The Duran Podcast - Closing in on Iran deal?

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Closing in on Iran deal?

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the negotiations between the United States and Iran. Where are we with these negotiations? It's a very good question. I don't think anybody can give a completely clear answer at the moment. I mean, all the factors are there to bring about a deal. I mean, I think that the elements we've discussed this in previous programs are there. The Iranians have no real interest in developing nuclear weapons because they understand that those nuclear weapons don't give them security and they said as much. The United States doesn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons.

There are other parties, Saudi Arabia and Russia, that would be happy to facilitate the negotiation of a deal and a deal can be done. Unfortunately, there are lots of people in the United States, in Israel, in other European countries who do not want to deal. Because they still believe they can engineer some kind of regime change in Iran and that some kind of an attack on Iran would be successful. And of course, we've had reports in the media over the last couple of about 10 days or so that Israel has been planning an attack on Iran by itself. without involving the United States.

I do not believe those reports, by the way. I think those reports were deliberately placed in the media by people who want the United States to assist Israel in conducting those kind of strikes. And I think that this was an attempt to put pressure on Donald Trump specifically and other people like him, who think like him in the administration, who do not want to see deep strikes by giving the impression that if they don't authorize them, Israel will go on, we'll go it alone. So I think that is what that game was all about. But you could see that this plan to escalate the crisis in the Middle East, to try to get a war going, is there. I think that these people

have suffered one important political reverse over the last couple of weeks. One is the removal of Mike Wolfe's, for his position, as a national security advisor. I think that Donald Trump and his immediate circle came to realize that Wolfe is far too pro-Israeli, far too anti-Iranian, was working much too closely with the Israelis to try to lobby Donald Trump into this attack on Iran. But even more important, it seems that Walsh persuaded Trump to authorise the attacks on the Houthis, perhaps giving Trump the idea that the Houthis were weaker than it turns out that they really are, and that this is in some way intended to some kind of dress rehearsal for

the attack on Iran. It turned out that the Houthis have a effective air defense system. It was able to shoot down, and now apparently it's been confirmed, a significant number of advanced American drones, and that even some American fighter jets, F-15s, and apparently even F-35s, came very close to being shot down as well. And I think Donald Trump saw all of that and said, my God, if this is what the Houthis are capable of doing, then an attack on Iran is not a good idea at all because we must assume that Iran's air defenses are more advanced than those of the Houthis. So I think that has played a role in causing the administration to be more cautious moving forward and has weakened the pro-warial. advocates and strengthened the pro-peace ones. Now, I would also say something else, and that is that there's been statements from people within the MAGA movement who are clearly

opposed to war against Iran. Marjorie Taylor Green has published messages on X, saying as much, and she's pointedly said that she represents the base. And there's been a very, very powerful article in the Federalist, which is a MAGA website, you know, very, very well-resourced and important MAGA website, in which they say they absolutely, the United States absolutely does not need a war with Iran. So I suspect that there's also been some mobilization within the MAGA political base opposing this war also. And that's probably also having an effect in shaping the discussion. When Trump was speaking to the media the other day, and he made the comment about how he's angry with Putin, upset with Putin.

It was during the same talk with the same comments to the media, where he struck a positive, an optimistic tone with negotiations between the United States and Iran, At least that was the impression that he was giving out, which is that there's going to be good, positive announcements coming soon. Negotiations are progressing. What do you think the stage that we're at? Where do you think we're at with the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran? The negotiations between Russia and the United States are much more transparent, it seems, much more public than what is happening between the United States and Iran. I haven't seen any news about any meetings between Whitkoff and Iranian officials. I don't know if they are taking place or if there are other discussions taking place between

U.S. officials and Iranian officials. but I just don't have a sense of where we are with these negotiations, these talks between the United States and Iran in the same way that I have a good understanding because I do think it's more transparent with the talks between the United States and Russia. Where are we? Because Trump says it, Iran says it, Saudi Arabia says it, Russia says it. No one wants Iran to get nuclear weapons. Iran says it.

