Empire Abroad, Autocracy at Home: Col. Wilkerson on the U.S.-Israel Attack on Iran

Paul Jay
Hi, welcome to theAnalysis.news. I’m Paul Jay. In just a few seconds, we’ll be back with Colonel Larry Wilkerson to discuss the Israeli attack on Iran.

Prime Minister of Israel, Netanyahu, who says this is not an attack on the Iranian people. It’s an attack on the Iranian regime. But in fact, it’s exactly that, an attack on the Iranian people. The sovereignty of a country is not the sovereignty of a government. It’s the sovereignty of the people, and it’s the sovereignty of Iran that has been illegally attacked by every piece of the UN charter and international law, an unprovoked attack on the people’s sovereignty.

Now, I’ve been very critical over the years of the Iranian government. I’m not going to call it a regime. I don’t know why it’s more of a regime than most of the other governments or states that call themselves governments. My guest and I, Larry Wilkerson, who will be here in just a few seconds, we’ve both been very critical of the Iranian government and its repression of people and opposition movements in Iran. That has nothing to do with what’s going on here. This is an out-and-out, unprovoked attack on Iran. We’re going to talk about the reasons for that, but let me just add one other small thing, which we’ll talk about. It’s maybe not that small.

Critiquing this Israeli attack is not anti-Semitism. In fact, this is just like the Cold War. When people condemned the Vietnam War, they were called communists. They’re being soft on communists. Well, now, if you critique the crimes of the Israeli government, and now this unprovoked war, and of course, the genocide in Gaza, the bombings in Lebanon, now you’re an anti-Semite. It’s being thrown around just the way it was, the anti-communist rhetoric of the Cold War.

Now, joining us to talk about this current conflict is Larry Wilkerson. Thanks for joining us, Larry.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
Good to be with you, Paul. Long time.

Paul Jay
For people who don’t know, Larry was the Chief of Staff for Colin Powell, both at the Joint Chiefs and at the State Department. So, let me start by asking you, Larry, what do you make of the way the media is covering this? I was a little surprised over the last year that there were at least some reports on how Gaza was being devastated. You saw quite a few pictures of the killing of children, and there was a glimmer of legitimate reporting for a while. Now, this is so one-sided. I watch CNN, and guest after guest is essentially from the Israeli government or the Israeli ambassador, and the fact that this is a complete violation of international law is not even mentioned.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
Well, this is truly a disgusting display of the Empire’s degradation and profound slippage from world leadership. There’s no question about that. Not only have we violated international law, consistently, we have ignored even those or punished even those who didn’t want to ignore it or were trying to do something about it, like South Africa and their application to the court with regard to the genocide in Gaza. I think it’s appalling that we did a Yamamoto. We did a Pearl Harbor. We did a Saddam Hussein on Kuwait attack on Iran. We, not Israel, the United States of America, using Israel as its foremost in the frontline proxy, if you will, just like we’re doing with Ukraine. We said, diplomacy was going to continue. We achieved tactical surprise, an enormous advantage for an Air Force attacking, for example.

Paul Jay
What you mean by that is that Trump had said they were about to start another round of negotiations, and then came the attack.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
Absolutely. He knew they were going to attack. There’s no way he couldn’t have known. He proved it with his tweets afterward because he said, essentially, “We knew, and we did it.” Contradicting his Secretary of State, who went out there and lied, I suspect he lied, or his National Security Advisor, one wonders what Rubio is, really, and tried to say that the United States did not have anything to do with it, clearly to protect his embassies and consulates around the region because he feared attacks from Iran.

This is truly a new marker for an empire that, since 9/11, has set down marker after marker for the fact that it disregards international law entirely. For the fact that it is going to kill you, sanction you, or both, if you even raise an objecting voice to what it wants to do in the world. It’s a marker also for the degradation of the leadership of the country, which commenced with 9/11 and George W. Bush, and now has devolved to a circus clown who stands in front of a crowd of people who want to do things domestically and internationally that are appalling when you think about them. Maybe wind up with a nuclear war in the end, which I think some of them want to reduce the population. And a clown in front of them masquerading as a MAGA symbol for Americans, and got lots of Americans convinced. They are falling off rapidly now, but convinced that he’s the Messiah, that he’s the answer to all their problems, domestic or international, which is an absolute farce.

So you’ve got this hoax going on with regard to the presidency itself. You’ve got a Congress that is enraptured by a foreign country, and you’ve got a Supreme Court, with the exception maybe of the liberal justices, and I’m reading more and more about Amy Coney-Barrett, who is more or less complicit with whatever the president wants to do. This is unprecedented in terms of the consolidation of power. Now, it’s brought us to, I think, this precipice. This fall could very well see the use of nuclear weapons. Even more so now, is it pregnant with that possibility than Ukraine? 

