The Duran Podcast - Russia-Iran meet. Medvedev nuclear post. Trump, Iran regime change

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Russia-Iran meet. Medvedev nuclear post. Trump, Iran regime change

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation with Iran and Israel and the United States, because the United States is now in this war. And we had members of the Trump administration, J.D. Vance, Pete Hegsef, they said in statements the other day that this is the strike on the targets in Iran. Iran, the three nuclear facilities, and we'll talk about the success of those strikes because a lot of people are having doubts. A lot of analysts are doubting the actual success of these strikes. But they said this was a one-time thing. That is it. They said, this is a one-time thing. They said, they said no regime change. This is not about regime change. Van said it. Hegsseth said it multiple times in the Pentagon briefing. They were very clear to say this is not a regime change. This is about Iran getting a nuclear weapon. That's what they said.

In comes Trump. Truth Social. Regime change. Why not? That was Trump's message pretty much. Why not regime change? He undermines his entire administration, or at least the part of his administration that is trying.

It looks like they're trying to get past to this and to de-escalate. That's how it looks. because they're trying to draw a line in the sand and say this is one-time strike, not about regime change. We want to de-escalate. In comes Trump. And he talks about regime change. So let's discuss what's going on there.

And we have the very important meeting between the foreign minister of Iran and the Russian president of Vladimir Putin. And it does look like Russia is working very hard to resolve this conflict and to de-escalate. things. So your thoughts? Absolutely. Let's actually talk with the administration because this is up, again, people can try if they wish

to define some kind of method behind all of this. But to me again, it looks like complete chaos. It reminds me of the situation we had a week ago when Israel first began its attacks on Iran. If you remember, the narrative then, this is a unilateral

Israeli attack on Iran, the United States is not involved in any way. The Israelis are doing this all by themselves. And then, of course, again, Trump comes along on truth, social. He blows that all up to smithering. He says that, in fact, he not only got the heads up. He was absolutely up to it, fully involved, fully engaged, that this is all part of the operation that he and Netanyahu and the Israelis had worked out together

and that from that moment on, if you remember, gradually evolved into a situation where he was publishing true social posts using the word we. So the Israelis and the Americans together were working and had achieved complete air superiority, air supremacy over Tehran, for example. It was we.

And the same thing has happened all over again. So we've had this attack on the enrichment facilities, Fordor, Natanz and Esvahan. You can see that an agreement was clearly reached within the administration. I suspect that this was not just a cover story, but an actual agreement to try to limit this. I think there are lots of people who understand within the administration. The dangerous course that this is potentially taking the United States onto. We've discussed this in many programs. The United States does not want to be involved in a protracted war, has no interest in being involved in a protracted war in the Middle East.

A forever war in the Middle East will undermine the U.S.'s military position in the Indo-Pacific region, which worries some people in the Pentagon, people like Elbridge Colby. A forever war in the Middle East will not play well at all. with Donald Trump's base. So we had a whole series of people coming out. Vance, obviously, Hegsseth also. Marker Rubio, too. They're all saying this is a one-off attack.

We're only seeking to stop Iran's nuclear enrichment program. We have no plan, no intention of carrying out regime change in Iran. This is where it all ends. We would hope that the Iranians don't escalate because we are not looking for a long war with Iran. Rubio is even asking China to dissuade Iran from blocking the Straits of Hormuz and doing any of those things. And then along comes Donald Trump, and just as he blew the previous cover story about the unilateral Israeli action, he comes out and contradicts his own officials and starts saying, well, a regime change in Iran is a great idea.

And he's not only doing that, he's now turning on key figures within his own electoral base. So he's now apparently going to try to prevent Tom Massey from being re-elected to Congress. He is going completely off the rails politically, as far as I can see. He's turning on his own base. He's turning on key officials within his own administration. Even if the objective, there is an objective within the administration to achieve regime change in Iran. And that is absolutely the Israeli objective, by the way, that there is no doubt about. But even if Donald Trump all along has been signed up to that, what he is doing now is he's destroying.

he's undermining the credibility of his own officials. So he's already turned on Tulsi Gabbard. He says he doesn't believe what he says. He doesn't care what she says. Now he's openly contradicting Vance, Rubio, and Hegseth. He's vice president. He's secretary of state. He's defense secretary.

