The Duran Podcast - Regime change operation opened the gates of hell

Episode Date: July 13, 2025

Regime change operation opened the gates of hell

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Iran, the situation with the IAEA, which has now been officially booted out of Iran. Grossi is not so happy, by the way, Grossi as the Secretary General of the United Nations. Oh, boy. Anyway, so what is going on with the situation in Iran? Things seem to be getting worse. Things are not getting better. And we keep on hearing talks about negotiations starting up again, but I haven't seen any real diplomacy taken place between the United States and Iran. What is your take on the situation? And of course, let's comment about Peseshkiyan's interview with Tucker Carlson, which was a good

interview. I encourage everyone to see it and to listen to what Peshkeyan's interview. Geyan is saying to Tucker. But my takeaway from it was that Pazeshkian is the type of leader you would want in a peace time situation, not the type of leader when you have a round two of a war with Israel and the United States on the horizon. I mean, he used the words, tranquil and peace and tranquility. in harmony about a half a dozen times during the Tucker Carlson interview. Not that it's bad, but I'm just wondering how this plays out, given the situation that Iran finds itself in at the moment, having to take on Israel and the United States. Well, let me start with Pezaskian's interview because I think it's an important point of, you know, a beginning, because I absolutely agree.

he came across as, you know, a very amiable, very likable man, somebody who clearly wants better relations and, you know, peace and all of that, he still seems to be under the impression that peace can be achieved. I don't think he is at all in tune with the mood in Iran at the moment. I don't just mean the mood within the government, apparently within wider Iranian society. And I understand, I don't, you know, speak Farsi, but I understand that the response to the interview in Iranian social media, and it does exist, by the way, it was overwhelmingly critical. They thought that he was far too accommodating. And to me, he didn't look like a leader. He looked like one of these very reasonable, nice people that you meet every so often.

Why can't we all get on type of thing? And I don't think that is the mood in Iran at all. Now, what I get the sense of what is happening is it in Iran, is it, as we've discussed many times, this is a deeply factionized political system. In fact, it's always created to be factional. I mean, it's got all of these different institutions, the, the, I, the presidency, the government, the parliament, the supreme leader's office, the Iranian, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard call. They all function slightly autonomous, well, not slightly

autonomously from each other. They're not really integrated together in a coherent structure, such as we find in some other countries. And the result is that there is constant, argument and dissonance, and often you get the sense of an Iran that is pulling in many different directions at the same time. But my sense is that since the 12-day war, it is those people who you might describe as the hardliners in Iran, the people who are most critical of engagement with the West, who are now decisively winning out, and who won the argument. with wider Iranian society. And they are making it increasingly clear, as far as I can see, that they not only don't

trust the United States as a negotiating partner, but that they see that the United States is, that negotiating with the United States is straightforwardly dangerous for Iran. And the person who I think is, if you like, the person. whose moves illustrate this is the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Arakchi, was a much, much more experienced personality figure in Iranian politics than Pezyszygiani's, but who also at one time was believed to be the person who favoured engagement with the West. He is now repeatedly say that Iran will not negotiate with the United States. unless the United States gives guarantees that what happened before during the 12-day war,

when Iran was attacked whilst negotiations were underway and appeared to be making good progress, guarantees from the United States, that that is not going to happen. And I cannot imagine either that the United States would give such guarantees or that those guarantees would be such if they were ever made, that they would satisfy the hardliners now in Iran. So the IAEA has been booted out. Lavrov has made further comments about the IAEA in which he's made it. He's just stopped short of saying that Grosse needs to resign, by the way.

I mean, he's siding very clearly and very publicly with the Iranians on this issue. So we have no IAA in Iran. We have no inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities by third parties that are in contact with the West. We do not know what has happened to Iran's enriched U.S. uranium. There is now a growing consensus that it is still in Iranian possession and is not trapped deep down beneath the earth in Ford or anything like that. We have no idea what kind of facilities, other facilities, fallback facilities Iran might have. It's shown ability in the past to recreate its centrifuges. And for all we know, that is exactly what it is doing.

