The Duran Podcast - IRAN diplomacy in preparation for WAR

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

IRAN diplomacy in preparation for WARThe Duran: Episode 2039

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in the Middle East. We're moving very quickly towards a big regional war. Netanyahu is pushing hard towards a conflict with Iran. The Biden White House is completely lost. And Iran is, well, Hezbollah is also pushing hard. hard against Israel, while Iran appears to be active in a lot of diplomacy. So what's the general situation of everything that's going on? A lot of escalation is my sense of things, but maybe there's a way out of this.

I don't know. I don't think there is a way out of this. I think the Iranians understand that very well. We'll discuss what they're saying to everybody in a moment. but when you look at what they're doing and they are being extremely diplomatically active, their foreign minister, Abbasarabshi, is flying to all kinds of places,

and Pezishkan, the president is talking to all sorts of people. But what they're basically doing, I mean, to me, it looks as if they're trying to sort out work with their allies. In other words, they're trying to build up their alliances and to make sure that their alliances are working and at the same time to try to persuade the Arab states to stay out of the battle that I think they know is coming.

I think the Iranians for a while remained, you know, were hoping that this storm would pass but it's clearly not going to pass. So what have they been doing? who is the Iranian president, he met with Putin in Ashkabad in Turkmenistan. Now this is a meeting, this is a visit to Turkmenistan that had been on Putin's itinerary for a while. I mean, he does regular trips to Central Asia. He meets with Central Asian leaders. He's been he's been in close contact for some time with Kazakhstan, with Tajikistan, with Uzbekistan,

He's traveled to Uzbekistan this year. It was time that he turned his attention to Turkmenistan. And this was clearly a pre-prepared visit. It was a regular sort of visit to Turkmenistan. Then Pezishyang contacted him, said, look, you're close to Iran. Can we meet? This is, remember, just two weeks ahead of the Brick's summit meeting. The meeting was organized, all the impressions is that this meeting was organized at very short notice.

The other Central Asian leaders decided in light of that to come along. So Pezishgan and Putin met. We're not being told very much about the meeting. They discussed the treaty, the strategic partnership agreement that the two are working on. And they both said that they hope it will be. ready for signature at the BRIC summit meeting in Kazan. But they did obviously talk about the situation in the Middle East. Both of them had their national security advisors and key foreign policy aids with them.

And clearly, the Iranians were wanting to talk to the Russians about all sorts of relations, the kind of relations between Russia and Iran. So that was one meeting. Pezishkan has also been working the phones. He spoke yesterday to Macron. The point he made to Macron is Iran doesn't want war. Iran held back from responding to the assassination of Isma al-Hanilla in Tehran, because the Western powers asked it to.

This is what Peziskyan is saying. You can believe that or not if you choose. But anyway, this is the pitch that the Iranians are making to the West, that they held back because they were told by the Western powers that ceasefires in Gaza and in South Lebanon were around the corner that they were being successfully negotiated. The Western powers asked Iran to hold back from responding to a Hania's assassination because that might prevent the cease. ceasefires in Gaza and South Lebanon from being set up. The Iranians accepted that and instead of the ceasefires that they were promised, what they got was escalation from the Iranians, from the Israeli side. The attacks on Hezbollah, the bombing of South Beirut,

the assassination of Nazrallah, the assassination of one of Iran's own general generals in Beirut. So the Iranians are telling the Western powers, we are moderate, we are restrained, we are not seeking conflict. It's the Israelis clearly who are seeking conflict. If there is going to be a major conflict, it will be down to Israel and to the West, not to us. if you want to try and pull the Israelis back, this is your last chance. And Arachi, the Iranian foreign minister, has exactly said he's made public statements in which he said that Iran is not looking for war, but if war comes, it is ready and it will fight. And in the meantime, Arachi has been busy traveling around the Gulf.