As I said, people can try and find some logic and reason to all of this. I can see none. But put that aside. We are now clearly on a path to escalation. Because to come back to what we were saying on the live stream that we did shortly after the strikes took place, it's now becoming increasingly clear that our initial assessment that only a limited amount of damage was done to Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities. That appears to be the emerging consensus within the expert community. And now, you know, we're not there.

Even the Iranians are saying that they would have to examine the facilities themselves. They'd have to go deep inside Fordor to see what damage was actually done. And that one gets the sense that more and more people have been looking at the satellite photos and they're not impressed by what they see. And I think that's, you know, clearly the emerging consensus now. And besides, we've had the, I think, absolutely potentially, disastrous news that before the attacked it place, the Iranians were not sitting on their hands. They got all 400 tons of their highly enriched uranium onto the trucks.

And now it's gone. And they moved it somewhere. And the United States doesn't know where it is. So, I mean, you know, we don't, the Americans have no idea where this enriched uranium has gone to. the IAEA has lost track and control of it. So if the Iranians do decide now to convert all of this enriched uranium into a nuclear weapon, their hands are free to do this. They're able to do it in sites which the United States may not know anything about.

Bear in mind, Iran is an enormous country. And the IAA has no, we don't even know it's in Iran. It could be in Russia, it could be in North Korea. It could be in any number of places. So, as I said, it has been, it's looking already like a military debacle. And in the meantime, yes, the Israelis are continuing to strike Iran. We've had more reports today about more Israeli strikes on Iran. And no doubt these are causing significant damage on Iran.

But then Iran is an enormous country. and it can absorb damage. It absorbed eight years of a war, a long war with Iraq, which of course was also a ground war, which meant that hundreds of thousands of people were dying. And nonetheless, Iran was able to keep doing it. And at the same time, Iran continues its own war of attrition against Israel. It continues to launch missile strikes at Israel. In fact, there are reports that it is doing so, even as we're making this programme.

So I have to say to me, all of this looks like a shambles, something that was done without any proper calculation with no clear exit strategy prepared. Key figures in the administration, Rubio, Vance, Hegsseth have been trying to draw a line under this. And to give the president an exit strategy. And he's continuing to listen to Netanyahu and the meerkons and all of those people around him. And he's undermining his own administration, undermining his own alienating his own supporters. And he's now clearly on the escalatory escalator because it doesn't seem to me that there's any course open to him now other than to press on with. this probably unachievable objective of attempting regime change in Iran. A disaster in every respect. Well, the longer this goes and the more the regime is, the government in Iran is intact,

the more they're winning. Yes. The more they are winning. If the government can hold, they are winning. They're defeating the U.S., they're defeating Israel. They're defeating the Europeans, because the Europeans are on board with Trump as well, a vassal. Once a vassal, always a vassal, the Europeans. The greatest military operation, Trump said, in all of history, is actually perhaps the most embarrassing military operation in all of history. Trump spent all that money to hit a freaking rock,

to hit a rock to hit a mountain. Everything was evacuated, most everything was evacuated, or at least the important stuff was definitely evacuated, Yes. And they don't know where it is. No. Before, before all of this, you had the JCPOA signed, approved. Yeah.

All is good. Trump tears it up, tries to negotiate a new deal. You still have, you still have the IAEA going in there. Whatever reports the IAEA files, the IAEA, no different than the ICCC, no different than the OPCW, whatever. They're all compromised. We know the histories of these organizations and the stories that they put out in order to get to wars. But still, they were able to go in. They were able to look at what's going on.

They knew where everything was. Now you don't have any of that. Exactly. None of that. You don't even know where it is. What a debacle. What an embarrassment for the president of the United States for Trump. What a freaking embarrassment.