So they don't want nuclear weapons. I mean, everyone is agreed on this, everyone. But for some reason, we're not able to get the final agreement. So what are your thoughts on? Well, this is a good point. First of all about the Russian-American negotiations, about the ceasefire and all that in Ukraine. Donald Trump made lots of very optimistic claims

about the progress of those negotiations. And, I mean, it turned out that he was absolutely overstating the degree of progress that was being made. I don't think anybody now doubts this. Trump was using, if I may say, a classic negotiating tactic, which he was trying to talk up the progress of the negotiations in order to put pressure on the Russians to make concessions. And of course, the Russians, exactly as we discussed on many of our programs, weren't pushed in that way. They didn't, they didn't, they weren't affected by that pressure. I think with Iran, it is different because whereas with Russia and Ukraine and all of that,

the gap is very, the conceptual gap is very large. In fact, not just large. I mean, you know, Russia and Ukraine are on completely different planets. As you absolutely rightly say, with Iran, it's different. Everybody agrees of what the objective should. should be, including Iran, that Iran should not acquire nuclear weapons. So logically, there ought to be progress on, there ought to be much more progress. We ought to be moving very quickly and effectively towards that objective. And perhaps we are. This is the problem because sometimes when everything

goes quiet in negotiations. It is a sign that there are lots of discussions going on, perhaps in private, and that much more progress is being made than we know. It could be, for example, that when Donald Trump went to Saudi Arabia, I was talking with the Saudis. I'm not saying that he met anybody from Iran there, but it could be very well-beed that because the Saudis have now good contacts with Iran, the Saudis were passing messages backwards and forwards between Trump and the Iranians and that actually quite a lot of negotiating was done between the Americans and the Iranians over the course of Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia. It is completely possible.

So it may be that we are closing in on a deal and that this time when Trump says that, he's telling the truth and that it is in fact the case that a deal is just there over the horizon. And it could also be that all these, all this talk about, you know, Israel be prepared to conduct its own strikes against Iran is intended to prevent that deal actually crystallizing. The point is, we just don't know. But let's go back to that comment that Trump made about the fact that good announcements are coming. seems to me that what Trump was doing was basically telling everybody, look, the military situation, the military option is not the right way to go. I am opposing it. I want the negotiations to continue. I have every reason to think the negotiations will succeed. So why are we

even talking about military options when it is the negotiation route that we should follow? Anything else that you want to add to this story? I talked about the Saudis. The other very interesting party here is the Russians, because it seems to me that the Russians are an essential part of this agreement, because Iran probably will not want to see its nuclear material. It's highly enriched nuclear material destroyed, and they will obviously want to move forward with military deals and all of that with the Russians as well. So if Trump believes that he's making progress with the Iranians, could it be that there's also some kind of discussions where the Russians also going on that we don't know about, just saying.

It shows how important the Russians are to everything that's happening. Absolutely. And I'm going to say something. I think Trump cares an awful lot more about Iran than he does about Ukraine. Just so. He cares more about the region than he does. He cares a lot more about the region than he does about the Middle East and the region. and then he does about Europe, for example.

I think that's clear. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And he feels happier there. I mean, he gave a very interesting speech whilst he was in Riyadh, which you covered extensively on one of your programs. He was very, very critical of the neocons.

He likes being with the Saudis. That's quite obvious. Robert brought that up on our live street. Absolutely. Go ahead, go ahead. Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, if he needs the Russians to sort of

things out in the Middle East. Who knows? Maybe things are going on with the Russians also that we don't know about. I mean, the Russians are still talking as if the improvement of relations between them and the Americans is still on track. True. They are. Yeah. Okay. We will end the video there. The durand. Dot locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, Bitchie, Telegram, Rockfin, and X. Go to the Durand shop, pick up some merch, like what we are wearing in this video update. A link is in the description box down below. Take care.