The Duran Podcast - Iran attrition war. LNG supply crunch

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

Iran attrition war. LNG supply crunch

All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is going on with the war in Iran. And let's look at the energy situation, the gas lNG crisis. And I'm sure we're also going to have, or we have, or we will have an oil crisis, just a general global energy crisis. You can talk about the closure of the streets of Hormuz, which is not my understanding of it. It's not the military that has actually closed it, even though. we are seeing tankers that are trying to cross. It looks like they're getting hit.

Of course, there's still a lot of fog of war as well. But a lot of it boils down to Lloyds of London. Yes. And insurance, you have Trump saying that he'll insure those tankers. The United States will insure those tankers, but that can't fly. And then we have everything that's going on with Qatar. They're shutting down. They're not stopping it.

They're shutting the whole thing down. And that means that we could be looking at a two-week period for them to restart it if they did decide to start it. And then another two weeks to get it back up to where it was before they shut it down. This is going to cause all kinds of issues in horrific issues in Europe around the world. And then you have China. It looks like they're going to stop exporting fuel. You have Russian President Putin actually saying, you know, maybe we need to,

to stop any gas exports to Europe. Europe was going to stop Russian. They were going to block Russian exports by 2007. And now Putin is coming back and saying, yeah, forget about 2007. We just might stop them now. What do you think about everything that's going on? Well, let's just quickly start with the war. Of course, we're discussing the war. We're providing people to the extent that we can pretty much daily updates at the moment. But to me, for the moment, it looks, the war itself is looking like a slogging match. And it's exactly what we anticipated it would turn into. There was clearly just, there was clearly an intention right at the beginning to decapitate the Iranian leadership, all kinds of assumptions that once the leadership

fell, there would be revolution in Iran, there would be a takeover in Iran, Pachlavi or someone else would come in, or maybe there would be some person from within the Iranian leadership. the ship will take over and do Adelzi Rodriguez there. Clearly, that's not happened. Oh, that plan, Plan A has gone. So we have a slugging match. The United States and Israel have vastly more ability to hit Iran. They're pounding Iran. They're smashing Tehran to pieces. They're doing enormous damage, they're trying to start something with the Kurds in the west of Iran. So the pressure on Iran is extremely strong. We don't know how long Iran can withstand this, this kind of pressure, or whether it is able to withstand it indefinitely. But the U.S.

and Israel and the West are now also under pressure. as well. Firstly, we have the problem of the depletion of air defense missile interceptors. This is quite clear. This is indeed what's happening. Hegg says talked about the US Air Force conducting bombing raids using gravity bombs over Iran. I interpret that as a sign that the US is running out of long-range, standoff weapons, tomahawks, chathoms, all that kind of thing. So, There's that problem as well. So it's a test of endurance. There's now talk about a 100-day wall. That was this morning. It's gone from two weeks to four weeks to eight weeks. Now we're talking about three months. And maybe even up to September, Alexander. Maybe even up to September, taking us all the way up, in other words, to the midterms in the United States.

Now, this is very bad for the United States. It is a debacle if this turns out. And the reason it's a debacle is because, firstly, the military situation, the stoppiles get depleted. But now we come on to what is the immediate and major crisis, which is the situation with the energy markets. Now, the United States itself is self-sufficient in energy. It reduces, it has coal, it has oil, it's an oil exporter, in fact. It isn't gas exporter as well. But the US functions within a global energy system.

If prices of oil and gas rise in Europe and Asia, they will rise in the United States too. And it's becoming increasingly clear that the Straits of Hormuzes is indeed close. The Iranians are playing an extremely devious game here, which they do. I'm not criticizing them for this, by the way, but they're playing a game. They say, oh, no, no, no, we haven't, the military hasn't closed the Straits of Hormuz. And then the IRGC says, we have closed the straits of Hormuz. The point is that Iran has these two parallel militaries that function alongside each other, both for the moments, are remaining loyal to the Iranian government.

