The Duran Podcast - Iran's NEW Terms. US Siege Strategy Will Cripple Allies

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Iran's NEW Terms. US Siege Strategy Will Cripple Allies

All right, Alexandria, let's talk about the situation with Iran. Trump is signaling that he's ready to walk away or trying to walk away. He did an interview with Axios the other day, and he said that the U.S. is now low-keying it, are the words that he used. He's looking for an exit, but he also wants to declare a victory. Yeah. Kane, General Kane, said as much as well. There was a CNN article on Kane and finding an off-ramp a couple of days ago and Kane even admitted,

or at least the sources, close to Kane, told CNN that what Trump is ultimately looking for is a way out, but he has to declare victory. Yeah. So if Hormuz opens, does Trump declare victory? It looks like Iran is putting new terms to the opening of Hormuz. Yes. Terms that are going to be very difficult for the Trump White House to accept. Well, you said, I think it was about two weeks ago, maybe even longer back, that a conflict which originally began over the pretext, on the pretext of Iran's nuclear enrichment program, has now become a conflict about the opening of the Strait of Hornemus.

And we're increasingly seeing that. The Americans are no longer talking about nuclear enrichment anymore. And this thing is receding into the background and perhaps will recede away completely because, of course, the strategic, the geopolitical, the economic priority is to get the straight of Hormuz reopened. And we've discussed in program after program, that the United States lacks the means to force open the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, it could in theory deploy hundreds of thousands of men to fight the Iranians in

very difficult country, to recapture the coastline, the Iranian coastline, and force open the Strait of Hormuz in that way. But this would be a massive operation. It would still leave many, many problems in its wake. and there is no political support for it within the wider population in the United States. And the United States is shorter weapons to strike Iran. The strikes against Iran have not had much success altogether. So in this situation, the Iranians are left in control of the Strait of Hormuz.

And we did several programs recently in which we said that the Iranians are not going to loosen control of the Strait of Hormuz at this time because it gives them leverage. During the time when the MOU was in place, the United States tried to play fast and loose with the Iranians. It didn't work to implement its part of the terms of the MOU, but it was trying to get shipping to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, hugging the Omani coastline to the south. The Iranians eventually saw that. They decided that that was crossing a red line for them because it was depriving them of leverage. We've talked all about this in previous programs.

The Iranians reacted and reacted harshly. There was a resumption of the fighting. The fighting then came to a stall because of shortages of American. weapons and the Iranians still control the Strait of Hormuz. And because it gives them leverage at this time, they are not prepared to loosen their grip. And exactly again, as we've predicted in recent programs, the Iranians having been caught previously, having been, having seen how the Americans play fast and loose with the terms of the MOU, how they were trying to smuggle ships, through the Straits of Hormuz, having perhaps heeded the warnings they were getting from Russia

that the MOU risked becoming a Minsk agreement are now insisting that until the Americans implement all of the terms of the MOU, the Strait of Hormuz will remain shut, and now the Iranians are going further still, and they're saying that they've got other additional terms that they want to impose, essentially ending American influence in this part of the Middle East. So for the moment at least, the United States is without military options. Donald Trump says that he wants to slow walk this. He's trying to find a way to get out of this crisis. But he can't do it easily because at the moment, the Iranians are refusing to give.

him, his victory, the victory that he was looking for, because they insist on keeping the Strait of Hormuz shut. Now, we said this, we talked about this, we talked about recent statements coming from Iran, which the media and the markets were ignoring the fact that the Iranians were saying that they were only negotiating with Amman, they were not negotiating with the United States, The Americans already know what they need to do in order to get the situation back on track with the Iranians. They need to implement the MOU terms. They need to get the Israelis to stop in Lebanon.

They need to do even more beyond what they've already done. The markets, most of the media, the Trump administration, seemed to assume that when Iran and Amman did their deal, the Strait of Hormuz would reopen. Trump was obviously preparing the ground for that. He was going to say when the Strait of Hormuz was reopened, that it was the result of his genius of diplomacy. And now what he finds is that the Iranians are not doing it. So he is caught in a trap, his own duplicity,

and that of his administration, on top of all of the other follies that we've seen over the last seven months, that brought him to this point. But the United States is rebuilding and rearming. Of course. I mean, this is something that obviously Iran understands this. And obviously, Iran's allies understand this. Absolutely.