What a joke of a decision he made. Really, what a joke of a decision he made. I'm surprised that more people are not running with the story that the uranium is gone. No, I know. It's gone. It's missing. Is it in Iran? Like you said, is it in Iran?

Is it with Kim Jong-un? Maybe he's looking after it, smiling, laughing. Maybe it's in China. Maybe it's in Russia. Who knows? Who knows where it is? What a freaking... debacle. You know, my theory on Trump, Alexander, looking at everything, taking a step back,

and I agree with you, Vance and Hegseth, definitely Vance, because he was on TV saying, no regime change. He said it like four times. Hegset said it like four or five times as well. And Trump threw them under the bus. Rubio has been kind of back and forth. He's wishy-washy, but, okay, he's a neocon-lite type of guy. He's playing both sides. Anyway, he definitely, Trump definitely threw Tulsi Gabbard under the bus. Tulsi Gabbard, though, she came back and supported Trump. Okay. He threw Vance under the bus.

He threw Hegsteth under the bus because they said no regime change, man, direct quote. But I think Trump's doing this because he wants war. Yeah. That's the only explanation I can think of. Yes. Every de-escalation, every opportunity to de-escalate or to find an off-ramp to this conflict. conflict or this crisis, Trump himself has sabotaged. Yes. Trump wants war.

Yes. Your thoughts on that? No, I agree. I mean, there's no other, there is no other explanation here. He's clearly decided to commit himself to regime change in Iran. He's never liked the regime in Iran. We've always known that, but he's decided to do that because he's now focused, he's now completely accepted this view that the Iranian regime must go and he wants war with Iran. There is no other explanation for what he's doing, because as you absolutely rightly said, he is not just going up the regime change escalator. He is running up it.

He is absolutely running up it. And he is destroying the credibility of his own officials. Deliberately. Deliberately sabotaging them. Deliberately sabotaging them. He threw her under a bus. He discredited her. He humiliated her publicly.

He got her. He forced her. in effect into, you know, a humble, I thought, embarrassing and humiliating retraction of everything that she had previously said, because clearly she's trying to be loyal to him. Vance has been astonishingly loyal to him. He's been trying to help Trump with, you know, Trump's own base, which is getting increasingly angry and upset about this. He's now. He's now. basically discredited, make Vance look ridiculous. And one can't almost avoid the sense that Trump is doing this on purpose, that he's now deliberately trying to undermine and discredit his

own core supporters, the people who were bagging him before, that he's somehow turned against them and has turned against them completely. He's gone against Tucker Carlson, he's gone against presumably soon or later, Marjorie Taylor Green and all of those people. He seems to be determined now to press on with this wall because that is the only inevitable, logical destination to which this can go. To repeat again, your point, the uranium has vanished. The whole, if you look at the statements that the Chinese, and the Russians have been making.

They are beyond angry about all of this. They did not want, and they do not want Iran to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. They are defenders of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which Russia was one of the original signatories and one of the original creators. And Russia, by the way, has always abides. by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They have never been involved or ever been accused of being involved in nuclear proliferation. And they're saying that every aspect of that treaty has now been exploded,

that an attack has been made on nuclear enrichment sites, which all the reports said were peaceful, that the agency whose role it is to, enforce and manage the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the IAEA, now lies completely discredited, completely compromised. And of course, Iran had the most intrusive inspections of any country in the world by the IAEA. And as of now, as of today, as of in fact a week ago, There are no inspections by the IAEA in any part of Iran anymore. So it is a disaster.

If Iran were to choose to go ahead with the nuclear weapons program, it now has all the resources, all the technology, all the enriched uranium in order to do that. There's no inspection regime in place. The way to go ahead and acquiring nuclear weapon is completely open. And with Donald Trump talking about regime change, one can easily see. One can easily imagine why the Iranians might decide that the time has now come for them to do it. It's the, they're justified now to do it. Yeah.

Because they've been attacked. Yeah, they're justified now. And everyone is saying, and everyone is saying, look at what happened to Gaddafi. When he gave up his, I think with Gaddafi, it was biological and chemical weapons. But still, he gave up his weapons. Look what happened to him. And look at Kim Jong-un. Exactly.

