Sergei Shoigu, the former Russian defense minister and now chair of the Russian Security Council, was in Tehran. He wasn't there alone. He had all kinds of equipment and other Russian officials with him. What do you think he was doing, and what do you think they were talking about? I think he was doing essentially the same thing Putin has done, generally speaking, in Pyongyang and in other capitals of people fundamentally antagonistic to the American empire. He was recruiting allies and telling those who were potential allies that he could do this and that for them and reassuring Iran in particular that whatever they needed in response to whatever Israel might do would be forthcoming from Israel. I think that Shoigu is sort of an embattled man himself right now, but the fact that Putin sent him there and sent him there from the positions he does still enjoy is a signal. I hope we read signals now a little bit better than we have been for the past two or three years. Bill Burns from Moscow said when Russia says no, yet, it means no, and that was a clear warning not to do anything in Ukraine that would cause Russia to have to act, and yet we did. So Putin sends pretty good signals. Yeah, that famously leaked cable that he sent unfortunately was disregarded. It was 100% correct. We all know that. That's more than a footnote in history. Let's go to the bottom of Israel, al-Sisi. Is he in danger of losing control over the Suez Canal? Can he really continue to protect the Israeli border much longer? Can he afford it? That's a good question. I'm worried very much about Cairo and about Oman. I'm worried about Jordan's ability to hold on. The protests there, the riots there have become quite legion, and I'm worried about Sisi already in trouble with his own people being able to hold on, and there are other Arab countries too that are teetering a little bit more than all my expert friends said the street would teeter if Bibi kept on doing what he was doing. I think there are some problems in almost every Arab state now with the people in the street, the so-called, you know, the masses, and in Saudi Arabia too, which will be very interesting to watch if that happens on a large scale. Well, as the Turkish foreign minister, who by the way, Colonel McGregor believes is the natural successor to President Erdogan if Erdogan ever leaves office, but as the Turkish foreign minister says in that clip, people open up their mobile devices and every day see horrific slaughter. They see worse over there than we see here. I mean, look at the torture scandal in Israel. What they did to this Palestinian fellow was almost unthinkable and required surgery to repair. They all get arrested, and then a mob breaks into the jail, and the police turn their backs. They throw the mob out. A second mob breaks in, and then they decide to let these nine guys go, and now they're home, uncharged, unprosecuted, unpunished for horrific torture. I think it's dramatic for them and on a much more widespread basis as it was for us when the photographs of Abu Ghraib came out in 2004, April, May 2004, and I think it's unconscionable that the mainstream media in this country is doing its best to hide all this from the American people while they get a full dose of it in the face every day, as you said, 24-7. We're focused on Kamala Harris picks for her vice presidential candidate. Thank God that's over now, but the discussion of that will go on and on. We're not focused on the blood and guts that are just transpiring for everybody's eyes in the Middle East every single hour of every single day, and that is extremely destabilizing even in and of itself. That's why I say the street is going to speak soon. So, Colonel, wear your military hat for us, please, for the next few minutes. What do you think will happen? Let's say Iran unleashes a very serious missile assault on Israel. What is Lloyd Austin going to do? What is the new president of Iran going to do? What is Vladimir Putin going to do? Here's my nightmare scenario. Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah, suddenly decides, not suddenly, he's been cogitating over this for some time now, but he decides tomorrow morning or the next day to unleash. Now, we're out here, military professionals speaking here, I would unleash about 150 missiles a day ad nauseum. That is to say, for weeks on end, for months on end, 150 missiles a day would be coming in. He could do that for about a year, maybe two, based on the number of missiles he has. Israel would be smoking. I don't care about Iron Dome. Some of them have such short range that Iron Dome can't even handle them when they come from Hezbollah. So that would be Lloyd Austin's worst nightmare, if you will, because Netanyahu would be screaming, you've got to come help me. Then we have to flow forces into the Eastern Mediterranean. We have to really start flying around the clock, three carriers is what's necessary for around the clock operations. You and the airfields in Saudi Arabia and others in the region, but you would pretty soon reach the limit of what you were able to do on a consistent basis. And it looked a lot like 1983. It looked a lot like when we lost 242 Marines, the highest casualty rate in the Marine Corps since one day, single day casualty rate since Karbala in World War II. It'd be a nightmare, absolute nightmare. And Hassan Nasrallah