But, of course, the conventional military, if you like, represents the state. The IRGC is a force on its own. The Iranians are playing this game of pretending when it suits them that they haven't closed the Straits of Hormuz, even as they're knitting that they effectively have. The fact is that the only tankers and ships that are able to transit through the Straits of Hormuz at the moment are those that the Iranians allow. And so far they've allowed two ships. I believe they were both China connected, but mostly the Straits of Hormuz are shut. Now, this is having an impact.

We are already seeing the Qataris, as you rightly say, they've shut down. their entire natural gas industry. I was reading just before we did this program, an article in the Financial Times. It says that the problem in the Gulf is about to get much more serious. Because since the Gulf producers cannot export oil, what oil they are producing, they are having to put in their storage tanks. Those storage tanks are going to start to fill. In the case of Kuwait, it will be in about three days.

In the case of, I believe, the UAE, it's going to be five days. The moment that happens, they have to stop oil production. If they stop oil production, if the oil fields close, then just as it takes time to rest, natural gas production in Qatar, it takes time to restart production of oil. If oil production is shut down for more than a few weeks, oil fields start to accumulate damage and the time taken to restart them increases. So we're looking no longer at weeks. We might be looking at months. Saudi Arabia has by far the biggest oil storage facilities. They have apparently six big facilities in Saudi Arabia.

Four are believed to be mostly or entirely filled. That leaves two. At some point, if this is prolonged for 100 days, and the Straits of Hormuz is closed for 100 days, then those facilities will also fill, and at that point, Saudi Arabia has to stop reduction. Now, that is a colossal crisis. That is a crisis of a sort that we have never seen since the 1973 oil crisis, and it is going to have massive repercussions around the world.

The United States, as you rightly say, is, as we've said, has self-sufficiency in energy, but oil prices will rise, but there will still be energy, it will still be oil and gas in the United States. Other countries around the world, the Asian consumers, Japan, South Korea, are far more vulnerable. Europe is more vulnerable still. They depend entirely now on American LNG. Well, overwhelmingly on American LNG, if LNG from Qatar, which is the third biggest producer, stops and LNG prices globally start to surge. I'm going to say exactly what I think is going to happen. The United States, certainly this administration, in advance of the midterms is going to start releasing oil from its strategic reserve to try to cushion prices

in the United States, and it's going to stop exports of LNG. I think that is a very high probability come the autumn, in which case the Europeans are in deep crisis. Already their reserves of natural gas were low for this time of the year because of the cost. old winter. LNG prices are rising, were high anyway, and they're getting higher, they're going to get higher. Without LNG coming from Qatar, without LNG coming from the United States, with the Russians now saying that LNG, they're not prepared to sell LNG to Europe, and they're going to stop supplying it immediately. Now, this is connected with that lunatic attack on that ship in the Mediterranean, which

will come to in a moment. But with the Russians saying all of that, well, I just didn't want to even begin to calculate what this is going to mean for the Europeans. They rely on oil from the Gulf. That isn't coming. They rely on LNG from the United States. That might not be coming. We're going to have a deep crisis.

I was going to make the exact point that you made. Actually, I said it in a couple of videos I made a couple of days ago. What if Trump wakes up because of the war one day he wakes up and he posts on truth social? Because of the conflict, because we're at war, we're not going to be exporting LNG anymore. Which we actually said, I believe you said it in a video almost nine months ago when we were talking about all of the EU sanctions and how the EU is now very dependent. on the United States for gas and for LNG. And you brought up the point that perhaps the United States and especially Donald Trump, may not be the best person to rely on for your energy security because he can wake up.

And we had no idea there was going to be the war in Iran or anything. I mean, you know, we would never imagine that we would be at a point where the Straits of Hormuz would be closed. And you'd have all the issues with Saudi Arabia and Qatar completely shutting down there. their gas facilities. But the point was made. One day, Trump may decide, you know what, I'm not going to be exporting LNG for whatever reason. Now we have the reason, or the reason is coming, or the reason is forming. If this thing drags on, no doubt about it, the United States is going to stop exporting LNG. Yes. Especially the closer we get to midterms. Exactly. I mean, we see China using the war as a reason to stop fuel exports in their.