More likely than not, Iran is resuming this nuclear enrichment program or will do so soon. It doesn't seem to want to negotiate with the United States. It's got most of its missile arsenal apparently still intact. I have to say this. This is a very, very dangerous situation. Sooner or later, the United States will have to make a decision. Does it go to war with Iran again? or not, because in the absence of knowledge about the nuclear enrichment program inside

Iran and in the absence of negotiations with Iran, the pressure to attack Iran again is going to become overwhelming. And that may not take very long to happen. My guess is that if we are in this same situation in the autumn, especially if reports that Iran is now importing air defense systems from China are true. I suspect the demands to resume the war are going to become almost irresistible. Well, Iran is starting to think about some sort of rearming or at least getting the air defense in place. I mean, I've read those reports as well. And this is logical, though, is it expected that Iran would make these moves, whether it was China or whether it was Russia, They were going to make moves to build up their air defense.

Israel is also resupplying. I mean, everyone understands this and knows this, that Israel is starting to resupply as well. The United States, do they have all of their military assets still in place in the Middle East from when they first launched the war against Iran or have those assets moved? I mean, where are we? in the military reloading on all sides, whether it's Iran, whether it's Israel, whether it's the United States. Now, I may be wrong about this.

And if I am, I'm sure people on the threads will correct me. But my understanding is that the two U.S. carrier groups are still there. They have not been moved. And all of the other forces are indeed still in place. So, you know, we are still on, you know, a trigger. it could resume in effect at any moment. So, yes, Iran is indeed re-arming. Israel is indeed re-arming.

The United States, as we know, faces massive resource allocation challenges. But it doesn't have, it seems, for the moment, the option of a diplomatic solution to this crisis. So it's likely that the arguments are going to start in the United States. They're already starting in Israel, that we have to hit Iran before its air defense systems are rebuilt. And that could be as soon as the autumn. So we have to do it fast. And we've got to move before the Iranians are ready. because unless we do that in five, six months time, it might no longer be as easy as it was.

Bear in mind, you know, the Iranians are unlikely to be taken by surprise in the same way again as they were at the start of the 12th day war. It astonishes me, by the way, that they were taken by surprise. It shows again the disorganization in Iran that they were taken by surprise, given that all of the clues that, an attack from Israel were coming, were there. But this time, they're not going to be taken by surprise. I mean, they're going to take steps to protect their civilian and military leaders. The senses that their military leaders who've replaced the ones that were killed

might actually be better than the ones that they were killed. They're certainly younger and apparently they're more professional. And so I have to say this. I think that as the intelligence starts to trickle in, that this is the situation in Iran, as it arrives on the Oval Office desk, people are going to say to Trump, we don't know what the Iranians are doing with their nuclear enrichment. We have no information about this. The IAEA is not there to tell us. Quite possibly, they are moving towards acquiring a bomb. We have to stop that. You've said that that is the commitment that the United States has made. It will be an absolute disaster for your presidency if the Iranians were to acquire a nuclear weapon after all that's happened.

So you've got to move quickly. And I think that it's going to be very difficult for Trump to argue against all of that advice as it starts to build up around him. Because to repeat again, the Iranians are refusing to negotiate without guarantees. They've not spelled out what they mean by that. But cast iron guarantees are something the United States cannot provide. How can they do that? I mean, what guarantees would the United States be able to give Iran that would convince Iran

and even the mildest guarantees by the United States towards Iran would immediately run into opposition from Netanyahu and in the United States from the likes of John Bolton and Lindsay Graham. So it's not going to happen. Who would believe any guarantees from the United States anyway? I mean, you know, whatever the United States were to promise Iran or tell Iran, as far as guarantees, we're not going to go after Haman. We're not going to go after a position.

I mean, no one would believe any of it anyway. No one. Even if they put it in writing, even if they put it to the UN Security Council, no one would believe it. No one. So, I mean, yeah. Yeah, it's a situation, though, for Trump. Yeah. That is also difficult when you take a step back because if he were to go along, I mean, it would be about regime change again.