But it can. Yeah, that's the danger is. For the Iranians. For the Iranians, as time goes by, the more of a, of a delay in resolving this war. Their advantage arose. You can understand Iranian policy up to this point. It arguably makes sense for the Iranians at the moment to keep the Strait of Hormuz

closed. But it is, as we've discussed in many programs, including a recent one, which came in I know for some pushback. It is not the long-term solution to their problems because so long as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, so long as the general conflict between the United States and Iran remains unresolved, sooner or later, the United States will come back and will attack Iran again.

Iran needs to broaden its diplomatic reach. It needs to build relations with third countries like China and Russia to stabilize its economy and strengthen its armed forces. And that must mean at some point agreeing to what these countries also want, which is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz gives Iran a very powerful. advantage at this stage in the conflict with the Americans, and it makes sense for them to hold on to it. But it is not a permanent solution to their problems, only a temporary one. And as we said in a recent program, long term, it could even be a trap for them. If you go by Trump's statements to Axios and the interviews that he's giving,

It appears as if Trump is not looking to resolve the war with Iran. He's not interested in actually coming to a resolution with this war, agreeing to the MOU and implementing the MOU and maybe taking it a step further to try and come to some sort of a long-term understanding. He is, as he said, he is low-keying it. When he says something like that, I read it as letting the conflict simmer, not to resolve, but to simmer so that he can find his off-ramp, he can declare his victory. He can look strong and he can look like the great negotiator.

And then when he exits, pass on Iran to the next administration, also give the U.S. the time it needs to rearm and rebuild for that next strike, that next wave of attacks against Iran. He is even, I think the White House is even creating the next narrative, a Plan B type of narrative for Trump. They were hoping that opening the Strait of Hormuz was going to be his declaration of victory. Not an end to the conflict, but his way of saying, okay, we got Hormuz open, now we can take a six-month or a year. Pause and whatever. I can exit the scene and this gets passed to the next administration. Now they're moving to plan B, which is to say that the Iranian economy, is broke, it's falling apart.

And that's the victory. Yeah. And he's putting out truth social posts about it. He told Axios the same thing. They have no money. The economy is crumbling. Peseshkiyan, they're saying, is very concerned about the economic situation as well. That's the victory for Trump now.

He can't get the straight of Hormuz open on his terms without the tolls, without the fees or whatever. And so now he's saying the victory is, is the Iranian economy. That is our win. And he wants to get out of this. But he doesn't want to end it. He wants to get out of this. Yes. Yes. He can't do a deal with the Iranians. I think this is now absolutely clear, because any deal that he does at this time with the Iranians in control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranians are the mood that they're in, and the Iranians very, very angry over what happened with the Any deal that he does is now going to be so obviously on Iranian terms that even he won't be able to sell it as a victory. It will look instead as a defeat. So he's not prepared to do that.

He's prepared to do exactly what he said because he believes two things. Firstly, he, I think, has been persuaded or has come round. to the view that the United States can absorb the problems in the oil markets, that the situation with the American oil reserves is not as critical as many people are saying, that the caverns are not so fragile and that the United States can continue to draw more oil from the reserves than people had assumed that the United States can still find oil from heavy oil, heavy crude from various other sources, that yes, there will be some increase in prices of gasoline and diesel and aviation fuel in the United States,

but it will not be so big as to move the political dial too far, against the Republicans, either in the midterms or later, whereas at the same time, he also believes that the economic and domestic situation within Iran is so bad that ultimately the United States can wait out the Iranians, that it is the Iranians who are under deeper and greater economic stress that the Americans are, that the Americans can be. absorb the blow, the economic blow, but that the Iranians long term cannot. So I think that is now the dominant calculation within the United States. Now, there may be problems with this.

It may be that the situation with the oil reserves is not actually as good or as strong as Donald Trump and the officials around him believe. and it may be that Iran's economy is more stable that he realizes. Inflation in Iran is very, very high, but Iran has lived for many years with high inflation, and they've found that they can live with it. Countries can sometimes live for long periods with high inflation. But having said that, one should not assume that these calculations that the administration is currently making are entirely wrong or that they are completely without foundation. I was reading another article this morning from Bloomberg, which said that the situation with the oil reserves is not as bad or as dangerous or as difficult as some people believe that the oil reserve situation is better.

than is widely imagined. This article made the rather reckless assumption that China will one day release oil from its enormous reserves. I can't imagine why anybody writing for Bloomberg would assume that. But anyway, it may be that the Americans have more room to maneuver here, more maneuver space than people imagine.