Right? I mean, as you comment on that, can you also comment on Dimitri Medvedev's post that he made where he gave the 10 consequences of Trump's actions, his strike against Iran, and everyone is talking about, I think it's point number three, where Medvedev says that other countries now will provide, I forgot what he said, provide the ability for a nuclear warhead. I'll look for the quote as you try to explain it. But just I've been thinking about that, I'm trying to figure out why would Medvedev say that. Yeah, well, okay, let's talk about this.

If you can unpack that a bit, yeah. Going back to your first point, you're absolutely correct. Countries that give up their enrichment in nuclear capabilities, Iraq, Libya, their leaders get overthrown. Countries that go ahead and acquire nuclear weapons, North Korea, are safe. Any country in the world that feels threatened by the United States now has an incentive to acquire nuclear weapons. And remember, we are talking about a technology and science that was developed in the United States in the 1940s. 80 years ago, it is an 80-year-old technology. it is no longer at the cutting edge, even middle ranking industrial powers.

It is well within their reach today. I mean, I'm sure that any remotely well-equipped university now has people on its faculty that understand the science and the technology and can do this straightforwardly. And Iran absolutely is a country. It's better than that. It's in a stronger position than that. So the Iranians now understand that the United States and Israel are coming for them. There's open talk about assassinating their supreme leader.

Their chief officials have been targeted. And their, you know, attempts of being, there's been talk about fragmenting and dividing their country. Why would they not, in light of all of this, say to themselves, well, this is the only protection we have against these kind of attacks, is to go nuclear. Now, there is another point, and it's a point that the Russians are making, and it's a legalistic point, but it's the one that the Russians who are very legalistic, as we've discussed many times, are making. It's a valid one, and it is not to being ignored. If you go back to the original nuclear non-proliferation treaty, it embodies a trade-off. There is a contract. basically there within it, it says this, if a country decides that it is going to sign up to the treaty and is not going to acquire nuclear weapons, then it is freely entitled to develop its peaceful nuclear energy and engage in peaceful nuclear research to the maximum level of its

capabilities. There are no restrictions in that case on what he can do. So that's the trade-off. You give up any intention to pursue nuclear weapons, in other words, a military capability, but you are entitled to the full exercise of your rights to peaceful nuclear research and energy. And what the Russians are saying is by attacking these nuclear sites, which, to all intents and purposes, the IAAA was itself saying this because it was there on these sites, were sites engaged in peaceful work and research. The United States has in effect blown up. It has destroyed the central premise of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It is a technical point, and it's arguable, by the way, because, you know, people will say, why did Iran go all the way towards 60% in Richmond?

Let's not get into that debate again. But the point is that the Russians are making it, and they are right to do so, because more and more countries are going to say around the world, what purpose is that in us agreeing to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, whether we feel threatened or not? because ultimately the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, as of the attack on Natanz Fodor and Esfahan, is a dead letter. It has no reality because the United States itself has now grossly violated it. So that's one thing I wanted to say.

Now, about Medvedev's comments. Let me read it. Let me read it, Alexander. It's point number three, where he says a number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads. What do you make of that? Well, I am afraid I think it is probably true. And I'm going to guess which countries. One is a possibility which one shouldn't put too strongly. And that is Pakistan, which is a friend of Iran's. There's been rumors that the Pakistanis might be willing to do that. For many reasons, I don't think they will. But the other country is

North Korea, which of course has all of the technology, has nuclear weapons in abundance, has gone all the way towards developing the most advanced nuclear weapons, I mean, you know, nuclear warheads. They could absolutely provide Iran with nuclear warheads. The only difficulty they would have is finding some means to physically get them there. But, you know, we mustn't discard that possibility and it could quite easily happen. Yeah, I was thinking North Korea as well. It's a good way to really stick it to the U.S., huh? Absolutely.