Paul Jay
Why?

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
Because Israel has them, and because if Iran continues and continues in the way it is doing it right now, Netanyahu is going to be majorly imperiled, first of all, politically, and maybe even anticipating being kicked out or carried out on a rail, or he’s going to get so worried about the situation in Israel and his political standing he will do it himself. He’ll start this. It’s going to become an existential situation for Israel, I think. In the long run, it’s going to be existential.

You see it happening right now with Trump and the military in the United States. We just deployed probably 30 in the first wave. I suspect more will go. They’re airborne, gone. I assume they’re in the region now. KC-35, and what’s the other tanker? KC-135s and KC-46s. Now, this is probably a huge percentage of the operational aerial refueling tankers that we have. The first impression was that we were deploying them so the Israelis could keep up the 200-plane strikes and go even further, maybe, into the very far reaches of Iran. I think what it is, is that, possibly, with JP8, JP4, JP5 fuels, but it’s also a pre-positioning for us to join the fight, for us to begin bombing Iranian targets as well as Israel.

This will be commenced, as we have pretty much said, once they start sending missiles onto our facilities or even on the Saudi oil facilities or whatever. The Israelis are stoking that right now by finally attacking Iranian oil facilities and damaging the Iranian oil complex. I can only expect, from what I have heard from my own sources in Iran, that they might reach a point where it’s suicide, but we’re going to go down fighting. We’re going to open up on everybody, which includes the Strait, Ras Tanura, the Saudi oil facilities, and all the U.S. forces. Here’s the kicker. Our forces are not capable of securing themselves in that region. We have many people in that region.

Paul Jay
I think it’s 40,000, the number they’re saying on CNN.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
More like 50. If you count Egypt and other little installations around, and Israel itself, it’s more like 50, and they’re not fighters. They are electricians, they’re engineers, and so forth. We don’t even have any air defense assets around Al Udeid, the largest Air Force base in the world, in Qatar. I mean, you could destroy that and a whole host of American aircraft at the same time. It would be like Pearl Harbor, shooting ducks in a barrel.

There are others, too. Kuwait has the largest throughput facility in the world for us, putting troops through. We built it up for Desert Storm, Desert Shield, and then we left it and refurbished it for the next attack on Iraq, and we keep it there. The naval fleet headquarters, the largest fleet, the fifth fleet, is in Bahrain, and it’s not defended. If you say, “Well, local forces will defend it,” you’re smoking some cheap stuff.

We’re really vulnerable. This deployment is probably as much for our aircraft coming out of Al Udeid, King Khalid, and other airfields in the region as it is for helping Israel tank, and go further and deeper into Iran. This is very dangerous. It’s extremely dangerous. You’re going to put, and possibly, Iran is going to put Israel in a situation where it exercises its so-called Samson option, which is to drag it out and use it.

I have no doubt in my mind that Bibi Netanyahu would do that. In ’73, Golda Meir was asked by the BBC, and she said, “Absolutely.” They asked her, “Would you use that option?” And she said, “Absolutely. If we were in existential straits, of course, we would.” Well, Bibi is one who would, I think, love to go down in a nuclear cloud, if you will. And he will if he thinks it cements his place in Israeli history. Israel. 

Paul Jay
There won’t be much- I don’t know how many people are going to be left to write the history.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
People say he would never use a nuclear weapon. Bull. You know they uploaded them before, twice. They’ve uploaded nuclear weapons twice that we know about. I’m sure that’s probably all, but- 

Paul Jay
If there was ever a message to countries considering whether to get nuclear weapons, the message is loud and clear. You’d better get them before. Get them sooner rather than later.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
Yeah. Look at Gaddafi in Libya. He’s dead. Libya’s chaos. Look at Kim Jong Un. Who’s going to touch Kim? Nobody’s going to touch Kim because they know he’s crazy enough to use a nuclear weapon. Now, I don’t say that lightly either, because that’s my specialty. I’ve studied Korea since the Kim dynasty started. They would use a nuclear weapon. I think the partnership with Russia is a positive partnership there because that might be the only restraint on Kim Jong Un.

