Prof. John Mearsheimer : Netanyahu and Israeli Decline

[00:00:04]Undeclared wars are commonplace.

[00:00:07]Tragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government.

[00:00:20]To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected.

[00:00:29]What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? What if Jefferson was right?

[00:00:35]What if that government is best which governs least?

[00:00:40]What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now?

[00:01:03]Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Npalitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026.

[00:01:11]Professor John Mirshimer joins us now.

[00:01:13]Professor Mir Shimemer, a pleasure as always. Starting with basics, the Straight of Hormuz. Is it open or is it closed? Do the Iranians control it? Is the US Navy gone? Do we know?

[00:01:26]>> Well, as best we can tell, uh the uh straight is partially open. Uh and there's no question that Iranian ships, as you would expect, are racing through the straight and out into global markets. Uh there's no question that Iran still controls the strait and uh uh even if it's opened completely, they still will control it. Uh and they will control it for the foreseeable future.

[00:01:58]There's no doubt about that. But I don't think it's completely open at this point as best I can tell. And I think the Iranians are doing everything they can to put pressure on the United States, to put pressure on Israel to get out of Lebanon and to stop the bombing. Uh, and I think that once that part of the agreement is in place, assuming it ever is, uh, then they can get on to the business of opening the straight completely.

[00:02:30]>> Right. And of course, the straight was open before the war. or the Iranians were not regulating it. They were not charging uh user fees or tolls.

[00:02:41]Uh am I right?

[00:02:43]>> Yeah. I think what's going on here, judge, if you think about it, is that on February 27th, uh the Iranians had no good sense of what a powerful or strong hand they were playing. Nor did the Americans or the Israelis, which is why we attacked Iran on February 28th. But once the war began and it began to evolve over the course of March and April, it became manifestly clear uh that by controlling the strait and by also having all those deadly missiles that they could use against the Gulf States, American bases in the region and against Israel, they had a really strong hand to play. And that of course is why they ended up winning the war, so to speak. And that's why they're in such a powerful bargaining position today. But nobody understood that on February 27th, which I think gets at your point.

[00:03:37]>> And and and emphasis on the word nobody.

[00:03:41]The Iranians didn't understand it. the CIA, MSAD, the White House National Security Council somehow didn't even consider that the Iranians might control the straight of Hormuz and use it as a man a means to get the Americans to back and the Israelis to back down. They didn't even think of this. Well, there's two points to be made here. One is you want to remember that we had the 12-day war last June. This is June 2025 where the Israelis and the Americans uh attacked Iran and uh although the Israelis were very anxious to settle that war after 12 days as were we, it looked like the Iranians uh were not the winners in that war. Uh and that was the situation on February 27th. I think people at that point were thinking about what had happened uh in the 12-day war and they expected something similar to happen uh in the present conflict and of course it looked like that on the first day or two but as the war evolved it became clear that that wasn't the case and once the Iranians unleashed the dogs I mean really uh engaged in the war full scale Uh it became very clear that they had some powerful cards to play.

[00:05:09]>> Yeah. Colonel uh McGregor, who will be on with us later uh in the week, report, I didn't know the Israelis had a Navy, but anyway, he reports that the recently retired admiral as the head of the Israeli Navy says it has been decimated by the Iranian missiles, but um IDF censorship won't allow that to be revealed. I did not know that, but I'm not surprised that uh Colonel McGregor said that. I I think one of the reasons that the Israelis have gone to such enormous lengths to not let us know what kind of damage has been done inside of Israel is because a great deal of damage has been done. And if you think about it, Judge, the Iranians did a huge amount of damage to Israeli, excuse me, to American bases in the region.

[00:06:06]>> And you say to yourself, if the Iranians could do that to American targets, they certainly could have done the same thing to Israeli targets. So again, I I think it's unsurprising to hear what Doug has to say. What does Israel gain by refusing to reveal the uh nature and extent of the damages caused by by the Iranians? I mean, does this help Prime Minister Netanyahu politically? Do local Israelis, the people that will vote to retain or reject him in October, know or not know this? Does Israeli press not know that the Israeli Navy has been obliterated according to the admiral that used to be their commander?

