The Duran Podcast - Sea Blockade Trap: How the US Got Locked Into Iran Conflict

Episode Date: April 25, 2026

Sea Blockade Trap: How the US Got Locked Into Iran Conflict

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening in the war in Iran. And we have constant extensions, it seems, of the ceasefire or of the negotiations. If we are even in negotiations, we still haven't been able to get both sides to sit at the table with one another since the one-day Pakistan meeting between Vance and Arachi and Galibaf. But Pakistan is still there trying to get them together. And Trump continues to talk military action one day, peace agreements the next day. And we're kind of in this holding pattern, I guess. Hormus is blockaded twice or Hormuz is blockaded by Iran, which does allow ships to pass through if they pay their fee to Iran.

But then you have the U.S. blockade of Iran in general, which also has some ships passing through. Other ships are told to turn back. And so here we are. We're in a very weird situation, I believe, right now with Iran. I've seen it described as an unstable equilibrium, and that is exactly what it is. But there's another way of looking at it, which is to say that nobody on either side knows how to win. this war or how to end this war. I mean, to the extent that it is a war, they've got themselves into a situation where they're

no longer shooting at each other. We're not seeing missile strikes and drone strikes take place. There's no ability, though, to conduct deep reconstruction because it's very, very unstable. So if you're talking about, say, the Persian Gulf states, they can do some repairs, but they can't do deep repairs to get all of their facilities back up and running. Because they know perfectly well that from one day to the next, another missile might come in, another drone strike might happen. And that keeps everybody very tense and very unsure. and we have an American blockade that from what I can tell is having only very limited effect. Most of the ships that the Iranians want to go through do go through.

And the Iranians say that they're getting the first receipts from their toll. It's that it's now reaching their budget. So they're starting to make some money out of this. But I doubt it's anywhere near enough, by the way, to make up for the actual damage that they have suffered. And of course, the Iranians can't take the war directly to the United States. They can't do greater damage physically on the United States that they've done. They can get the Houthis to close the Red Sea.

That, of course, compounds everything, but it doesn't defeat the United States in itself. Whereas the United States and Israel have conducted massive strikes against Iran, they've assassinated many of the leaders of Iran, they've tried to impose the sea blockade on Iran, but they too have not been able to bend Iran to their will or to break it. So neither side appears to have a plan for victory. I'm not sure that either side actually. has exactly a plan. I get the sense that in the United States, they're trying one thing after another and cannot decide really what to do in military terms. The Iranians, to the extent that they have a plan, it is basically to try to sit it out. And neither has a diplomatic strategy in place of a military plan to try to find a way to bring about peace.

So we have this very difficult, very unstable, very dangerous situation, which could spiral out of control at any time, which makes planning for people around the world in terms of economics, unbelievably difficult. And at the same time, energy prices are rising. And just to say something, I mean, you know, Iran also is paying an economic price for this. It's possible to keep people angry and mobilized when there is an actual war.

But I wonder how far this can continue when you have this kind of situation that we have at the moment of no war, no peace. So this seems to me as the situation today. How come the U.S. just doesn't lift the blockade? And then once they lift the blockade, my understanding is that it's as simple as just lifting the blockade, and then Iran will agree to sit down with the United States and Pakistan. And then effectively, you're going to get some sort of a JCPOA. It'll probably be a JCPOA that's worse for the United States than what Obama negotiated. But in the case of Trump, he could sell it as something better.

than what Obama had. And I believe that Trump's hardcore cult following will go with Trump. Yes. Then they'll believe that he's the master negotiator if he presents it in a certain way. Yeah. Okay, the rest of the world will see what has happened. But for Trump, it's, I guess, the best way for him to get out of this. Unequivocally, you're absolutely correct. The reason the United States, won't lift the sea blockade is twofold. Firstly, if they do lift the sea blockade, they admit that they have no military leverage over Iran. And that is incredibly difficult for them to do. I mean, it would be not just admitting that they have no military leverage over Iran, it would be admitting that they have no leverage over Iran whatsoever, because their only

leverage now is military. Their ability to put military pressure on Iran, if given that the missile strikes and the air strikes up to now have failed, given that the assassinations of Iranian leaders have not produced the outcome that was expected. The only thing they have going at the present time is the sea blockade. Take that away. And it's going to be increasingly difficult to argue that Iran, in some sense, in military terms, has actually come out the winner here. So that is one reason why they weren't doing it. But of course, there's also an obvious reason of face as well for the United States

to simply lift a sea blockade without getting any concessions from the Iranians is going to be very, very difficult. even maybe not for Trump, but for some of his followers. I mean, you know, he's important people. I may say followers. People like Lindsay Graham, people like Mike Wolves, people like Netanyahu in Israel. They will not be happy with it because they will say, well, if we're lifting the sea blockade, we are abandoning the entire strategy that we have been following towards Iran ever since

Trump was first elected president in 2016, we accept that the government in Iran is there to stay and that Iran is indeed going to remain a major political player in the Middle East. And that is something that they will be profoundly shocked by. Remember, Netanyahu went to Congress in August 2024. and told people in Congress, when the United States and Israel fight together, they win. That's facing up to the fact that that isn't true is going to be deeply shocking for all of these people. Isn't the sea blockade a way to lock the U.S. into a never-ending war with Iran, or at least until they get the regime change from Iran that Israel wants.