Yeah. All right. So let's talk about Russia since we brought up Medvedev and Putin meeting with Arachchi, the foreign minister. What's going on? Well, I think this is an absolutely crucial meeting because, as you correctly said, the Russians are going to do everything they possibly can to de-escalate the situation. And when we say the Russians, the Chinese do, because Putin and Cesar and, Xi Jinping had a telephone call just before the attack. Probably they had wind of the attack,

by the way. And we know that the Chinese deployed spy ships to the area to keep track on what was going on. So the Chinese and the Russians are going to be coordinating with each other. That the Russian and Chinese readouts say as much. But they're going to try and de-escalate this. And I think what they're going to say to the Iranians is, look, it's not in your interests at the moment to do the big escalatory things that people are talking about like attacking American bases,

like blocking the Straits of Hormuz. If you block the Straits of Hormuz, the Americans will have to react, you will get a wider war, and you will upset the Gulf states whose oil exports will be affected, and you'll be causing problems for your friends in China

and also for India too. So it is not, your interests to do these things. For the moment, you have the sympathy of the world outside the collective West, so capitalize on that and work with us. Now, what the Russians are going to say to the Iranians is, look, we understand your position about the Israelis attacking you and about you having to respond. We are not going to interfere with that, because much as we don't like the fact that they and you are launching missiles at each other, we know perfectly well that we have no ability to control Netanyahu and perhaps and possibly Netanyahu is going to run out of air

defense missiles within about two weeks time or whenever, in which case it could be that the Israeli operation will gradually begin to run down by itself. So by all means keep doing that, but don't escalate beyond that. But for heaven's sake, from now on, listen to our advice, agree to this defense agreement that we offered you last year and which you very unwisely rejected. Let us go into Iran. Let us develop your air defences,

which are clearly chaotic and fragmented, all your claims and boasts. that you could run an effective air defense system, we've seen that those are not true. Let us go in there. Let's sort this all out for you. Let's help you to build up your conventional forces. Let's develop a proper defense agreement with each other.

That is your better protection than going down the nuclear weapons route, which would only potentially provoke an even more dangerous and disastrous response from the Israelis and from the United States. So I think that is what the Russians are going to be telling Arachsh. In other words, they will be telling him, play it long, play it calm, don't rush into extreme things and work with us. Stabilize the situation. The military, stabilized situation, stabilize the government.

Yes. And the win over Trump is by the government not collapsing, by preventing a regime change. You prevent the regime change. You defeat the United States. You defeat the United States because that's its ultimate objective in the end. And I think that's what the Russians. What the Russians do not want to run. By the way, getting a sense of how angry they were when J.D. Vance said that China

and Russia do not want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. He was saying absolutely truth. But the Russian foreign ministry were furious. They didn't need to say this, but they were so angry, they said that under no circumstances, does any American official have the right to speak for us, for Russia and China? Now, that shows you how angry the Russians are, because from their point of view, What they're worried about is the collapse of the non-proliferation regime. They do not want, they know if Iran goes nuclear, quite apart from the enormous dangers

that Israel and the United States might take preemptive action to stop that. They know that Saudi Arabia will go nuclear. They know that Turkey will go nuclear. There is a possibility that Egypt, which is an unstable country, might decide to go nuclear as well. They also, of course, worry that if all of these countries start to go nuclear, well, what's left of Ukraine might say, well, if these countries can go nuclear, what about us? So the Russians do not want nuclear proliferation, and they are furious that the United States has taken this step, which they see is inherently incredibly dangerous and incredibly destabilizing, undermining the entire nuclear non-proliferation. regime that the United States proposed in the 1960s. It was an American initiative and which the Russians have worked incredibly hard ever since to uphold.

Yeah. Trump is blowing all of that up. He's destroying all of that. It's really a shame that the European countries are such spineless vassals? Absolutely. Because this doesn't benefit them either. And I'm positive that there are people in Europe who are also saying that Trump has lost his mind and he's destroying the nonproliferation treaty. I mean, Europe signed up to the JCPOA.