[00:06:52]Well, very importantly, the Iranians surely know as well. Uh and uh and that's what really matters. I think what the Israelis are trying to do is convey to the world that uh Israel uh is in the driver's seat. Israel is waging this war very successfully. Iran has little capability to hurt them and they have great capability they meaning the Israelis have great capability to punish uh Iran and uh of course that's not true in all this tells you why we're in this situation now where the United States is basically capitulated to almost all of the Iranian demands. The fact is that when you look at what's happened in this war militarily and then most importantly you look at the economic dimension, the fact that we're facing a potential economic catastrophe, you see that the Iranians are playing a very powerful hand, which again we didn't anticipate on February 27th, and I don't think they anticipated either.

[00:08:00]>> Right. Right. As you as you point out, they probably didn't realize the power that they had in their hands just by controlling the street, but they certainly do now.

[00:08:11]>> And your point is we didn't recognize it either.

[00:08:14]>> Well, we should have. I mean, what what kind of military planners did uh Secretary Hegsth and General Kaine and and the White House National Security Council employ that they didn't think of this? Well, the counter to that is that they expected to win a quick and decisive victory. So, the whole question of the strait being shut down would never come into play. As you and I have talked about on numerous occasions, this was a cockami theory of victory. The idea that air power alone was going to win a quick and decisive victory was just not in the cards, >> right?

[00:08:48]>> But they they they didn't think that.

[00:08:51]President Trump thought that uh we would knock the uh Iranians out of the war very quickly and we wouldn't have to worry about the strait.

[00:08:59]>> Right. Right. Is in your view is the memorandum uh of understanding for real is the Trump Vance versus Netanyahu public adversity spat for real or is all of this just some sort of a pause until after the midterms?

[00:09:19]Oh, I think this is for real. I mean, Trump has made it clear that he believes we are facing, and I'm quoting him, an economic catastrophe if we don't shut this war down. And of course, he's correct, as Larry Johnson and others have told you on the show, right? This war has to be set shut down for economic reasons. And Vance understands that as well. He is the point man and he's going to great lengths to shut it down uh in the negotiations that are now taking place in Switzerland. We have a profound interest in hoping that uh that Trump and uh and Vance are successful. As you know, we have criticized Trump and Vance endlessly on the show as have others on the show for uh initiating and waging this foolish war. Uh but at this point in time, we all have a deep-seated interest. One could say we have a profound interest in hoping that Trump uh and uh and Vance are able uh to put an end to the war. And I think if you watch what Vance is doing, uh he is, I think, focusing laser-like on just trying to get some sort of agreement uh that satisfies the Iranians so that we can put an end to this before we go off the cliff. Chris, can you post the Trey Yinst full screen? I mean, during the first day of negotiations, the president uh of the United States, I'm looking for the uh Yinstream, Chris. The president of the United States said this. You close it, meaning hormuz, and you won't have a country.

[00:11:03]And then he says to the negotiators, you won't even make it back to your blanking country. and then they leave the room.

[00:11:12]What kind of a way is this to negotiate?

[00:11:15]>> It it's remarkably foolish. I mean, uh, we we all know that. I mean, it's it it's just irresponsible to be making those sorts of comments and to be using that kind of language. Enough is enough.

[00:11:30]But the fact is that we've reached a point with President Trump where we expect this. And I think it's like water rolling off a duck's back at this point in time. I don't think the Iranians take this rhetoric that seriously. I think they roll their eyes and say, "Here we go again. The Russians do the same thing."

[00:11:50]>> Do they trust him? Do the Iranians trust Trump? I mean, he bombed them uh at the time of the negotiating in June. He bombed them at the time of negotiations in February. Now he's threatening to assassinate them in Switzerland. No, they don't trust the United States. No country in its right mind would trust the United States. Uh, in my opinion, no country in its right mind would trust a great power. You don't want to rely on trust. Uh, what you want to do is make sure that you have the capability to protect yourself uh in case the other side Welch is on the deal. And furthermore, you want to have sufficient military and economic power to make sure you get the best possible deal. But the Iranians, they don't trust the United States at all. And you can rest assured that once this uh uh once this war comes to an end, once we get an agreement, and hopefully we will get an agreement, the Iranians will build lots of missiles.

[00:12:52]They will give Hezbollah and the Houthis lots of missiles. uh they will go to great lengths to make sure that the next time uh they have to close the straight they can do it with deadly effectiveness. They're going to prepare for the worst and they fools not to.

[00:13:07]You're dealing with the United States of America here and you're dealing with President Trump. Uh I'm sure you wouldn't trust President Trump if you were running Iran. I certainly wouldn't.

[00:13:18]>> Yeah. Here is uh Vice President Vance.