So this is, I think, by default, the Trump administration's long-term plan, wait the Iranians out and at the same time rebuild militarily and come back and hit Iran at some point in the future. You described it very well in previous programs, the Assad scenario. Put Iran under long-term siege, drain its resources, its vitality, its self-confidence. And when you hit and you hit hard, Iran really has become so brittle that it finally collapses, like a house of cards. Now, that's a long-term strategy. we can discuss in many future programs whether it can succeed. I think if the Iranians make wise and intelligence decisions, it wouldn't succeed. But let's focus on something else in this program,

which is that even though this is a strategy which is not completely without logic from an American point of view, it is a disaster for some of America's allies. Firstly, the Persian Gulf states remain now acutely vulnerable. First and foremost, Saudi Arabia, they are vulnerable to attacks from the Iranians. They are vulnerable to attacks from the Houthis. Their oil exports are now becoming seriously affected. They know that the Iranians can attack their oil facilities, and they also know that the Iranians can come after their desalination plants.

The Saudis, who urged the Americans into this war, are in a desperate position. The Persian Gulf states are in a very, very difficult position. And I think that this is what this bizarre new, so-called Sunni NATO of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey is all about. The Saudis no longer believe that the Americans can really protect them. So they're looking for other protectors. They're looking to the Pakistanis and they're looking to the Turks. Saudi Arabia already had an alliance with Pakistan.

And we have seen that the Pakistanis weren't in the end able to deliver they weren't able to stop the Iranian attacks. Why the Saudis believe that Erdogan, of all people, is somebody who might come to their rescue. I don't know. I think there's been far too much commentary about this alliance that takes it seriously. To my mind, it is a sign of Saudi desperation, of MBS's desperation. and of the feeling that many people in Saudi Arabia and NBS particularly have, that even as the Americans play this long waiting game with the Iranians, Saudi Arabia is being abandoned.

I think it's a sign of U.S. desperation. Absolutely. I don't think they would come up with this alliance without the U.S.'s support, without the U.S. green lighting it. Of course not. And you create this Middle East NATO as a type of way to continue the long-term siege of Iran. Yes. And you know, you start with three countries and then maybe other countries join this European NATO.

Yes. But ultimately, from an American point of view, it's closing the access routes to Iran. Right. It's directed at Iran. There's no doubt about that. No, absolutely. Even though Saudi Arabia is saying, no, no, this is not about Iran. This is not directed at one.

Obviously, it's directed at Iran. Obviously, this fits into the long game, siege of Iran thinking that that is going on right now in the U.S. that they can wait out Iran because the economy, they believe, is going to crumble. And once the economy starts to crack and crumble, that's when they'll have their opening to finally get the regime change that they're looking for. You know, Trump as president, he's just looking to market a victory, to market a W. Exactly, exactly. He just wants to get on stage and say, we hammered their nuclear enrichment facilities and the greatest military operation in all of history and their economy has been completely destroyed. Yeah.

I've won. See you later. Yes. Peace through strength. Yes. And all of that nonsense. I think that's what Trump, the men. the president, his administration, his PR team, is looking for. Exactly. That's exactly what they're trying to figure out. Exactly. But as I said, the Saudis, the fact that they're making these alliances, these public alliances with Pakistan and Turkey, obviously they're getting a green light for it. Obviously, the Americans have their own strategies.

But still, it does signal that Saudi Arabia realizes that it cannot just rely. on the Americans from now on, as it has done consistently since the end of the Second World War. The wading out Iran thinking strategy makes sense from the standpoint of if you put your shoes and if you put yourself in the deep state's shoes, they have figured out, I'm not saying it's going to work as time goes on, a way to manipulate the oil price and to keep it at least at at that 100 level, to not go too far above that 100 level. And now it's back down to, I believe, 75 or 80. So they have been effective, Bessence and whatever tools and mechanisms they have.

It's kept the price of oil relatively low, considering what's happening. Straitz-Fer-Mus closed, Al-Mandau straight closed. I mean, it's incredible that they have kept it at that 100 level and below that. that 100 level. Yes. And as far as the suffering that the United States may go through, if things do not work out with Iran, well, the vassals will absorb that pain,

and I'm talking about the Middle East and the Europeans. Yes. For the United States, or at least they will give the U.S. a six-month buffer until that economic pain were to reach the shores of the U.S. And if you're the deep state, if you're the neocons, you're saying that's what vassals are for. Yes, Saudi Arabia is getting destroyed. Yes, they're going to go through pain.