In other words, the sea blockade, how did Trump agree to this dumb idea of a sea blockade, right? It's a stupid idea. And I understand that there's an even bigger picture meaning to the blockade, which is to hurt China. But for this video, we're focusing on Iran, right? Yeah. And so it seems as if it's handcuffing, you know, the United States to, to the bedpost, right? You know, you're not going to leave. Yeah, you're not going to leave. We're

going to handcuff you here. And it doesn't allow the United States to get an off ramp with the war in Iran now because it's, as you said, they can't lift the blockade because then they look weak and stupid. But everyone knows that if you just lift this dumb blockade, you know, you're going to be at the table next day with Iran. And most likely you're going to get some sort of a JCPOA agreement. I mean, is the plan from certain parts of the White House and definitely from Israel to just keep the United States locked into this conflict and to maybe try and create this, the scenario, the dynamics for a situation very much akin to what happened in Syria

in that, you know, we'll wait six months, we'll wait six years, doesn't matter. Eventually, the opening will come up where we do get. that regime change. The Al Jolani guy will show up somewhere and that'll take us to the regime change. I think that is exactly what it is. By the way, I've heard that the proposer of the C blockade. I mean, I don't know that this is true, but I've heard that it was General Key. You know, this general regular. Yeah, I read that too. No, no, no, you're right. I believe it wasn't in a politico exclusive. You're right, Alexander. Yeah, Jack Keene. Jack Keene. Yeah. So this is the idea. Keep up the steep up the speed blockade. And you do,

The effect is exactly what you said. It's a sea blockade you cannot lift. So you keep it going indefinitely. And that locks the United States in a permanent confrontation with Iran. And again, the hope, the expectation is that sooner or later, in some way or other, Iran would break. They'll run out of oil. They'll run out of money.

Their allies, the Chinese and the Russians will become. tired of them. Something will happen. Some Jolani figure will appear, perhaps within the leadership, perhaps outside it, and that regime change that you've been longing for and wanting to see it achieved will finally happen. Better that than admit failure and acknowledge that you have lost, which is humiliating and unbearable. It is a very, very high-risk strategy. And the reason it's high-risk is twofold. Firstly, it has awesome economic consequences for the world. I mean, eventually, if we have an indefinite sea blockade, alternatives will be found. There will be more sources of oil discovered in other places. We'll have an acceleration towards

you know, other forms of generating electricity, other people will start producing helium and whatever. But that's going to take, you know, several years at the very least, probably much longer. So in the meantime, you're going to have a deep economic recession and crisis in the United States and the West, and that will eventually have political consequences. But because the other, The other risk is that maintaining a situation of unstable equilibrium indefinitely means that whichever side at any point feels that it is losing out, that the balance is starting to shift against them, whichever side that is, they may be tempted to start something and go for broke

because that's the only thing realistically they can do. And it's better to do that than capitulate to the other side. In the case of Iran, one thing they might do, just say, I'm saying they will, but they might restart their nuclear enrichment program, and they might this time take it further and go all the way. Just to end the video, CNN is claiming that the Trump, administration is now looking at targeted strikes into Iran. The three options that we're all familiar with, targeted strikes into Hormuz, so that they can somehow gain control of Hormuz

with military strikes. I haven't quite understood how that works exactly, but that's one of the options. Decapitation strikes against the IRGC is another option that they're looking at because they feel as if the IRGC is the group that's. that's impeding the deal from moving forward. And there's one more military option. Going after the power plants and the bridges and stuff like that, but they're worried about that operation because that could carry significant risk, including war crime consequences going forward.

So, yeah, that's what CNN is reporting. Yeah, the loss is not to be underestimated. I mean, there are legal inhibitions here. But beyond those, I think a major deterrent against going after power stations and that kind of thing is that the Iranians will retaliate against power stations and desalination plants and other things across the Middle East. And that we will be back into an enormous cycle of escalation, which could be very, very bad for the U.S., especially the Houthis and close the Red Sea. So I think that they will avoid doing that. About the IRGC, I think here again, the US is getting it wrong. I think they've worked, this whole story about moderates versus hardliners in Iran,

which I suspect began mostly as a disinformation exercise and disinformation propaganda exercise. As so often happens, is now starting. to gain life, and people who began it in that way are beginning to believe it themselves. I don't think the IRGC is quite the state within the state that runs the state that people imagine. It is, if you like, the professional arm of the Iranian armed forces. There's the major military, which works on a conscription system. And then there is the professional volunteer force, which basically is the IRGC. But I think that they are much more part of a single defense structure than people outside imagine. And I think my sense about Iran is that these civilians,

which in Iran means the clerical establishment, other people who retain ultimate control. So I think this is a misunderstanding again of the internal dynamics of Iranian politics. But, you know, I thought anyway that they'd already tried decapitation strikes against the IRGC. I'm not sure why they think more decapitation strikes against the IRGC are going to make any difference. And targeted strikes, well, what does that even mean now? So we go back to what we were talking about earlier in the program, which is that you try, one thing on and that doesn't work, try something else, and if that doesn't work, you try something else. And you're constantly looking for the magic key that's going to turn the lock

and it's going to deliver regime change before you see real problems or even, you know, visible problems, more visible problems in the global economy. I'm increasingly coming around to the view that that magic key does not exist and that every attempt to find one with these kind of experiments. It's just going to create more problems. All right. We will end the video there. The durand.com. We're our next. We're on Rumble. We're on Telegram. We are also on substack. So look for us there and go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch. The link is in the description box down below. Take care.