[00:13:22]This is either yesterday or Sunday talking about the president's trash talk.

[00:13:28]>> What what we told the Iranians yesterday is when you guys engage in what us millennials might call trash talk, you can't expect the president of the United States not to respond and not to correct the record. So when they say things that aren't true, the president is going to respond to it. I'm going to respond to it. Americans are going to respond to it. when they make threats that aren't rooted in reality, they have to accept that the president of the United States is actually going to set the record straight. That's all that happened. So, yes, there was a little bit of threatening. There was a little bit of whining, but at the end of the day, the talks continued and we made great progress.

[00:14:03]>> What threats did the Iranians make, John?

[00:14:06]>> Zero.

[00:14:07]>> Right.

[00:14:09]I mean I mean what Vance is trying to do is just put the best face on President Trump's misbehavior. Uh what else can you say?

[00:14:19]>> Yeah. What happens if the Israelis just keep marching through Lebanon and killing as uh FBI director? I don't know what the what the what it's called, but he he's the equivalent of the FBI uh in Israel. Ben Gavier has called for.

[00:14:36]Well, there's two things that can happen here. One is that the Israelis refuse uh to get out of southern Lebanon and stop the bombing and we're incapable or we prove to be incapable of stopping them and the end result is the deal will be scuttled and the economic consequences will be disastrous and the blame will be on Israel. That's one possibility. The other alternative here is that Trump recognizes that the Israelis are resisting and that he has to up the coercive leverage on Israel and he begins to put enormous pressure on Israel to get out of southern Lebanon and to stop the bombing. And the argument here, and I think this is the more likely outcome, although you can never be 100% sure, the more likely outcome is that Trump will up the ante because the threat of the international economy going off the precipice is such a a profound threat that he really has no choice but to play hard ball with the Israelis. And by the way, if you look at public opinion polls, 67% of Americans support the deal. Just think about that.

[00:15:55]67%.

[00:15:56]>> That's just about the percentage that condemned the war.

[00:16:00]>> Yeah. Yeah. Unsurprisingly, right? So, all that is to say that Trump can go to the American public. Of course, he has to deal with all these Yahoos in Congress, right, who were bought and owned by the lobby. But he can go over their heads, go to the public, and he can tell the American people where we're headed. he can tell a a more detailed story of what's happening to the strategic petroleum reserve and the commercial petroleum reserve and where we're headed and what that means economically and what that means not only for the American economy but the world economy. He can lay that out. He's got 67% of the people behind him and he can increase that number. And I think in those circumstances, despite all the support that Israel has on Capitol Hill and in the media, the Israelis will bend. Uh they won't have any choice. I mean, just think about it. If you're Israel, do you want to be blamed moving forward for number one causing this war, for number two, uh not ending this war, and number three for taking the international economy off a cliff? Is this good for Israel? Uh, I don't think so. Uh, I think the incentives uh for Israel, if they think about it, uh, to shut this one down are enormous.

[00:17:23]It's in their best interest. I think the Israelis are remarkably foolish, as is the lobby, uh, to pick a fight with Trump. It just doesn't make sense. It's just going to further poison relations between um Israel and the Trump administration, do further damage to Israel's reputation in the United States, which is already in the toilet bowl. Uh it just doesn't make any sense.

[00:17:48]Uh the Israelis ought to understand they started a war that they thought they were going to win and they lost and it's a catastrophic defeat from their point of view. But the question is how do you move forward? And uh I think uh you move forward by helping the United States to cut a deal here.

[00:18:07]>> Yeah. But the Israelis don't think the way John Mirshimer does.

[00:18:12]I mean, do do you detect any collective introspection?

[00:18:18]That the war was a disaster, that the project for greater Israel is over, that the balance of power in the Middle East is changing substantially. Is this recognized by the Israeli public or are they all Benavir?

[00:18:33]>> No, I don't think it's recognized. I think to be honest and I have thought a lot about this uh a terrific article could be written on the Israeli strategic mindset. Uh there's something fundamentally wrong here.

[00:18:51]uh and uh a good article could be written on what has gone wrong. What has caused this problem? Is it due to the fact that the United States protects them? Uh the Israelis, no matter how irresponsibly they act, they think they can get away with anything, there's no price to pay. Is this what's going on?

[00:19:11]Uh is it all of these years of constant warfare of building up a national security state? Is it all these years of telling themselves that the world is against them? Uh that everybody hates Israelis, everybody hates Jews. Is that what's driving this train? It's a fascinating question. But to get to your point, there's something fundamentally wrong here.