Paul Jay
Well, there are some splits taking place in MAGA on this. Rand Paul was on, and he’s been pro-Trump on many issues, but he’s been fairly consistent on this issue of war. He’s very much opposed to any U.S. involvement in Iran. I believe there are whole sections of the MAGA base that really believe in this isolationist position. It’s not going to be so simple just to do this, because I think a lot of Americans are going to see this as a distraction, Trump distracting from his own fractured economic policies, and so on. If the U.S. does get involved, it isn’t going to be an easy ride, I don’t think. I also don’t see why the Iranians would provoke it. They haven’t in the past, and it wouldn’t make sense for them to do it.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
That’s the greatest restraint. I think there is still decent, rational thought in Tehran, even with the pain that they’ve suffered. I mean, these were in your bedroom deaths. Typical Israeli assassinations and killings. They were murders. They used the weapon systems and the intelligence we, MI6, and Mossad gave them, and they are… You don’t talk about the Five Eyes anymore. You talk about the “three eyes,” Mossad, CIA, and MI6. They’ve been so buried in Ukraine together, and now they’re taking their talents, including some Ukrainian mercenaries, into the Levant, into Southwest Asia. So you’ve got this incredible complex of people who will murder you in your bed, and that in itself is an extremely dangerous precedent to…

Paul Jay
Do you think-

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
The United States is the most vulnerable country in the world to this thing. You can rest assured that they have already started infiltrating the United States. They’re already in this country, and they are ready to act when and if they are given the orders to act. Whether it means assassinating the president or some members of Congress or whatever, watch it start happening. We are the most vulnerable in the world to political assassinations like Israel has just pulled off with a vengeance of forethought, and it’s not going to rest there.

We have created all manner of potential terrorists, if you want to call them that, in the world. What they are is not necessarily terrorists. They’re people who are young, fit, and ready to go to war over the fact that hegemony over the world is not in their cup of tea. That’s what we want, and that’s what we’ve proven that we want.

Paul Jay
Just to go back to some basics on Iran and nuclear weapons. As far as I understand it, to this day, there is zero evidence that Iran is actually trying to build a bomb. There is evidence that they have reached 60% of enrichment, which is beyond what a normal energy program would need, a non-weaponized program. Why are they in this situation where they are not building a bomb and are being inspected and so on? Because they are voluntarily part of the Non-Proliferation Agreement. They don’t have to be part of that agreement. Israel isn’t part of that agreement, and no one says a word about it. The only reason Iran is being inspected is because it’s voluntarily- they could pull out of that agreement whenever they choose.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
And it will probably be within the next four days.

Paul Jay
Well, given what’s happening now. The next thing, Iran has as much right to a nuclear bomb as any country that currently has a nuclear bomb. Some people argue nobody should have the right to a nuclear bomb, but if the United States does, and certainly if Israel does, well, so does Iran. They have voluntarily stayed in an agreement. Now, sure, there’s been pressures, sanctions, and so on, but if you look at what’s going on now, they may be second-guessing whether they should have held back at all on this. The fact is, they have.

All that said, why did they enrich the 60%? Why be a threshold state? And I’ve been saying this for a while. This isn’t just some kind of hindsight. It just makes you a target. I know they say they were doing it because it gave them leverage in negotiations, but it’s a bit like Saddam claiming he had weapons when he didn’t. Now, they’re not in a good position.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
I suspect that the president, Zarif, and other people like that, have been arguing that very point with the hard right. IRGC leadership, some on the Guardian Council, some in the Majlis, and some on the outside who are wealthy Iranians who don’t want to see the Pahlavi’s come back, for example, or see some of the more vicious groups that are trying to- and we’re courting them- take over control in Iran. And don’t you think for a second that Israel or the United States would allow a democratic government to take over in Iran.

Paul Jay
No, because the first thing they’re going to do is make sure the Americans don’t get the oil.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
Oh, by the way, I keep making this point with people. What makes you think that if we destroyed the current regime, we and Israel together, because it’s absolutely crystal clear that we’re locked at the hip with this, and some Thomas Jefferson took over? They’d still have the same national interest. They’re in a very dangerous part of the world. Israel is an antagonist par excellence. They still have the same-

Paul Jay
Well, hang on. We had it. It’s called 1953. They elected a Democratic leader whom the CIA and MI6 had overthrown.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
We over through it, and we did it for precisely that reason, because he was a democratic leader and not going to follow necessarily Britain’s or our mandate. So this is preposterous to say we’re looking for a regime. What we’re looking for is a vassal that Israel can control for us in the region, and we can control ultimately. That’s what we’re looking for in the whole region. That’s essentially what we want in the entire region. Watch out, Riyadh, because don’t think you’re not next if we succeed in this. I don’t think we will, though. I think what we’re headed for is first a regional conflagration, and then probably a global one.