Yes, the UAE has problems. Yes, the Europeans are going to go through terrible economic pain. But that's why we have them as vassals. Exactly. They're there to provide that buffer for us so that we can wait out Iran. Exactly. This is the thing to understand. The Persian Gulf states are in a terrible place, but ultimately, the United States is not going to recalibrate its entire foreign policy or approach to Iran because the Persian Gulf states are in crisis. the other people who are now drifting, not drifting, hurtling towards a major economic crisis, it seems to me, are the Europeans.

The Europeans are in a very, very bad place. They have gone through a very hot summer. The result is that the burn rates on energy in the summer has been very, very high. they are not filling up their natural gas reserves. Now, usually around this time in the year, you would expect natural gas reserves in Europe to be filled to a level of around 70, 75%. Apparently, it's 58%.

And according to Kiril Dimitriyev, who is the head of the Russian direct investment fund, in Germany, it is only 48%. US LNG is tending to go to Asia because prices there are better. The Europeans, as we know, made a strategic decision, an extraordinary strategic decision to cut themselves off completely from Russian LNG at the end of this year. So they are in a very bad place when it comes to natural gas, which is, of course, a key part of their energy economy. And of course, the other place where they used to import a lot of energy from was from the Gulf, and that has all stopped.

The Europeans are also facing very acute shortages of gasoline, diesel and aviation. fuel. There's been a long article about this in the Financial Times. It's only the Financial Times that ever covers these stories. There is no sign that the Europeans are taking any steps to prepare for any of this. Now, way back in 2022, when they cut themselves off from Russian pipeline gas, they sort of got through the winter, 2022, 2023. We pointed out at the time that this was, you know, this is, it might not always be that easy in the future. One gets the sense that with every year that they've cut themselves off from Russian gas supplies, the situation with energy in Europe has got more and more difficult.

It's starting to look as if this autumn, the energy situation in Europe is going to fall off a cliff. No natural, inadequate supplies of natural gas, inadequate supplies of gasoline and diesel. Probably what that is going to mean is very, very high prices. Already, energy costs in Europe are the highest in the world. European industry is going to become even less competitive. Deindustrialization processes already very rapid are going to accelerate further still. What other option do the Europeans have? Well, they could come along to Russia, right?

They could do two things. They could come along to Donald Trump and say this has gone long enough. We now insist that you come to a deal with Iran and reopen. in the strait of whole moves. They're not going to do that. But European leaders months upon the time would have done that. That's what Margaret Thatcher would have done. That is what Helmut Schmidt would have done.

That is what Jack Shirak would have done. But of course, this bunch. Mercer and Macaron are going to do that. The other thing that they could do is say to themselves, this business of cutting ourselves from our major energy supplier, is Russia, which is on our doorstep, has been a total disaster, and they could send people to Moscow, and they could say to Putin, look, we understand that this has been a complete disaster. Let's see if we can now do some kind of a deal on Ukraine.

We understand they're going to get Dombas. You're going to get Zaporosia. You're going to get Turson. We accept that Ukraine can't join the EU. We accept Ukraine can't join NATO. Maybe you'll have some kind of position. in Odessa and of course the government in Kiev could change. But at least we will get the gas flowing and we will protect European consumers.

Again, Schmidt, Brandt, De Gaulle, Thatcher. That's what all of them would have done because they would have prioritized the needs of their own people and peace in Europe. But of course, this bunch are not going to do that either. So they're going to do absolutely nothing, which is what, they are doing at the moment. They're going to give Zelensky even more drones. They're going to give Zelensky even more money. They're going to tell us even more stories about how the Russian bear is on the prowl and is going to come after us for very soon. They're going to demand that we spend more of

our tax money on weapons, which are not going to achieve anything. And they're going to do absolutely nothing to prepare Europe for this energy crisis that is coming. So that, I'm afraid, is the reality in Europe today. They're not concerned about the interests of their country and of their citizens and prices and inflation. They're in office to serve the empire. Just like you said during our live stream the other day, they're vassals and they're proud of it. Yeah, exactly. That's the situation. So they will insulate, protect, and be that buffer for the empire. And they'll take the economic energy hit that's coming their way.

And it will give the United States a certain amount of time in order to try and wait out Iran or to try and defeat Russia. Exactly. You have a two-front war going on. Exactly. That's what they're there for. That's what they're there for. And that's what they're delighted to do. In spite of everything, their zeal in stopping energy flows from Russia to Europe remains unabated.

It's incredible, but it is. It's so. Well, it confirms our analysis. Absolutely. It confirms our analysis. Anyway. We'll leave it there. Atdd.orgas.com.

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