He's been to Saudi Arabia. He's met MBS. He's met with all of the other, he's visited all of the Gulf monarchies. He's been to Iraq. He's just been to Iraq, in fact. And what he's basically told the Arab states, at least the Gulf monarchies, is, look, war is coming,

stay out, it's in your interests. We don't intend to attack you. We value our relationships, our re-established relationships. with you. We want you to remain neutral. If you join with the Israelis, if you facilitate an Israeli-American attack on us, we will be obliged to take action against you, which we do not want to do. So please remain neutral. And all of the Gulf states have said that that's what they intend to do. And apparently they are busy phoning up Washington. This is what the financial time. to say. And they're busy phoning up Washington and telling the Americans, we don't want a war in the Middle East, try and restrain the Israelis, try and stop the war. But if war comes, we will not provide the assistance to Israel that perhaps you and the Israelis might have expected. We don't want to get into a tangle with the Iranians, and we absolutely do not want in retaliation to any

attacks upon us, attacks on oil and gas installations in the Gulf. So this is what the Iranians have been doing. And it's been effective diplomacy. But to me, it has all the hallmarks of diplomacy conducted by a country that knows it's going to war. What about communication with the United States, which at the end of the day this is this is the country that that can put breaks on all of this or or in theory could put breaks on all of this could who could it could absolutely it could absolutely i mean but you know i mean it's it's the point is that it's absolutely no willingness or ability or strength of purpose to do that up to this point anyway what we're hearing is that there is a channel of communication between

Iran and the United States and it's provided by Qatar. So Qatar has long-standing relations with Iran, and of course it's a regional ally of the United States. There's a major U.S. military base located in Qatar. So the Qataris are passing messages backwards and forwards between Tehran and Washington. The Iranians are telling the Americans exactly the same thing that they're telling everybody else. We don't want a war, but we're ready for one if it comes. If you can restrain the Israelis and prevent another attack upon us, we are not looking for trouble. And on the contrary, if there is serious work being done to try and achieve ceasefires in Gaza

and in South Lebanon, we will do our part to try to make those ceasefires work. However, if war comes, we will fight. Now, the Americans apparently have been trying to get the Iranians to agree to an American suggestion that if the Israelis do launch a strike against Iran, Iran should react in a restrained way what the Americans always say, except whatever the Israelis do, but don't respond to toughly in return. The Israelis have, the Iranians have come back and said, no, this is not possible anymore. We've exercised massive restraint over the last couple of months. If we are attacked again, it will be war. It will be, you know, we will take the gloves off. And we will hit back

at Israel, as we've shown that we can do. So there is, there is communication between Iran and the United States. But my sense is that it's not going particularly well, because I don't think the Americans are listening very much any longer to what the Iranians are saying. And I don't think the Iranians trust what the Americans are telling them. To repeat again, all of these contacts that the Iranians are doing with the Gulf states, with regional allies like Iraq, with the Russian, They all suggest to me a country that has accepted that war is coming. And if you look at the American moves, I think the same. They've now announced that they're going to send THAAD missiles.

These are very sophisticated anti-missile missiles. They're intended to shoot down missiles. They're much more sophisticated missiles, apparently, than the Patriot missiles. The Americans have previously stationed a radar complex from the THAA missile system in Israel. And it is still there. I mean, it's still operating. There were reports that the Iranians attacked it in their missile strike, but it seems not. Anyway, it is still there. But it, all the indications now are, we've had big article about this. a second big article about this in the Daily Telegraph. They did a minute examination of all the satellite photos. They say that a lot of the Iranian missiles did in fact get through and that

they did do real damage. The Americans therefore are sending THAAD missile launchers and more radars to Israel because it looks as if the Israeli air defense system has not been as a effective as had been originally supposed. And again, the fact that the Americans are doing this, that they're transferring this very sophisticated system to Israel, which will be operated by American technicians, that suggests to me that they too expect that war is coming. A hundred US soldiers.

A hundred US soldiers to Israel. So that's the beginning. I mean, that's the beginning of a US president. in the region. Exactly. Yeah. Deployment. Yeah.

In Qatar, Qatar, which has communications with Iran, Qatar, which has communications with the United States and can act as a mediator, but also is the main, the main country that is communicating with Hamas, not Iran. Yeah. Qatar. This is correct, right? Absolutely.

Qatar. Yeah. Okay. Qatar is the country. is the country that funds Hamas, not Iran. This is a point people find very difficult to understand, but it's true. It may be a U.S. ally, but it is the main sponsor across the Middle East of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is effectively a subset.

And Erdogan has connections. to the Muslim Brotherhood, right? Correct, correct, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, Erdogan ideologically is very close to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Qataris, as it happens, are not. They are closer in beliefs in their ideas to the Saudis, than what we would cause Wahhabis.