Paul Jay
Why do you think the Saudis… What does that mean next? Because it seems to me the Saudis are just watching Trump and the Israelis. Everyone is just licking their rear in order to get Saudi investment.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
That money is not forever, though. No one knows that better than Mohammed bin Salman, who is trying to diversify furiously to get away from the oil product, which has made his country so single-minded and so rich. But it’s not going to last forever.

Paul Jay
Yeah, and their next economic miracle is going to be the home of an unmitigated, unrestricted artificial intelligence. Great.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
Probably, and we will orchestrate that. So, it’s not like the United States wants Southwest Asia to be independent, free, and democratic. It’s exactly the opposite of that. And Israel, not free and democratic. Anything but apartheid is our attack dog in order to assure that.

Paul Jay
What do you make of the use of federal troops in Los Angeles?

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
I think it’s a disaster, especially the Marines. I go back to ’92 and the Watts riots, when Powell picked up his pad and checked with Cheney, who was Secretary of Defense at the time, got clearance, went over to the White House, sat down for an hour with H.W. Bush, and said, “This execute order you’re going to issue for the Watts riots to send these troops in there with loaded weapons and such, wrong thing to do, Mr. President. Let me tell you why.” When that conversation was over, the president turned to Brent Scowcroft and said, “Get me a new pen and paper for a new executive order.” Essentially an execute order. Of course, Powell said, “We’ll do that. We’ll do that. We’ll change it.” And we rewrote the execute order so it was very clear what the rules of engagement were, and you weren’t going to shoot anybody. You definitely weren’t going to shoot to kill. You weren’t even going to take a loaded weapon out there. The whole tenor changed, and then Rodney King helped by saying, “Can’t we just all get along?” That went all across the country, and everything calmed down.

This is the wrong thing to do. First, expropriating the governor’s National Guard without his permission, and then sending in not the army, which is the nation’s force if you have to activate troops who are active for this kind of mission. Not the army, trained in riot control, trained in civil disturbances, and so forth. You send in the Marine Corps, the cutting edge of your brutal killers. I served with the Marines for 12 years. I led their war college for four years. I love the Marines, and they would testify that I’m right, probably. They’re the people who kill people. That’s what they do for a living. They kill people. They storm beaches and kill people.

That’s a force you need at the lead of your military if you’re going to start a war with someone. But you don’t send them into a domestic disturbance. Trump, I think, probably, I know Hegseth, knows this. So did the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, so why didn’t they object? Why didn’t they say, “Well, we’ll send some army-“

Paul Jay
At the very beginning of this interview, you talked about them building a plan for an autocratic regime in the United States.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
Absolutely. 

Paul Jay
I mean, is this a dress rehearsal for quashing opposition from the states run by the Democratic Party? For example, what if you don’t call midterm elections, the States try to go ahead with them anyway, you want to go in and impose martial law, and you can have some same protest as an excuse to do it? I mean, is this a dress rehearsal for something?

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
I think it is, and I’m not sure. It’s just Democrats. That’s where it will start, but there are going to be some objecting Republican governors and local law, too. So, I think this is a practice and a warmup for a nationwide, almost 1933, 1934, Wehrmacht. After the Reichstag Fire, Hitler used all his enemies, from the Brownshirts, actually, to the communists, to destroy his opposition, and then he destroyed them.

Same thing Stalin did when he took over, really big time in the Soviet Union. He came from Georgia. He’d been a member of the Tsar’s Okhrana. He had a list. He knew everyone he needed to take out, but he was very methodical and very slow about doing it. He finally went after the Jews, started with Trotsky, and then had one of the biggest programs that they had ever seen in that region when he cleaned everything, the NKVD and the government itself of all the Jews.

That’s what I think Trump is preparing. I don’t think Trump knows anything about this, frankly. I don’t know, but I don’t think he does. It’s the people behind him. It’s the people like Stephen Miller. On the outside, it’s people like Steve Bannon, and it’s a whole bunch of billionaires and others.

But this so-called deep state, that might be a good phrase for it, is aligned with the talent and skill in the administration, or faithful to the administration, using Trump as their surface clown. When they act, they’re going to act across the country. Republicans aren’t going to be safe either. The martial law is going to be nationwide. It might start out regional with Democrats, but then it’s going to be nationwide. And then I think we’re going to have an autocratic autocracy.

Paul Jay
Well, I think they’re wrong because I’m a clinical optimist, and I think millions of people are going to hit the streets. Quite a few did just in the last couple of days. Thanks for joining us, Larry.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
Thanks for having me, Paul.

Paul Jay
For better or worse, thanks for joining us on theAnalysis.news. Don’t forget, there’s a donate button. We can’t do this without you.