would probably be signaling Hezbollah's end and Lebanon's utter destruction. It's already a basket case, but that might be his decision. Stranger things have happened and sadder things have happened, but it would be a real nightmare for Israel. And I think it'd be the end of the state of Israel. Here's Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, cut number three. The enemy and those behind the enemy must wait for our inevitable reaction. God willing, there is no discussion or controversy about this. Pretty short and direct a statement when he says things like that. Does he mean them? Generally speaking, I found him to be pretty dependable. And in that regard, he's been very restrained, very restrained. Ever since he handed Israel a real licking in 2006, he's been very restrained. He's stuck to the script, so to speak. They shoot one at him, he shoots one back at them. They shoot one at him and so on. And they don't do a whole lot of damage. Maybe occasionally one strays and they kill a couple of people, but they don't do a whole lot of damage. Israel has upped the ante here, especially with the assassination recently in Beirut itself, which took place right before their assassination of Ania. This is an upping of the game, if you will, that I think Nasrallah feels he has to respond to. And then you look at the entire strategy Netanyahu says, or he has, I think Nasrallah understands this. Just as I think the real leader of Hamas on the ground in Gaza, who didn't like Ania that much and only tolerated his presence because he was their negotiator, he wants everything to continue. He wants no ceasefire. He wants no peace agreement. And a ceasefire he would have only to take advantage of it and rebuild it. He's done that pretty good already, so I would suspect he doesn't even really want a ceasefire now. He wants this to go on. And if an extra front came in, he would be elated. He would continue. I'm told that they reconstituted almost every single battalion now with new fighters, been trained and ready to go. So Netanyahu's strategy, such as it was, as he expressed it, to eliminate Hamas is a farce. He hasn't eliminated Hamas. They're stronger now than ever. Is he still in league with this particular leader of Hamas because both of them are against a two-state solution and that's the reason they were working together before October the 7th? I don't know. I kind of doubt that. But they are in league in terms of their purpose. Their strategic purposes are the same, to keep the war going as long as possible because the leader of Hamas sees it as his advantage to keep Israel in this position and even more so should Hezbollah attack them on the other side. The leader of Hamas sees it to his advantage because it will weaken the IDF prior to the conflagration with Hezbollah. Doesn't Netanyahu see that? Doesn't he see that the soldiers are exhausted and are begging their commanders to beg their leaders to give them a break? Or doesn't he care? I don't think it matters to him. I really don't. I wrestled with this yesterday as people were trying to explain to me the Zionist movement from the beginning to the end, so to speak. And I said, but Netanyahu is not intellectually of that type. Well, he's morphed. I think he has morphed. I think these guys who are arguing with me are right. He has morphed. You're saying that Smotrich and Ben-Gavir have intellectually, ideologically and successfully moved Netanyahu into becoming a committed Zionist? I think it's a combination of his peril. I think it's a combination of his love of power. I think it's a combination of the other things that go into that, which match this kind of radical theological approach to Israel's existence that have drawn him in. And whether he is purely intellectually a part of their movement now, he certainly is practically. And that's all it takes to destroy the state, to destroy the region in big ways, in fact. Aren't the majority of Israelis secular Jews as opposed to Zionists? Absolutely. And that's the, to me, that's the real enigma of this whole situation. Until I start to think about Christian nationalists in this country and try to match feelings and intellects and purposes. And I understand that a lot of the Christian nationalists don't give a hang about Jesus Christ. They don't give a hang about religion. What they give a hang about is power and money. And they see Jesus Christ and Christian nationalism and all the trappings thereof as a route to both. And they use it. They exploit it. I think half of the evangelical movement in America that is tainted, in my view, which is about half of the hundred million or so that are identified as evangelicals, are of that stripe. I'm sorry to say that I agree with you, but I want to run a clip for you. You told us what Lloyd Austin said. Here's the goofy guy. You may know him, although you would never have hired him when you were running the state's department. Matt Miller going back and forth with one of his reporter, regular reporter antagonists about what the state department expects Iran to do. Cut number 11, Chris. Do you think that an Iranian response or an Iranian attack on Israel is inevitable? Whether or not that leads to a broader war. So I can't speak to what may or may not happen. That is a decision for Iran to make. We have been sending consistent messages through our diplomatic