refineries. Yes. We see Putin now saying perhaps that's a good idea. Yeah. We're in a war, but there's a war in the Middle East as a crisis. Perhaps we need to husband our resources. What does Europe do? You know, Europe doesn't seem very concerned. I've been listening to statements from Kaya Callis, from Ursula, from other European officials. Outside of Hungary, Orban, Sancero Fizzo, the rest of the European leadership, the EU leadership, doesn't seem to be very concerned about this at all. Shouldn't they be on a plane to Moscow? They should be on a plane to the United States and telling Donald Trump... Merch was just there. He was giving this full support, but they should be on the plane to the

United States and explaining to Trump, look, this has got to, this cannot go on for 100 days or three weeks or whatever it is. He was there. He didn't do that. He didn't do that. So that's my question. Okay, so he didn't do that. And this is Germany.

Yes. So where is Europe at? Well, they could also start doing something else, by the way, which is they could start rationing gas and oil. They could do that now. Because at the moment, the only limiting factor on consumption of gas and oil is that provided by the price mechanism. But if you are looking ahead and you are saying to yourself, well, there might be a 100-day war

and the US might start taking the kind of steps that we've just been talking about, then maybe we need to start a husband what reserves we have now before winter comes. I mean, this is a crisis. They ought to be meaty. They ought to be making a decision about it. Have you ever seen the Europeans behave that way? No, I never have. They never do these things.

What they're going to do is nothing. They're going to wait like the proverbial rabbits on the motorway, called in the headlights, until finally the truck hits them. What does that mean when the truck hits them? Well, when we do start to get shortages in Europe, When prices, there are shortages, there's rationing, severe rationing, not just the kind of rationing, I'm talking about, but severe rationing in Europe over the course of the winter. And when we start to have cutoffs of gas to cities and when we start to see production across Europe,

implode. Can the Europeans push Trump to wind this war down in? in a month. Well, at the moment, Trump is furious with Europeans. He's very angry with Smackron. He's very, very angry with Stama. He's absolutely incandescent with Sanchez in Spain. I get the sense that there really isn't very much community of spirit between Trump

and the Europeans at this time. The other people that perhaps the Europeans might want to talk to is the Gulf producers who must be extremely worried. I mean, for them, oil is also an existential matter. If they can't export oil, bear in mind, these are extremely high spend, high welfare economies. That is how they buy compliance from their populations. I mean, I don't want to overstate this, but I mean, no doubt they do have a reservoir of legitimacy that they can draw on. But, you know, if they can't keep funding their societies in the way that their societies have become used to, then one can see that they're going to be massive problems for them.

So they presumably want this to end fast. And you would have thought that the Europeans would be talking to them and that they would all be beating their way to the White House and telling the Americas, look, We can't afford this to go on for a hundred days. I mean, perhaps you can. We don't think it's wise even for you. But if you're looking at the whole situation in the global economy, which does impact on you, you've got to find some kind of off-ram. You've got to find some way out.

And the thing I'd say about Trump is, yes, at the moment, he's absolutely committed to this war and he talks about this. But we all know that Trump can change. he changes, he turns on a dime sometimes. You know, if he's presented with demands from all the sorts of people we're talking about, you know, from MBS, from the Qataris, the Omanis, the Kuwaitis, the UAE, they all troop up and the Europeans are there as well, then, you know, maybe he will listen and maybe he will also listen to the economic people in the United States as well. So, I mean, this is what they ought to be doing.

But if they don't, well, they do have the other option. They can go to Moscow. They can ask Putin, please restart Nord Stream 1. Please restart the Yamal pipeline. That would be the end of project, Ukraine, by the way. If we ever get to that position, then that throws Zelensky and Ukraine finally under a bus. Ukraine ends. I mean, the conflict ends. The Russians dictate terms. There's no point to talking about negotiations anymore because from that moment on, the entire sanctions war has ended and ended forever.

