The Duran Podcast - Iran builds up air defenses for future conflict

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Iran builds up air defenses for future conflict

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening in Iran. And it looks like the Iranians have used the summer to get closer to, well, get closer to Russia, at least from a military preparation standpoint. And they definitely seem to be having many meetings, military officials from Iran, seem to be having various meetings with military personnel officials in Russia. most likely in order to build up their defenses and to work with the Russians to build up their defenses in anticipation of another round of conflicts with Israel and the United States. What are your thoughts on this? Well, I think that's absolutely right. Because there's been so much focus on the Ukraine situation over the last few weeks,

the attention has shifted away from Iran. and I think that's probably a mistake because the Iranians have been saying quite openly, Pezishyang, for example, has been saying quite openly that they do expect the fighting, the conflict between themselves and Israel to resume fairly soon. And they've been talking, I mean, they've been sort of signaling that it might even happen this year. So they are taking steps to prepare for that. They had a meeting with the IAEA, in which they again made it absolutely clear to the IAEA, that they are not welcome in Iran and that they cannot from now on examine Iranian nuclear facilities.

They recommitted themselves to their enrichment program, and they seem to be taking other steps as well. So firstly, they have carried out a major reorganization of their, of their, of their, defense and security structures, which during the Israeli attack on Iran proved to be overcomplicated, as many people had said, and disorganized. So they've now created a proper defense counsel, which apparently consists of a small number of people whose task it is to organize and run the defense systems in Iran, and that's clearly a war council that's been assigned to prepare for war. Now, Hamané, this is the Supreme Leader's security advisor, national security advisor, the Supreme Leader's National Security Advisor, a man called Ali Larijani, a very, very experienced

Iranian diplomat and negotiator. Last month, he went to Moscow and he had a meeting there with Putin. The Russians have not provided a detailed read out about the meeting. And it was only afterwards from Iranian sources that we learned that Larry Johnny actually came to Moscow with the Iranian Defence Minister. The Iranian Defence Minister had meetings with the Russian defence. ministry. And the Iranian defense minister, it turns out, was also present when in the meeting with Larijani, when Larry Jani met Putin. So Putin met Larijani. He met the Iranian defense

minister as well. And apparently there were other Russian military and defense officials also present in this meeting. So this looks like a very, very big meeting. And on top of this, I've been getting reports which have been coming out of Russia this time that the Iranians now are moving forward finally on acquiring sophisticated weapon systems and that the Iranians, that there's an Iranian team in Russia

training on S-400 and S-300 systems. Now, this is information from Russia. You remember we had the same stories in the summer, but they came from the United States. This time they come from Russia itself, and it looks as that this information is reliable. So the Iranians are finally now, apparently training on Russian air defense systems.

And it's likely that we're going to see further moves by the Russians to supply more weapons, perhaps aircraft to Iran as well. So the reports say that it takes about a year for personnel to really train to use systems as advance as the S-400. And it takes up to two years to achieve full proficiency. So if there is a resumption in the fighting with Israel in the autumn, it's not going to be the S-300s and the S-400s are not going to be ready. I mean, these are more advanced S-300s, I should say,

than the ones that Iran was supplied with before. But you can see what's finally happening. The Iranians are finally committing to a long-drawn-out confrontation with Israel and potentially the United States as well. And it looks as if negotiations between Iran and the United States over Iran's nuclear program are at a standstill. The Russians have been trying some level of mediation. Putin had two rather mysterious telephone calls with Netanyahu. In relation to the second, the Russians provided no readout at all.

There's reports from Israel that Putin brought up the status of the Russian Orthodox Church in Israel and talked about Gaza, but I suspect that most of the discussion was about Iran. And the Russians have perhaps been trying to mediate between the Israelis and the Iranians, but it doesn't look as if they've been very successful. And in the meantime, the Iranians are now seriously re-arming. So we could be looking at a resumption of the conflict in the autumn and a long war thereafter. And that's what the Iranians appear to think. Well, the United States and Israel, they see all of this, obviously.

They know what's going on. So how are they going to counter this? What moves are they going to make? Is Trump's rush, one of the reasons that Trump is rushing to figure out Ukraine? Is it because he understands that there's going to be a resumption in the conflict with with Iran? Could that be one of the reasons, one of many? But maybe he's saying, you know what, we need to figure out Ukraine, or at least get out of Ukraine, because come autumn, we're going to start things up again with Iran, and Israel's going to start things up again with Iran. So,

what do you think is going to happen from the U.S.-Israeli side of things? I think you're absolutely right. I think that's exactly, I think that is absolutely one of the prime drivers of the American attempts to resume a dialogue with the Russians, because of course, the Russians have leverage here, an important leverage. I mean, they have leverage over Iran, because they're the main, they're going to be the main weapons and suppliers and the main diplomatic and economic backers of Iran at this time. And of course, the Americans are, as you rightly say, perfectly aware of all of this, and they're perfectly well aware of the increasing stresses in Israel itself. And of course, the Israelis can see what's happening. And they're going to be saying to themselves,

this, if we leave this too long, the Iranians are going to get very strong because they're going to get all of these advanced missiles and technology from the Russians. The Russians have, in the past, talked about upgrading the partnership agreement between Russia. and Iran. To repeat again, Putin has said that the Russians offered Iran a security agreement similar to the one that Russia has with North Korea. And it was the Iranians who refused. I don't think this is on the table, by the way. I don't think the Iranians want to go there. But the Israelis can see all of this. There will be saying our window is closing. We've got to start, resume this attack on Iran soon because we've lost track of Iran's nuclear program.

The Iranians are still talking about enriching uranium. They've shut out the IAEA. There are reports that there are other Iranian nuclear facilities than that Natanz and Esfahan are still operating. There's also reports that repair work is now being done by the Iranians in Fordor. So we've got to strike and strike hard and perhaps again go for a decapitation strike against Iran because time is not on our side. So they're probably telling the Americans all of this and the Americans probably want to sort out something with the Russians before they find themselves in a crisis with Iran as they might easily do in the autumn. So Iran is part of bricks.

Is China doing anything? Yes. Well, this is this. You remember there was all that speculation and discussion a few months, a few weeks ago, that Iran was not going to buy weapons from Russia, but it was going to buy weapons from China. And it was looking at the JCPen fighter jet and the Iranian defense minister apparently inspected it. And there was a lot of talk about that. That's all melted away.

China made it clear that it's not in the business of selling weapons at the moment to Iran. My sense is that the Chinese and the Russians have long since come to an understanding that it's Russia, which is, after all, closer to Iran, that is going to be the supplier, the arm supplier to Iran. China does have big economic relationship, but prospective big economic relationship. with Iran, it already buys most of Iran's oil and the Americans have agreed to allow China to continue to buy Iranian oil. So the Chinese are there. They're the big diplomatic and economic backer. They're the people with the big pockets. But at the moment, we have an

immediate crisis or potential crisis, possibly as soon as this autumn. China is far away, Russia is much closer, and it's been left to the Russians. All right. Okay, we will end the video there. The durand.com. We are on X and Telegram and Rumble and go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video update. There is a link in the description box down below. Take care.