The Duran Podcast - Russia's Intelligence Warning: U.S. Ground Operation in Iran May Be Next

Episode Date: April 19, 2026

Russia's Intelligence Warning: U.S. Ground Operation in Iran May Be NextThe Duran: Episode 2501

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation with the war in Iran and the blockade of the blockade of the blockade of the blockade of the strait of Hormuz. And Trump, once again, talking about some easing of the blockade or the opening of the blockade, magically opening. And China is going to give him a big hug when they meet in May, I believe May 14th. Trump is set to visit Beijing. And no more weapons from China to Iran is what the U.S. President claims. He's sorted it all out, the art of the deal. What's going on? Well, it's interesting that he's increasingly talking about China because China is indeed

becoming much more heavily involved now in the whole conflict. But just briefly, on this situation, we still have this ceasefire in place, though it ends next week. There is still very tonic control by Iran of the Strait of Hormuz. I've given up trying to work out what's happening with the American Sea blockade, whether it's working or not working. There's so many stories about this from different people that I'm. I'm not sure whether ships are leaving Iran and going to China or not. All I will say is that Trump talks about easing the blockade one moment, he's tightening it the next, we've had all sorts of things of that kind.

But none of this is changing the underlying reality, which is that the government in Iran remains in control and it continues to control the Strait of Hormuz. Now, two days ago, the Russian Security Council, which remembers the top policy-making body in Russia, the one to which the Russian intelligence community report, they published their own analysis, their own commentary about the situation.

They made precisely these points that the government in Iran is, in full control, that opposition to the government, as they put it, has either dissipated or gone very deep underground. In other words, that it is unimportant now, that the Iranians still control the Strait of Hormuz, that nothing therefore has been resolved. And the Russians say that this situation is unstable. that the United States is unreconsiled to this situation, that if negotiations between Iran and the United States fail, there is a high probability that the United States will intensify the war.

And this could take the form of some kind of ground operation and that more troops are being moved by the United States to the Middle East. and are being potentially prepared for that. And the Russians actually gave us some indications of the kind of military units that the United States is deploying to the Middle East, including special forces units, information which the United States generally withholds. But anyway, the Russian Security Council provided us with all of that information. So the underlying dynamic in the war is the same,

and will continue to be the same, so long as the Iranian government remains in control and continues to exercise control of the Strait of Hormuz, unless there is a diplomatic resolution, which allows normal commercial traffic to resume, there is a high probability of what the Russians are warning about, which is a return to an intensifying. war. And that could happen as early as next week. I don't think that anybody who is observing what is going on is going to seriously argue with this analysis. And to repeat again,

it's come from the very highest, best informed levels of the Russian government. And of course, Russia is a great power. It has sources of information, which no means. your outlet can conceivably have. So that is the actual situation at the present time. Go on. No, I was going to say, isn't that where we were, isn't that the purpose of the whole two-week ceasefire anyway was just kind of to regroup? Yes. Well, that's essentially what the Russians actually, the commentary actually says as much that the negotiations may not be for real anyway, even though very, very strong, the Iranians end a very strong delegation there. But that the real purpose of the ceasefire was to move forces. And interestingly, the Russians

are saying this is something that has been done by both sides. Both the Iranians and the Americans are preparing for the next round. Do you think the ceasefire, from a military standpoint, a strategic standpoint, do you think it was a good idea for both sides? Did the two week pause? Did both sides need it? I think the Americans probably did need it. I think what was happening is that the Americans were running short of precision weapons. And they anyway have to rethink their plans because none of their plans up to now have worked.

and so they needed time to rethink and redeploy and send more forces to the Middle East. I think the Iranians, the calculation here was somewhat different. I think the Iranians probably wanted to harden their infrastructure. They've used the time to reopen some of the tunnels that the Americans bombed the entrances to. They needed time to do that. But the word is that the Iranians had to be talked into the ceasefire by China. And China is now very active. It is being very active diplomatically.

Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, was invited there. He's met with both Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, and Xi Jinping himself. Xi Jinping has had a meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, who is, by the way, the effective power in the UAE, just saying. And the Chinese Defence Ministry remarkably, and in my experience uniquely, has now come forward and made a very, very strong statement saying that China's trade relations with Iran, are not up for negotiation or interference by third parties. And bear in mind, this comes to the Chinese Defense Ministry. I mean, they were clearly hinting that if the Americans start to see ships carrying oil from Iran to China, then China will act.

I mean, not quite sure how. But given that China has the largest navy in the world and now has aircraft carriers, and destroyers, missile destroyers, probably as advanced and maybe even more advanced than the American ones. I mean, you know, if the Chinese do decide to send a fleet to the Persian Gulf or rather to the Arabian say, well, this is going to complicate matters massively. And then, by the way, we would definitely be in Cuban Missile Crisis Territory. We would have a superpower standoff, which we've not seen on that scale, arguably since 1962.