engagements, encouraging people to communicate to the government of Iran that escalation is not in their interest and that we will defend Israel from attacks and that escalation does not serve Iran's interest. It doesn't serve the interest of anyone in the region. So I don't want to say it's inevitable. Certainly the risk is there. And that's why we are pursuing these diplomatic engagements. From your perspective, is any kind of Iranian response in escalation? I don't want to prejudge from here what our view of a response might be other than to say we don't want to see Iran take further action. That's the message we are consistently delivering to our partners in the region. Do they really expect Iran to do nothing in light of the Israeli assassinations? Is it moral and legal for Israel to assassinate Hamas's chief negotiator? Is it moral and legal for fill-in-the-blank to assassinate Israel's chief negotiator? Well, you just put your finger on the ludicrousness, the idiocy of what you just said. I understand why you said it. I mean, I was there when we coached people to say similar things. Right. But it's absolutely absurd to think that Iran is going to listen to the United States in this instance and not respond. The question is, will they listen to the United States and to their own counsel, I suspect, to the extent that the response is not judged by the United States as over the realm, over the wall. And they're not going to judge it that way no matter how it happens. But we have enough power left, God forbid, that we not use it. If we use it, then we can probably keep Netanyahu from responding to something that didn't look to us and therefore to the American people as egregious out of all proportion to the acts that happened to them. That's the secret of this diplomacy. And that's what I'm sure Bill Burns is working on night and day right now. I suspect he's their lead man on it, to try and convince through Oman or through Qatar or some other third party, the Iranians, that maybe even to talk to them about the specific act, I wouldn't doubt that at all, so that they can say, yes, that's okay. No, that won't do. Here's Robert Greenway. I don't know the fellow, but he's a spokesperson for the Heritage Foundation. It sounds like he just left a meeting of that triumvirate you mentioned earlier, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley, because he'll say, you'll hear him say this, we can't exclude Iran attacking Europe, Asia, and the U.S. Cut number 10. We can see a series of actions taken by Iran for which little time and preparation can occur, and from which will occur from a variety of axes all around the compass points of the Middle East. I would also add that we can't exclude attacks in Europe, attacks in Asia, and attacks in the United States from Iranian operatives and their surrogates and proxies. That realistic? No, not against the United States. Now, there might be some false flag operations that would be attributed to Iran, but Iran's not stupid. One of the things I've found in the many, many years that I've been dealing with the Persians is they're not stupid. They may be a little bit different, but they're not stupid. Same with the Chinese. In fact, the Chinese are extremely smart, smarter than us in most cases, which worries me. No, those were stupid statements really, and Iran is going to respond to the source of the problem. Mark my words, they're going to respond to the source of the problem. Will we see that response before you and I see each other again next week? Very well could, although they usually take an inordinate amount of time in our book, not in their book, but they don't think it's an inordinate amount of time, to plan, prepare, and execute. They usually do. I can't guarantee that, but I would say it'd be a bit down the road. Not too much, because then it loses its impact, and they know that now in the Western world, we have very short memories, and so they want the impact to be associated with what happened then. It'll be middling time, as it were. Before we go, Colonel, here's another clip from my friends and former colleagues at Fox. This is a Revolutionary Guard commander by the name of Salami, cut number nine. When it receives a firm response, it will realize it has been wrong. They keep making miscalculations. They repeated this mistake this time too. They will once again get a taste of our punishment. They will find out when, where, and how we will retaliate. It is ambiguous and indeterminate. Absolutely consistent with what you just said. It seems like it's taking forever to us, but not to them. They are adherents of the term that revenge is best tasted in coldness. That's an old Sicilian phrase. I know. Revenge is best frozen. Right. A dish that tastes best when eaten cold. Thank you very much for your time and for your analysis, Colonel. Very much appreciated. I agree with you. I think that response will probably come before we see each other next week, but I already look forward to our next get-together. Thank you, my dear friend. Thank you for having me. Of course. A conversation I deeply enjoy with a man I very much admire. Coming up later today at two o'clock, Matthew Ho. At three o'clock, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski. At four o'clock, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Justin Paul Tanner for Judging Freedom.