But for geopolitical, for all kinds of Middle East reasons, they have acted as the primary sponsors and paymasters of the Muslim Brotherhoods, Syria, in Egypt, with Hamas and elsewhere. So why is Israel going to war with Iran? Well, this is, this is, this reminds me, I mean, this is not, I don't want to compare this to Project Ukraine. It's very, very different, but both wars were absolutely preventable. Completely. And this war with Iran, with Iran. with Iran. I'm not saying with Hamas. I'm not even saying with Hezbollah. Israel, the United States,

going to war with Iran is completely preventable. I mean, I'm still, you know, some days I wake up and I read the news and I think, why is the U.S. and Israel? Why are they going to war with Iran? How did we get here? Why war with Iran? Well, you're absolutely correct. And I mean, I mean, it is, It is difficult to explain in a rational way because it looks completely irrational. I think we have seen over the last year, ever since the Hamas attack on Israel, last year, that the Iranians have moved heaven and earth to try to prevent a regional war. They have not wanted a regional war. Their economy is booming.

They've become members of bricks. They're in the process of agreeing major arms supplies with them. the Russians, everything was going well for them. So they were not looking for war. Some people in Israel are looking for war. Some people in the United States are looking for war. Let's talk first about Israel because the Netanyahu government is playing a major role in all of this. Are some people in Iran looking for war? Can I ask that question before you get it to Israel in the United States, because the, the, so some analysts in the mainstream media,

yeah, have tried to draw a connection between Hamas and, and Iran. And, and I believe even the, the U.S. State Department, even the Pentagon has, has said that there is no, no connection between Iran and Hamas. I don't, am I, am I explaining this correctly? Yeah, Iran and Hamas have had, connections. Iran historically has lent verbal and political support to Hamas. Iran has projected itself across the Middle East as the center of what is referred to as the axis of resistance.

The axis of resistance to the United States and to Israel because they, you know, because they say, you know, that we are the people who stand up for Islam, for independence in the Middle East, and all of that. And this goes all the way back to Iran's own revolution in 1979. But that is, if you like, I mean, I get to say it, I think to a great extent, this is an ideological hangover from the original Iranian revolution of the late 70s, 1980s. In practice, in reality, on a day-to-day basis, Iran is a state with many problems, enormous problems, which it wants to try and resolve and needs to resolve by preserving stability in its own region. So as I said, it's been pursuing economic relations with China and

Russia, it's been aiming to join the bricks. To the extent that it has influence over Hamas, for example, it's been an influence for restraint. And over the last few months, we have seen ever since Isma al-Hanilla was assassinated in Tehran, when Iran didn't respond immediately and aggressively, as many of Iran's radical allies across the Middle East expected that it would. What we've seen is tension between Iran and its regional allies, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah are in Lebanon, the Shia militias in Iraq. The tensions have increased, and we've been hearing about incredibly bitter arguments

in very fraught meetings with the Iranians trying to explain why they're not putting their missiles, if you like, where their mouth is. And their allies have been incredibly angry with them. Now, before we just go on with this, explore this. But Iran fought Hamas and Syria, correct, right? Absolutely. I mean, Iran, Syria, Assad, Russia, they were supporting Assad in Syria, in Syria while Hamas, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United States were trying to regime change Assad.

I mean, this is this is completely true. This is this is completely true. So Assad is a regional ally of Iran. The original insurrection against Assad back in 2011 was led by the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. So what you had was Hezbollah, Iran, the Shia militias in Iraq, all supporting Assad with Hamas sending people to fight him.

So I mean, there was this, this, this is what happened. And of course, to complicate matters even further, the Saudis and the Qataris fought for influence with the various opposition groups in Syria. So Qatar backed the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, whereas the Saudis backed more radical movements, which, well, we all know what they were. I'll news through and all the others. So, I mean, this is incredibly complicated. Moderate rebels.