And that is something that given the psychologists of some of the people in Europe, they're going to find very difficult to do. But they can do that as well. But they also have to face the problem. what if the Russians say no? Can Putin say yes? Does he have, I mean, would Putin say yes to such an ask from the Europeans, given everything that they've done to Russia? I am far from sure. If I have to say, first of all, I think the mood in Moscow,

if you're talking about the wider moon, you know, apart from Putin and Demetriev and people like that, I'm not even sure Putin and Demetriere, but, you know, If you're talking about the opinions of the elite in Moscow, if you're talking about the wider population in Moscow, they would say absolutely no. If you remember, way back in 2015, this is long before we had the economic sanctions, the sanguine of the supersanctions and all of that, way back in 2014, 2015, Gasprom said they would stop building pipelines to Europe because they found Europe such an impossible market. They were

facing constant legal claims, endless harassment, the relationship the trust had completely broken down. And along comes Angela Merkel. And she says to Putin wouldn't be a great idea to restart North Stream 2. And because Putin has the soft spot for Germany or had at that time, he saw a spot for Germany. He said, yes. The point was, even then there were people in Russia who were saying this is not a wise energy trade. Yes, the Europeans are paying quite a lot, but they cannot be trusted. And of course, in 2022, they showed the extent to which they cannot be trusted. And now they've done something else, which shows even further that they cannot be trusted.

because you had a ship, a Russian ship carrying, I think it was that gas. LNG? It was an LNG tanker. An LNG tanker. And it's attacked off the coast of Malta. And it's attacked by the Ukrainians using drones, underwater drones. I am told. The Ukrainians, right?

Yeah, Ukrainians. I'm told. I've heard it said that the Ukrainians were given by someone, an old Soviet fox struts. In Malta? Well, the point is exactly. It is impossible for the Ukrainians to be doing things like this without assistance from some of the Western countries, from some of the European countries. The British, perhaps, given that we're talking about the Mediterranean, I cannot imagine it could have been done without some say so from the French.

Why? Well, why? I presume this is all decided upon. This is a clever plan that somebody came up with a few weeks ago, just to say. But I mean, they should have called it off. It's a crazy thing to do at this time. Putin is furious about this. This is why he took the decision to stop all exports of LNG to Europe, ahead of the European's own timetable. So given that this is the kind of people that, would be coming in this crisis to Moscow to ask the Russians to resume energy exports. Why would the Russians say yes? Wouldn't they be far more likely, in fact, to say no? Just saying. Well, Putin is thinking about doing it. I mean, I think he will.

He's floating it out there. Why would he mention it if he's not going to do it to cut off the gas to Europe? I have never known Vladimir Putin to float an idea that he doesn't act on. Just to say, I have no doubt that he will do it. I think the decision has already been made. You know, from the European perspective, going back to the Europeans and the Gulf states, the sense that I'm getting with the Europeans is that they're not going to Trump and to the White House and asking them to find an off ramp to this conflict because they're going to have big problems. their stance in all of this or their strategy, if you even want to call this a strategy, it seems stupid to me, but okay, we're dealing with very stupid people, is to push Trump, to push the United States, to go harder, the belief that if they press harder, even if they get

involved, even if the Europeans get involved in certain ways, then perhaps they can end this war with a victory in the next week or two, and then they're out of this mess. In other words, defeat Iran quickly. They're not going to Trump and saying, find an off ramp quickly, and let's get to a stable situation because we're going to be hammered in two, three weeks. They seem to be going to the United States and saying, finish them off in one or two weeks so then we can be okay with the situation. That's exactly what's happening.

I'm going to tell you something else. or this story that they've been circulating, that they weren't consulted and that they didn't know what was coming, is impossible. We could see, we on the giraffe could see what was coming. The idea that the British, the French, the Germans, of all of the other big Western countries, the NATO countries, that the NATO bureaucracy was not aware that the United States was about to attack Iran is ridiculous. They all knew that the United States, was about to attack Iran, and they supported it. They told the Americans, go ahead. We are there behind you. We support you because they too believed that it would end quickly, just as they believed

in February 22, that the sanctions against Russia would cause Russia to implode. So they are, They are trapped. And one of the reasons Trump is so angry with Stama, especially, and Macron, is because he'd been given, I have no doubt about this, indications from the French and the British that they would be fully participating and on board with this. And he's very, very angry that they're not doing that. And by the way, the reason that happened in London is because apparently there was a massive rebellion in the British cabinet. A whole group of ministers said that this is a crazy idea.