[00:19:35]>> Yeah. Well, here is um here are two clips from Ben Gabir. Remember that Prime Minister Netanyahu's coalition has a one vote majority uh in the Knesset. Then and of course two of those 61 votes are Ben Gavir uh and his colleague Smotrich. But here's uh Ben Gavir over the top I think Sunday and yesterday. It's two clips that Chris will play.

[00:20:03]>> Lebanon. All of Lebanon should become our playground. All of Lebanon should be our target. And people say to me, "Wait a minute, but there's Lebanon and there's Hezbollah." I don't accept this artificial distinction. Lebanon is a country. There are Hezbollah members in the Lebanese government, ministers on behalf of Hezbollah. It has a revolving door policy.

[00:20:24]He asked, "What's your solution?" I told him, "My solution is to do to today's Nazis what you did to the Nazis back then." What is my solution? Hezbollah are Nazis. You would never allow such an organization to be on your border. You would never allow yourselves not to have freedom of action against such an organization. And that's what I want from President Trump. And you know what?

[00:20:45]that he won't get hurt.

[00:20:48]>> What? That he won't get hurt. What is this character's message?

[00:20:55]>> Well, you want to remember he also said that all of Lebanon should burn?

[00:21:00]>> Yes.

[00:21:00]>> Uh and uh you know, talking about Nazis, the question you want to ask yourself is who sounds more like a Nazi, >> right?

[00:21:09]>> Hezbollah, spokesman or Ben Gavir. Uh, I mean, again, this gets back to what we were talking about a minute before.

[00:21:16]Israel is a country that's just gone off the rails. Just something deeply wrong here. Uh, and what's amazing is that we have this passionate attachment to Israel. Uh, that we support Israel in ways that no one country has ever supported another country. We give them unconditional support. up until recently.

[00:21:38]>> Yeah.

[00:21:38]>> All of this trouble regarding uh Lebanon today. But uh really when you sort of listen to Ben Gvere and Smootrich and others speak, you really wonder even Netanyahu himself and you know some of the oppo opposition politicians like Navali Bennett. Uh they sound like they're worse than Netanyahu.

[00:22:00]>> The only difference if Bennett takes over is a different personality. But but the pol policies sound like they'll be identical.

[00:22:08]>> Yeah. And as you've talked about on the show with various guests, if you look at the body politic inside of Israel, there is widespread support for the policies that are being pushed by the Netanyahu government. It's not like the public thinks one thing and the elites think another. They're all on the same page.

[00:22:28]I mean, but I don't think that Ben Gver's uh words can be discounted given the critical role he plays in the majority that Prime Minister Netanyahu requires under Israeli law to stay in office and given the fact that he's the head of their uh of their FBI. He commands hundreds, maybe it's thousands, I don't know, of uh agents that work for him.

[00:22:56]>> I agree with that. But there's a more important point to be made, judge, and that is that moving forward, the number of benavir and smotriches in Israeli society is going to increase, not decrease.

[00:23:12]I don't know the Hebrew obviously, so I don't know if this word was translated properly, but for him to say we should make Lebanon our playground, what could he have meant? He wants to slaughter these people.

[00:23:29]>> He's the same one that used the phrase mowing the grass with respect to the Palestinians in Gaza.

[00:23:39]Look, if you go back to the period after October 7th, this October 7th, 2023, when the Palestinians in Gaza struck into Israel, and you look at what the Israeli elites were saying, I it looked like commentary from the Third Reich. It was really remarkable. It was in many ways worse than what they're saying today. And again, this just highlights the extent to which Israel has become this murderous society that thinks that it can run around the world uh invading countries, killing huge numbers of civilians, engaging in assassination. I mean, if you think about the Israeli policy of assassination and all of the leaders that they've assassinated over the past couple decades, it's truly remarkable. uh they just run around the Middle East assassinating people uh and uh invading countries and killing huge numbers of civilians.

[00:24:43]>> Would they do all this if Donald Trump turned off the spigot?

[00:24:48]>> Of course not. They can't do it without American support, right? They are, you know, heavily dependent on the United States. As I've said to you before, the Israelis in the early days, and this was certainly true of the Zionists before 1948, prided themselves on being independent, uh, not being dependent or not relying on another state for their security. They understood that we live in a self-help world and you have to be able to protect yourself. You don't want to be in a situation where you depend on another country, even the United States.