Moderate rebels and all that. But the key thing to understand is that Iran and Hamas have had prickly and complicated relations. Verbly, Iran supports Hamas because they've positioned themselves, as I said, as the leader of the axis of resistance, in order to build up all of these various militias. But in practice, they've not been keen to get involved in a war, with Israel. And I ought to say this. I mean, there's been all kinds of claims that have been circulating in recent days about documents that supposedly prove that there were contacts with Hamas and the Iranians before the events of 7th of October last year. First of all, the provenance

of these documents is problematic. And we need to be very, very careful because we have seen in previous Middle East wars, all kinds of evidence appear, which doesn't look to be evidence at all. The US apparently still considers that Iran had no prior knowledge or involvement in the attack of the 7th of October. And I think that everything about Iranian policy that we can see is consistent with that fact. All right. So we got a little bit, I steered it a little bit to. No, I think it's fair.

But I just wanted to have some context. You were going to talk about, I mean, I asked the question, whether there are people in Israel and the U.S. who, or you were going to talk about the forces in Israel and the U.S. that are looking for war. Why are we heading towards a war between Iran and Israel? To say, again, briefly, I mean, there may be some people in Iran. very hard-lying people who do want a wider war because they think that they can spread their ideology across the Middle East.

I don't think that they are anywhere close to being the key decision makers. I mean, just to say, I mean, Harmony, who is the supreme leader, and certainly Pez Ashgyz Ghan, who is now the president, don't come across to me as those sort of people at all. Harmon is a very wily sophisticated, conservative figure. his primary concern, I think, is maintaining internal stability within Iran itself, which has not always been, you know, that stable. And Pezishkan, he's got a completely different perspective. He wants to carry out all kinds of social and economic reforms in Iran. He's talked about improving relations with the West. He certainly would not be up for a regional war. So anyway, that's Iran. Now, Israel, I think that Israel has had a long-standing issues with Iran

because the Iranians created this axis of resistance. By the way, I should say, I think the reason that they built up all of these militias, Hezbollah, the Shia militias in Syria, the Shia militias in Iraq, the relationship with the Assad government was not because they were looking for a war with Israel, but because they themselves fought a very, very bitter war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980s. Saddam Hussein was covertly, not that covertly, backed in that war by the conservative Sunni Gulf states. So Iran ever since has wanted to, to create a stable network of regional alliances to protect it from a similar attack again. So that's, I think, the true reason why the Iranians have created this system of alliances.

Anyway, the Israelis have looked at this. They've looked at the fact that Iran is this powerful country. It calls itself the leader of the axis of resistance. It's built up this relationship with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Over time, the Israelis have convinced themselves. I think entirely wrongly that Iran, which is actually located quite a long distance away, is some kind of major threat to them. I don't believe it is. I mean, I know other people are going to push back on that. But I mean, Iran has been a wrap.

We're talking about a government, a government that was established in Iran in 1979. 45 years ago, and it's never done anything serious, that could jeopardize Israel's security, and which really threatens Israel to any significant degree. But a lot of people in Israel have convinced themselves. Otherwise, they take a lot of the rhetoric from Iran more seriously, frankly, than I do. They're worried about Hezbollah across their border. They don't want to talk to Iran, which I think is a major mistake. I think Israel and Iran could establish a kind of dialogue, perhaps through the Qataris and the way that the Americans and the Iranians have. So the Israelis don't talk about Iran. And of course, they are obsessed with this idea that Iran is trying to acquire nuclear. weapons capability, even though, again, the US intelligence has been saying for decades that there is no evidence of this, that there is no sign that Iran has restarted a nuclear

weapons program that it briefly had, whilst Saddam Hussein, Iran's big enemy, was in power. So the Israelis have worked themselves up for a long time about Iran. My own sense is the Prime Minister Netanyahu himself has Iran on the brain. He's been talking about Iran relentlessly. He's constantly turning up and making speeches saying that Iran is, you know, a year away or a few months away or weeks away from acquiring a nuclear weapon. He's been talking like this for decades and he always brings this up again and again and again. But I think that something changed radically last year, which is that firstly there was the Hamas attack on Israel. Then as we know, Israel responded, and we've discussed, we've discussed as many times, Israel responded militarily in Gaza against Hamas.