They were part of the JCPOA. Yes. I'm still trying to figure out, I mean, Trump is sabotaging everything because for some reason, he wants to go to war. Yes. He wants regime change in Iran and he wants to go to war. I just can't figure out what is the reason, what is driving him to do this. He's, yeah, he's undermining Vance.

He undermined Gabbert and Barris Gabbard. Musk, we didn't mention Mussk either. He humiliated Gabbard. He humiliated Gabbard. He was going to take a seriously from now on as direct of nationally. He humiliated. He absolutely humiliated her. He absolutely humiliated her.

Yeah. No doubt about it. He's humiliating haggis as well. He's now campaigning to prevent Tom Massey being reelected. He's saying the nastiest stuff about Massey. The nasty stuff about Massey, who's very popular. And he's played everything very straight. He's being very honest with the American people, with his voters.

his voters. Yes. And Trump is just trashing him. And he's doing it all on social media. My God, just stop, man. I know. I know. Stop with the stupid, brain dead, dumb, truth, social posts.

This is not how you conduct foreign policies. It's not how you conduct domestic policy. It may have been cute while you were campaigning. It may have been cute in your first term. But now it's just embarrassing. It is absolutely embarrassing and it's just and it's full of emptiness, Alex. There's there's no substance to it. There's no, there's no meat on the bones.

It's just dumb slogans. I can be, he needs to stop this. Absolutely. He won't. He needs to take it anyway. And the other thing which is not to be discounted is that he has enraged the Russians. The Russians are more angry with him now than they have ever been. He's enraged everybody.

I know, but I mean he's... Are the Chinese any happier? No, the Chinese are no happy. But I mean, the point was that, you know, he was trying to improve relations with Russia. I wonder whether that's possible anymore. I think the relationship between him and Putin is now at rock bottom. And I don't believe it will ever recover from this. I don't know what else to say.

I guess we'll end the video. There is much more to say. Yeah. Yeah. And the uranium has gone missing. Yeah. I mean, that's- What can you say? The meeting between Putin and Iraqi, which is, by the way, the way, the meeting between Putin and

way ongoing as we're making this program. But that is going to be key. And whatever comes out of that meeting, most of it will not be published. The Russians will, we're not going to get much information from the readouts. But certainly we will have lots of people from Moscow, But in Russia, heading now towards Tehran, the Chinese are probably going to be sending their own people to. We're going to be getting all kinds of coordination. The Russians are going to do everything they can, as you rightly said, to try to damp this fire down. But I suspect that deep down, they believe that they can't put it out and they're wrong. Yeah, I mean, it's all about whether the regime change will succeed or whether it will fail.

I mean, that's what this has come down to. Exactly. But now the Russians and the Chinese have a particular reason to prevent regime change, which goes beyond the question of whether Iran is a brick state and all of these geopolitical things that people are talking about. It's now all connected very much to preventing a further nuclear proliferation, which I suspect at this moment in Moscow and Beijing, also, by the way, is the immediate concern. The fear that I have just to end the video is how far Trump will take this.

That's what worries me. Will he take this all the way to a tactical nuke? I mean, that really is worrying me now. When you look at his statements on truth social, I mean, he's all over the place. He's all over the place. He's turning on everybody. And the question that I have is, is will he in his rage, it seems like he's descending into madness? I don't know.

that's how it seems. Yes, he is. Yeah. Will he green light some sort of tactical nuke? Because as you said in the beginning of the video, the consensus is starting to move towards the strike on the nuclear facilities as just being a complete failure. Yes. Yes.

I don't know. I hope not. I hope that if such a thing, if he were ever to order such a thing, that there would be people in the United States and the military. military who would say, who would push back against it. But, you know, it's not just Trump, you see. If the Israelis get the sense that they could do this and Trump will back them, I mean, they might do it. I mean, I, you know, we are now in a very, very dangerous situation. I don't want to theorize too much about these possibilities. But unfortunately, they have now become

real. We haven't even brought up false flags, which are now also a possibility. We brought out false flags and all of the other things that could happen and probably will happen, other way. I mean, we're talking about the Middle East after all. Yeah. All right. We'll end the video there.

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