Britain must not be involved in this. And there's been legal advice from the Attorney General's office in London that this is an illegal attack as well. So that takes us to the Gulf States to wrap up the video. Do the Gulf States happen in them to go to the United States and tell the United States to back off? Is that something they would do? Is that something they can do as as a group, as one, one voice, can they go to Trump and say, will they go to Trump and say enough? Or are they also going to operate under the assumption that the United States is going to finish off Iran quickly in the next week or two? And then they're out of this mess. I mean, can the Gulf States do it? I don't think they can. You think they can?

I think this is what I think they're going to do. I think their initial advice to Trump is, for heaven's sake, get this done fast. We've only got two weeks at most. Knock out Iran in two weeks time. If in two weeks time, Iran is still there and it looks as if this is going to drag on until the autumn, then they will come along. They will get together because this is existential for them. And they will start to say to Trump, well, look, the time has gone to get an off ramp together. And if Trump isn't listening, they will come crawling to Vladimir Putin. They will say, try and get the Iranians and the Americans to end this.

They're already talking to Putin about this. The problem is not that they would hold back from asking Trump to stop. It's just that I'm not convinced that within the United States, within this relatively small group of people in Washington who took this decision to start this war, which of course includes Trump himself, they are really prepared to listen to that kind of advice because, of course, if they do get, if they do listen to this advice and they do call it all off, well, this is the end of Donald Trump's presidency. So I'm guessing that at the moment, the talk in Washington is not about calling off or dialing down or looking for off-ramps.

It is for further escalation. And I suspect that will be the same in two weeks' time. And of course, we can already see what the escalation in the short term is going to be. It's trying to involve the Kurds. If that doesn't work, then you try to involve Azerbaijan. If that doesn't work, well, they're already talking about sending ground troops. So, you know, I think this is where we are. I think we are not yet at the moment when they're prepared to listen to advice to look for our off-ramps.

They are looking instead of ways to achieve the objective faster rather than slower. That's, I think, what this is all about at the moment. What do the Kurds accomplish? What does Azerbaijan accomplish? I mean, I was looking at maps and analysis of Iran. It's massive. Yes. It is a huge country.

It's twice the size of Ukraine. Yes. It's about the size of Alaska, Alexander, Iran. It's a massive country, difficult terrain, a lot of mountains. So, you know, I go back to Zelensky's big, big super victory of Kursk, right, and how he presented that. We've invaded Russia. Russia is massive, right?

Yeah. And look, we've invaded Russia, and now we have a part of Kersk. And we talked about that incursion. And we analyzed it, as many people did, including the Russian military, from the standpoint of, okay, now you're inside of Kursk. now you're all going to die. Because where are you going to go from there? Where do you go from there?

I mean, I don't want to say it's the exact same thing with Iran because at the same time, Tehran is getting pounded by the U.S. and by Israel from the air. But you have this mosaic command structure. Everything's decentralized. And so the Kurds come in or the Azeris come in and do what exactly? They're not going to make it to Tehran.

No. They're going to set up shopware on the border. They're going to occupy a piece of land. And then eventually, when everything reaches some sort of equilibrium, at least in the air campaign, the bombing campaign, eventually Iran is going to start hammering them. Because you're going to need hundreds of thousands, if not millions of ground troops to make any dent inside of Iran. I mean, maybe the plan is to destabilize from within. Obviously, that definitely is the plan. So I guess they're hoping that certain factions in Iran will rise up and they will take up arms

and then the country can start to fracture like in Syria. But I don't see that happening. I mean, how do you see this whole ground operation unfolding? Because if Trump doesn't wrap this up in a week or two, his presidency is toast. I think it's already toast. I think it's already over. It doesn't matter of it. I think it's done.

But if he doesn't wrap this up in two weeks, I'm starting to think, The reverse when it comes to the Gulf states, I'm starting to think, you know what, knowing the Middle East and how devious and deceptive and cutthroat all of these monarchies are, I'm thinking they might actually say, okay, so Trump doesn't want to wind this thing down. Well, maybe we'll make it painful for the United States so that Trump winds this thing down. I mean, what do you think of everything I said? and will everything out there. It all may, absolutely. I mean, we've been saying this already. Iran is huge.