We've pointed out many times that this was a mistake, that it was going to lead Israel into a long, battle in Gaza and that the objective of destroying and rooting out Hamas was an unachievable one. We've discussed at length the various diplomatic options that Israel had at that time, and we've explained why they would have been effective in our view. But anyway, that was the course that Israel decided to took. They started this war against Hamas in Gaza. It has not gone as expected. passed, that war is still underway. The Israeli economy is buckling. There's been a large emigration from Israel over the course of the last year. I've just seen some figures about this. And Israel looks no closer to victory in Gaza than it did a year ago. So the Israelis,

the current government in Israel, I should say there is a lot of opposition within Israel to the current government's course, but the current government in Israel, which has some very radical and hard-line people in it, they're looking for some way out. They can't, negotiating a ceasefire is politically for them, incredibly difficult. We've discussed how a ceasefire in Gaza, which left Hamas in place, would be seen across the region and in Israel itself as a victory for Hamas, which of course Israel doesn't want. So what do they do? They can't retreat. They must advance. So we now have this attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is an ally of Hamas. And I'm not saying, you know, that Hezbollah has been sitting on its hands. Hezbollah has been backing Hamas.

It's launched rocket strikes against Israel. 60,000 people in northern Israel have had to leave their homes. So, I mean, you know, there are these issues. But again, finding a ceasefire, a route to a ceasefire, which is available, might have been, that might have been or would have been, in my opinion, a much better way to stabilize the situation, to get those people back to their homes. But that's not something the current Israeli government wants to do. So they've attacked Hezbollah and they're preparing for this attack on Iran because they have convinced themselves that if they can take down Iran, the spider as they

think at the center of the web, that will resolve both their internal and their external problems. And they've matched up with that other very powerful group of people in the United States, the neocons, who are never, never been more powerful than they are in this administration, who also want to take down Iran, not just because, they have this animus against Iran because of the events of 45 years ago when the Iranian revolution happened and the American embassy was seized, if you remember, and the people were taken hostage. There's that history which shouldn't be completely ignored. But the major reason the Niercons want to take down Iran is again, because it's a big, very powerful country or

potentially very powerful country, 88 million people. It is. is resolutely independent of the United States. It's following its own course and its own policies. It is integrating with the bricks. It's allying itself with China and Russia. And they want to break Iran because they want to change not just the entire political geography of the Middle East, but that they want to break, to smash this bricks thing that is emerging. and they see Iran as the weak point.

So the Israelis and the Americans for overlapping but ultimately different reasons, and I want to stress again, some Israelis and some Americans, all of them, not by any means, for overlapping but complementary reasons, which are not identical, both want to take down Iran. And they see this now as the opportunity. The administration in Washington has always had a very strong pro-neacon disposition, pro-war disposition. The government in Washington is weak. This is their chance. This is the opportunity.

And they want to do it fast before Iran fully integrates into the. the bricks, starts receiving military packages on a big scale from Russia and becomes effectively undefeatable. Yeah, the neocons have never been closer to getting a war with Iran. And they've been trying for decades. Exactly. They're not going to let this opportunity for them pass by. Exactly. Which is one, by the way, be particularly careful as a set of documents that seem to make the neocons case when they appear and when their provenance is clear because I should say the neocons have a history of this kind of thing. Just to say.

Yeah, there's a lot of Iraq WMD vibes. Absolutely. That I'm sensing from a lot of the stories about Iran in the collective West media. Yeah. It's a very preventable war, but it's also, it's not going to be prevented. And it's such a confusing situation in the Middle East. it would be best if the collective West just stayed out, but they're not. They're not going to it now.

Absolutely not. I mean, we've had the British prime minister saying, you know, that Britain stands fully behind Israel in its confrontation with Iran, given that they were saying exactly the same for Ukraine. I would have thought that would be a warning to the Israelis, not something to encourage them. But anyway, that's what they're doing. And the US, of course, one way or the other, whoever wins in Washington is going to be pulled along, I suspect, onto this adventure.

The problem with starting a war is it is very easy to begin to start one. It's very, very difficult to bring a war to a stop. Even if the president wants to stop the war, finding a means to do it is incredibly difficult and very complex. The neocons know this, and one of the reasons they want to start the war now, and so just the Netanyahu government, by the way, the one of the reasons they want to start the war now is because they don't want whoever becomes the next president to act to prevent it happening. Yeah, 10 years in Iraq, 20 years in Afghanistan, and that's nothing compared to what a war with Iran would be like. Well, absolutely. I mean, that really would be a forever walk. Okay, we will end the video there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, bitch, shoot, telegram, rock fit, and Twitter X, and go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch like the shirts that we are wearing today in this video.

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