Now, we're not there yet, and I'm not sure that that is what the Chinese are planning to do, but they're giving out warnings, but they're at the same time trying to push negotiations. And they are backing Pakistan and the Pakistani chief of staff, the military chief, who is the effective ruler of Pakistan. the way, just to say, he's just traveled to Iran to meet with the Iranians, and I think he's the first foreign visitor to go to Tehran since the start of the conflict. And the Iranians, again to demonstrate that many of the claims that have been made from the United States about the damage that Iran has been suffering, the Iranians in order to demonstrate that some of those claims are simply untrue,

they put up a show of force, they sent up fighter jets, Nick 29s and F4 Phantoms to provide an escort to his aircraft as it flew in to Tehran. I don't think the Iranian Air Force is a major factor in this war, but Trump said it doesn't exist. Well, it obviously still does. How do you get to a diplomatic solution in all of this when the, uh, when the one party that can actually agree to some sort of a solution with Iran refuses to agree to a solution with Iran and wants to continue the war, and that party is Israel. Because there's three parties to this war, right? There's the United States and Israel, and then there's Iran.

And so you have this two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran, and you have these negotiations, And you have Vance on one side, Arachi, Kalibah, Baff on the other. With Vance, you have Kushner and Witkoff. Now there's a belief that perhaps Kushner was there representing the Israeli interests, maybe. I mean, he's Trump's son-in-law, but who knows? Who knows what Kushner's role is in all of this? He seemed to be very fine with the fact that the negotiations failed, that they broke down, at least by the images that have been released.

I don't know. I'm looking at the body language. I could be off about that. But, I mean, if you really want to solve this issue, then obviously you have to get an agreement not only from the United States, but also from Israel, right? Well, indeed. I mean, that's just how I say because this is the three-party war. Because when you look at the, according to the New York Times, what they outlined as the differences between the uranium enrichment, it seems like it's a really easy thing to solve. U.S. wanted 20 years, Iran wanted five. You can split the difference. The U.S. said, give us all the uranium.

Iran says, we'll dilute it. You can figure that out as well. Russia, Peskov has said that Russia has offered to take the uranium and continues to offer to take the uranium and the Trump administration continues to reject it. So Russia's providing an easy off ramp as well, which the Trump administration continuously rejects, which to me signals that they want to continue the war or that Trump is not being allowed to take an off ramp if you assume that he wants an off ramp or even has the power to make that decision.

I mean, the uranium, which they say is what is holding up any kind of piece, is so freaking easy to come to an agreement on. Very easy. So what's the problem here? I totally agree. And I'm glad you brought all these points out. The whole question of uranium enrichment by Iran is a complete mirage. It's a side issue. This problem could have been solved years ago.

They could have built on the JCPOA, which had its faults. It was not a perfect agreement by any means, but it could have been built up on and developed. There's been all sorts of proposals that have been floating around for at least a year, some from the Russians, some from the Iranians themselves, some from the Ammanis. This is not the problem. The problem is that in Israel and on the part of some very powerful people in the United States, the intention, the objective all along has been regime change in Iran. Just the other day, very short time ago, the head of Mossad, Mr. Barnier,

actually said as much again. He said that for Israel, this war will not have ended successfully if the present political system continues to retain power in Iran. Now, when something is pitched at that level, that makes any kind of diplomatic resolution of this conflict extremely difficult. Now, you can't, well, it's not just difficult, it makes it impossible, because how can Iran, how can the Iranian leadership, in effect, agree to negotiate away its entire existence, especially given that one must assume that some of the leaders at least sincerely believe in the religious basis of the government of Iran that exists today. So, I mean, it's not something that the Iranians can ever agree to negotiate a way.

So that narrows massively the options for a diplomatic resolution. Now, there are only two possible ways forward. One is that there is a big swing in the United States against this, that the economic costs become unbearable, and appears to be the Iranian calculation, that the Americans finally decide that they're going to split from the Israelis over this. Israel cannot defeat Iran by itself. It cannot force regime change in Iran by itself. It needs the Americans involved. So if the Americans say, enough is enough. it ends now, well, Israel may be incredibly unhappy. They may complain, but they can't change it.