The geography is very difficult. It's also, by the way, a much more coherent society. It's not similar to Syria or Libya or Iraq. Syria, Libya and Iraq are modern countries. They emerged in the 20th century. Iran is not like that at all. So it's much more modern. It's much more educated.

I mean, the population is educated, it's much more coherent, and it is huge. And as you said, the geography is very, very difficult. And they're not going to reach Iran, to Iran, obviously not. And I mean, that cannot even be the plan. So what I think the immediate intention is, if there is a plan, is to try and get all these problems on Iran's western borders and hope that this somehow increases the pressure in Iran itself so that the government there begins to crack. Now, at the moment, that strategy, as far as we know, is not working. The government is holding together.

There'd be no visible defections. No embassy, for example, has changed its flag, put up the monarchist flag. No senior diplomat has defected from the government. There's no sign of military units changing their loyalties. There's no protests on the streets. Nothing like that has happened. There's rallies on the streets and supporters the government, not protests against it. So at the moment, there's no sign of that. But to the extent that there is a plan, that has to be the one. It's to try to increase the pressure on the assumption that sooner or later, in one way or another, the government there will crack.

Now, you know, Iran has problems. It's not, as I said, the most structured government, just to say. They still haven't yet announced who the U Supreme Leader is, at least not at the time making this program. There's going to be economic stresses in Iran too, because the country's a war. There's a hammering of these cities, this hammering of Tehran. They cannot export oil either. I mean, it's important to remember that.

Obviously, they could put their entire economy on a mobilisation basis. But there's going to be a steep fall in living standards. There's going to be shortages of every kind of consumer goods, food, the supplies. By the way, just to say, this is where the bricks become more important. It's more important at the moment. for the Russians and the Chinese and the others to provide Iran with civilian supplies, food staffs, oil, by the way. By the way, Russia already supplies oil and natural gas to Iran.

It seems very strange when you think that Iran is an oil exporter or was an oil exporter, but the Russians were already doing it before the war began. So I've often wondered why. Well, perhaps now we know. But that has to continue to happen. They have to continue to be able to provide basic services to the population in order to keep going. That might be a challenge. That might not be something that they are able to do. It may be that despite whatever assistance they're getting, things start to break down. But for the moment they're holding strong. What is they're holding?

If they can continue to do that, if they can drag this all out to September, well, as I said, we're in a massive crisis. A massive crisis in world energy markets, a political crisis in the United States. And of course, the Russians are going to start holding more and more cup of the big high cards. They'll have leverage over Iran because even Chinese supplies. will have to reach Iran through territory controlled from Moscow. Just to say, they will have leverage over Iran, and they will have increasing leverage over the West as well because of the global crisis and because of the way in which the Russians

have the ability to control now the situation in Ukraine. So this is a complex game. it's always depended on Iran's power of endurance. I'm not able to assess the situation in Iran internally. I don't know how long Iran can endure. But for the moment it is enduring, and that is creating more and more problems in exactly the way that we said.

Yeah. Final question. Do you think the decentralization is going to benefit Iran in the long term, the structure? Well, this is a very good question because, of course, he said the war ends, do they re-centralize? Yeah. What does even re-centralization even mean? I mean, it's not impossible that Iran comes out of this war. In its own view, a winner, the political system has survived and things are intact.

But the decentralization of the country cannot be fully reversed, and that creates all sorts of administrative and political problems for the future. I'm not able to discuss what that means, but for the moment, again, it's working. It is helping the Iranians to resist. The other thing I should say is that, of course, if any senior military commander, in any particular region decides to rebel, then a decentralized structure, in theory, should make that easier. But for the moment, they don't seem to be planning to do that. And I get the sense that the security systems remain, the security systems that monitor the

military remain centralized and under control and responsive to the central. to the central government, wherever that is, by the way, because we don't know where that's located anymore. I doubt it's in central Tehran, just as though. Yeah. All right. We will end the video there. The durand.locals.com.

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