[00:25:22]That's not to say you don't want help from the United States, but you don't want to be dependent on the United States. But what's happened in recent decades is that the Israelis have become dependent on the United States. There's no way they could wage all these wars without support from the United States.

[00:25:40]And if the United States ever decided to play hard ball with Israel, you know, to shut down their barbaric behavior in this instance or that instance, they would have to stop immediately. We could easily bring them to their knees. This is a tiny country that's very vulnerable to American pressure. But we don't do that. In fact, we do the exact opposite.

[00:26:05]We support them no matter what they do, which allows the Smootriches and the Ben Gabe and the Netanyahus uh to prevail all these crazy policies that are damaging Israel and damaging the United States. One of the um more vicious attacks on President Trump for signing the memorandum of understanding.

[00:26:30]uh really personal attacks on him as well as of course on the United States came from the Israeli daily newspaper owned by Mrs. Adlesen.

[00:26:43]I'm wondering what the message was there.

[00:26:47]>> Well, Miriam Adlesen is an Israel first.

[00:26:53]You remember when President Trump was in Jerusalem? I think it was about a year ago >> or when he spoke to the Knesset and introduced her.

[00:27:01]>> Yes. Right. And I think he said at that point in time, take this with a grain of salt, that I asked Miriam uh if she was more loyal to the United States or to Israel, or was she more loyal to Israel than the United States? And I think he said that she refused to answer. And of course, Miriam Adlesen is more loyal to Israel. And she's on the same page as was her husband Sheldon Adlesen as Netanyahu, Smokedrich, and Ben Gave. I mean, it's not like she's some moderate Israel. She's a right-wing Israeli, and she supports Israel no matter what. So, you would expect her in a situation like this to side with uh uh the Israelis against President Trump.

[00:27:48]>> So, her newspaper is called I think it's Israel Haim, isn't it?

[00:27:56]>> Israel Hyam. She said, "You betrayed us.

[00:28:00]You surrendered uh to Iran. How can we ever trust you?"

[00:28:05]Well, this is the woman who gave $250 million to his pack to assure his reelection. This is the woman, as you say, that he introduced as a godsend to the uh to the Knesset. and now she's turning her editorial writers loose on him.

[00:28:24]>> But what amazes me, Judge, is that she does not understand why Trump is doing that. She thinks that Trump betrayed Israel. He's turned on Israel. He now hates Israel. Uh, and it's for no good reason. This is nonsense. What's going on here is that Trump understands that given the state of the international economy and given the leverage that Iran has over the international economy, he has to cut a deal. He has no choice.

[00:28:56]He's not doing this because he hates Israel. But from the perspective of people like Miriam Adlesen, anytime anyone criticizes Israel or pursues a policy that the Israelis don't like, that means that you're anti-Semitic. Uh you hate Israel. Uh this is just more of the same from Israel haters and so forth and so on. I I find it amazing that she has no sympathy for the position that Trump is in and she's not willing to sort of try and work out some sort of arrangement uh between Israel and the United States where we can get out of this pickle that we're in.

[00:29:36]>> You know, she's a very wealthy woman with vast uh investments and and income streams. You would think she would understand the crippling nature to the economy of the of the continued war and how it would impact her personal fortune as well as those she loves and cares for and employs.

[00:29:55]I think the fact is that Israel is such an important cause for her that whatever the Israeli government wants and whatever the Israeli government thinks is in its interests uh especially an Israeli government run by right-wingers she'll support it hookline and sinker and if that even means losing a large chunk of her enormous wealth I think she'd do that.

[00:30:20]>> Wow. Professor Mir Shimemer, thank you very much uh my dear friend. Some of this is gloom uh and doom, but all of it is enlightening and helpful to us to understand what's going on. Deeply appreciated and we'll look forward to seeing you again next week.

[00:30:34]>> My pleasure, Judge. See you next week.

[00:30:36]>> You got it. Thank you. And coming up later today at 2:00 this afternoon on all of this and and an interesting conversation about how the United States military goes about recruiting. What kind of promises does it make? Can you make a promise that you can't keep? Matt Hoe. Uh, at 3:00, why does the White House allow MSAD to spy on the president? Colonel Karen Quacowski at 3:30. What did he learn in 3 weeks in Ukraine and Russia? Scott Ritter, judge the Paul Tanner for Judging Freedom.

[00:31:26]Heat. Heat.