So that might be one possible way, but of course we all immediately, just to discuss those possibilities, we run into all sorts of problems because there will be huge numbers of people, important, powerful people in the United States who would strongly resist taking that course and one of them, I suspect, is the president himself. So that makes a negotiated resolution between Iran and the United States extremely difficult. The other course, which is the one that I think the Chinese are now working on,

is a completely different one. I personally think it is unworkable that the idea seems to be to get the Iranians and the Gulf states to come together, to agree a deal of some kind between them, to sideline the Americans and the Israelis, and to develop some kind of agreement which will then receive garretely. guarantees from interested parties from China, Russia, Pakistan and Turkey. Now, I don't myself believe that this is a viable way forward because again the Americans will resist it and the Israelis will resist it. And I think that whatever happens, the United States will always retain enough influence

and enough power in the Persian Gulf to act as effective. spoilers for anything of that kind. But that might be what we will start to see develop over the next few weeks. And it may be also that the Chinese doing this is going to escalate pressure on the Americans because the Americans will not want to be sidelined in peace talks. And they won't want any kind of deal done that could increase Chinese influence in the Middle East. The Chinese do also have their own levers. They can stop exports of rare earths. I heard about two weeks ago, or three weeks ago now, that they've actually already

begun to slow down exports of rare earths and of other strategic minerals, and they can do all kinds of other things. But in the meantime, that seems to be their major priority, the diplomatic one that I've just talked about. That would need serious buy-in from the Gulf states. I mean, they would have to effectively ditch the United States. States, which I think is going to be an impossible. I think so. I think so. I mean, the Saudis, NBS, who one should never trust, not as far as one can throw him. Anyway,

a major Saudi official spoke about how Saudi Arabia has been let down by the US, that it isn't provided the protection that the Saudis and the other Gulf states expected that it's time for them to look for new protectors. To me, I have to say, that looks more like a message to the Americans than a sign that they're really buying into the Chinese. I mean, that's how it looks. I think they want to destroy Iran. The Saudis and UAE, I think they're...

Yeah, absolutely. They want this war to continue to destroy Iran. Absolutely. The trouble with that is destroying Iran is proving Iran is proving far more difficult than they believed than they'd assumed. The United States has proved less effective in achieving it than they expected. And there are reports now that all of these countries are now starting to not just look to their reserves to keep their cash flows going, but they're now starting to borrow

the very many, very high net worth individuals that are to be founded. in these countries. But that's already an interesting sign, and it does suggest that the pressure is on. My own personal view, and maybe I should just make clear what I think is going to happen. I do think any of this diplomat,

diplomacy is going to lead anywhere. I think there's a high chance, we will see, a resumption of the war next week. I think there is a very, very good chance that this is going to drag on for months and maybe even years. I think that's going to have a major impact.

on the global economy. The only thing that could change that is if the United States does find some way to deal a knockout blow. But at the moment, that looks very unlikely. I don't know. What would a knockout blow even be? Well, I don't know. They've already removed one leader after another. And you have Trump talking about everything's been obliterated, but it hasn't. Everything's gotten underground. I mean, I don't even know what a knockout blow. would be in this case. But I suspect that this is still what they're, the group which is in the ascendant in Washington, which includes Trump himself, by the way.

That's what they're trying to find at the moment. The single thing that is finally going to knock out Iraq. What would be a continued military, what would be the continuation of, of the military part to this war with more continued airstrikes, eventually you're going to have to get to boots on the ground. And there are rumors, our reports saying that the United States used these two weeks in order to prepare for the boots on the ground operation. This is what some reports are saying.

I'm not saying this is what the two weeks ceasefire was really all about. But eventually, if this is going to drag on, it just can't be an air campaign. Eventually, you're going to have to get to the conventional part of this. Again, let me go back to what I think is the most authoritative report of all, which is the one that was published by the Russian Security Council. I mean, which to repeat again, is clearly based on high-level intelligence assessments. I mean, this is not, you know, media speculation or rumor or anything of that kind. The Russians are clearly talking there about the fact that the intensification of the war, that the United States may be planning, is going to involve ground operations, boots on the ground. That is what it says.

I mean, not so much a renewed aerial campaign. The problem with boots on the ground, well, we've talked about this many times, it also carries enormous risks. And we did recently this program with Jim Webb, in which Jim Webb discussed the rescue mission near Isfahan for the navigator, the heavy aircraft losses that the United States experienced over the course of that operation. It suggests that the Iranians are indeed able to counterground operations. So I also believe that that is more likely than a return to airstrikes or a missile campaign. The problem is that it might also prove, well, not just unsuccessful, but a failure. And of course, a failure of a ground operation by the US military. I mean, the political implications of that are simply awesome.

And how the United States, how the American people, other American political class, how the leadership of the American military would react to something like that. I mean, it's very difficult to imagine it or to guess what it would be in advance of it happening. All right. We'll end the video there. The durand.com. We're on X-Rond Rumble. We're on Telegram.

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