Round two. The whole conflict is about regime change. So round two of going after Iran would also be about regime change. Yes. But the narrative that Trump is selling to his base is that this was about his policy of Iran never getting nuclear weapons. Now, Trump has said that everything's been obliterated. Everything has been obliterated.

It was the greatest military operation in all of history, all of history, going all the way back to Alexander the Great. There has never been a better military operation, a better military operation, a better military victory than what we saw with those bombers and those bunker buster missiles hitting the side of a mountain. That was the greatest victory ever in world history. That's what Trump has been selling. How does he go to the American people in a month or two or three months and say, it looks

like Iran is building up to a nuclear weapon? Everything was not obliterated. I mean, yeah, this is what I'm trying to think. This is the narrative box that the neocons, Trump, Israel, that they're all stuck in. Yeah, they trap themselves in it. Maybe not Israel. At least Israel is pretty straightforward. They say, we want regime change. We don't care. We want regime change. We don't care. We want regime change. Yes. I think what will eventually happen, and the way they'll try to

square the circle is that they'll eventually start to say that the only way to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is through regime change, which is essentially what we said about Saddam Hussein, if you remember. I mean, we're going all the way back to that narrative. You got it. You got it. So that's eventually where it's going to come to. Of course, it has been about regime change all along. I mean, it's extraordinary to read people, deny that the 12-day War was about regime change.

What were all those attacks on those generals about? What were the attempted threats on Hamané about? Obviously, it was regime change. And that was, of course, the absurd. That was the terrible mistake that Donald Trump made, because they sold him this idea that they would be able to kill all these people on the first day, including apparently Hamané, and we know that from Katz, the Israeli-Kats, the Israeli defense minister,

that the Israelis were indeed trying to kill Hananai on the first day, but they missed him. It turns out there were also, the Iranians say that they were trying to kill members of the civilian leadership. Pezaskian is saying they were coming after him too. So, I mean, it was clearly an attempt to decapotech the entire Iranian system, government. And it failed. And it's not going to succeed a second time, because the Iranians are going to take precautions against it happening.

And that can only mean if you're going to pursue a regime war against Iran, that it is going to become a very long war. Because how else can you even think about it? So, since sending ground forces into Iran is apparently not an auction, you probably have missiles and bombing raids, It will go on for years and will have ceasefires and things at that kind. More American resources will be drained. Israel will find itself under increasing pressure.

And it won't be good for Iran either, by the way, but Iran, as I said, is a big country and it can absorb it. And its friends will increasingly support it too. And what it will do to the price of oil and to the trade in oil through the Straits of Hormuz, I don't even want the thing. But that's, it seems to me, where we're heading now. Right. We obliterated everything, but in order to be sure we have to remove the regime is what the narrative out of this he's going to be. I know.

When Trump made that decision to greenlight the Israeli attack on Iran, he opened the gates of hell. He opened the gates of hell on himself and on his administration. and, well, we'll see what happens next. Yeah, instead of resolving conflicts from January 21st, instead of just resolving all of these conflicts, whether it was Ukraine, which was easy to solve, Iran didn't have to be a conflict. You had the JCPOA.

Iran agreed to 3% enrichment and to unlimited time instead of the 10-year terms. Yeah. That was easy. He could have resolved all. these issues, and then his administration could have focused on the difficult, the very difficult issue of the two-state solution. Ended.

And that would have been a three, four-year foreign policy project and initiative to deliver on the UN resolution. That would have been a foreign policy that would have worked and that would have won support. Yes. But I said we, I mean, you. You made the point many times. And the Iranian problem should never have arisen at all because the agreement was there to be had.

It was obvious. It was easy. Iran said he didn't want nuclear weapons. The United States didn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons. So they both agreed or said they agreed about the outcome. And they were making progress in the negotiations. So let the negotiations take their course. But no.

And I think you said about months ago, in fact, that this whole piece through strength theme that they landed themselves in was going to land them into enormous trouble. And you said it on one of your programs, you're absolutely right. And we see exactly how it's playing out. Yeah, we'll end the video there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble and X telegram. Go to the Duran Shop, pick up some merch like what we were wearing in this video update. There's a link in the description box down below.

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