The Duran Podcast - The Iran War at a Crossroads

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

The Iran War at a Crossroads

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening in the war in Iran. The Trump administration still cannot get its objectives clear. We can't get its messaging sorted out. It's not, at least my sense of things, is that it's not doing particularly well in this war. And Iran continues to fight on. Yes. And that is the problem that Trump has. He was hoping for a quick victory, a quick regime change, and instead he is getting bombed down in Iran.

And we had an incident where a K-C-135, a tanker was, an airline tanker was shot down. Friendly fire is what Sentcom is saying. We have J.P. Morgan talking about boots on the ground if Trump wants to achieve any kind of regime change and they're signaling a long war. We have AI Netanyahu's allegedly, allegedly. And now everyone in the UK media and the U.S. media, Bloomberg included, they're blaming it all on Russia. What's going on with this war? That Trump is now labeling an excursion, Alexander, it's an excursion. It's not an operation or a war anymore, which is terrible messaging. It is terrible messaging.

It is becoming an extended war of attrition, which is exactly what we on the Duran and others, it must be said, warned that it would be. We pointed out many times in many programs. programs that in order for there to be a swift war, there needed to be a political collapse in Iran. There is no sign of a political collapse in Iran. Israeli intelligence officials are apparently, well, have said to the Guardian newspaper in London that they see no sign of an imminent collapse in the political system in Iran.

Apparently the US intelligence community is saying the same. All the evidence is that the political system in Iran is solidifying and consolidating. So the result is a war of attrition, which you're absolutely correctly said. It means that the United States, the administration, is now bogged down in a long war with all of the enormous economic repercussions that we've discussed in many programs, the Straits of Hormuz remains closed. The Iranians continue to launch their drones and their missiles. The ability to deter those is limited. There's a lot of talk about strategic bombers flying over Iran dropping gravity bombs and how decisive that is going to be. Of course, there have been many wars where bombers have flown and dropped gravity bombs. And they have not made a They have not achieved a decisive outcome to the war. And to repeat again a point we have made in many, many programs, this is an enormous country with a huge population. The United States has a finite number of bombers. It probably can only risk a small number anyway. It's probably exaggerated to say that Iran has no air defense to speak of at all. I'm sure they do have some air defense. offence, this is not going well. At least all of the appearances, all, everything that we are

seeing, suggests that it is not going well. And that is why the messaging from the administration is so confused, whether they're going to break the blockade of the Straits of Hormuz, whether they're not going to break the blockade of the Straits of Hormuz, whether they sunk all the mine-laying ships, or whether they haven't sunk all the mine-laying ships, whether victory has already been achieved, which is what Trump said, or whether, you know, there's still more fighting to do. I mean, they haven't worked out their messaging,

obviously because this war isn't going according to plan. And the other thing is they can't decide, or so it seems to me, on whether to seek an off-ramp. and what that off-ramp would be. And of course, the risk they run is that the longer they leave it before they make that decision, the more humiliating an off-ramp is going to look. Well, the more they wait to get an off-ramp, to take an off-ramp, if that is really what they're trying to do, the more they get sucked in.

Yes. And the harder it becomes to take an off-ramp. Right? I mean, the Financial Times is reporting that the U.S. has burned through years of munitions. Yes. The CENTCOM is trying to tell us that whatever planes have been shot down. I believe that that have crashed, I believe we're talking about five or six, let's say, four, five, six, that this is all friendly fire. I don't think anyone really believes that Trump continues to say that, that, that, you know, that all the leaders have been killed, Iran's leaders,

that their military has been extinguished, there's no navy, there's no army. Well, then how is Iran fighting? How are they sending missiles into Dubai? I saw images, confirmed images, of missiles hitting the financial centers in Dubai. How are they doing this if their military has been exhausted? I see interviews every day and statements every day

from Larenjani, from Arachi, from Bezeshkian. Hamene issued his first statement. Allegedly, we got the first statement from Hamene. And he said that Iran's going to continue to fight, and he said the Straits of Hormuz will remain closed. Besant is talking about escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz, most likely by the end of the month. Is that the plan?

We hear plans about special ops going into Iran. and removing the uranium. Fox News is even starting to put together the narrative. It's buried in some mountain called pickaxe or something, something along those lines. You can see that they're starting to create the story behind some sort of special operation, which will remove the uranium. Is that what they're thinking? Remove the uranium or say that you've removed the uranium and then you can exit this conflict. will Iran let you exit this conflict?

And was it part of the plan, Alexander, for the U.S. Treasury and Scott Besson to announce that they're going to lift sanctions on Russian oil temporarily? I mean, is that a signal that everything is going well? Is this part of Trump's 10D chess? I mean, all the signals point to chaos and confusion from the Trump White House. It does appear to be as if, and it's incredible to say this and to think this, but it seems the plan was a weekend bombing, collapsing Iran, assassinating the leadership, decapitating the leadership, and then you get a regime change. Yes. And then come Monday when the market's open, everything is back to normal. And Trump is declaring victory.

It seems like that was the plan. And they did not really come home. up with a plan B or C or D or anything. And they're just kind of making it up as we go along. Well, indeed. I mean, all of these plans, one after the other, I mean, they look increasingly. I mean, I could have to say, they look harebrained to me. I mean, talking, let's discuss briefly, just discuss very briefly, this idea of sending

a special forces group to take the enriched uranium out of Iran or to destroy it or do something of that kind with it. Well, putting aside whether that is even possible at all, I mean, if you're going to carry up this kind of covert operation, do you discuss it all, add enormous detail on Fox News so that the Iranians know all about it in advance? I mean, it makes absolutely no sense. I mean, it's narrative spinning. And I have to say that this talk about conducting escorts of tankers through the Straits of Hormuz

looks to me more like rhetoric to calm the markets than any actual worked-out plan because the U.S. Navy doesn't seem to be keen to do it. And Chris Wright, who was the other person, the energy secretary, who said that they might do it by the end of this month, along with Besson. I mean, notice that neither of these two people are military people. I mean, they probably wanted to happen by the end of this month because they could see what's happening in the energy markets. But, you know, if this really was the plan,

would it not be the military? Who would they putting together the plan and giving us some steers that this is going to be done? And, you know, we're not seeing it. from the military. The whole thing is exactly what he said. It does not suggest to me this plan is going well. Now, perhaps it's less important for some people, but it's worth saying that what this war is now doing is that it is consuming the entire political energy, such as it is, of the Trump administration. I mean, it is now becoming the main thing that they have to cope with.

Officials now probably don't have much time for anything else, like developing a tariff policy or an economic policy or a tax policy or anything of that kind. They must now be thinking all the time about how to deal with this war and how to cope with the political aftershocks of it. So that is one thing. And, of course, if this was intended to put the United States in a stronger geopolitical position relative to his rivals, China and Russia, well, bogging the United States down in a prolonged crisis in the Middle East, in an indefinite war with Iran, obviously does the opposite. it. And of course, depleting America's military and weapons stockpiles doesn't make America stronger, objectively. It makes it weak. Yeah, you know it's going bad when they resort to Russia did it.

Of course. Right? Blame Russia, because Russia's providing the intel and the targeting. Exactly. Yeah. It's all over the place. I mean, in London now, it is the major. story that we're not really fighting Iran at all, we're fighting the Russians. Right. Because Russia wasn't really fighting Ukraine. It was fighting 40 countries, all of NATO, including the United States. That is, that is the truth. But not only with targeting and

Intel, but with weapons and with mercenaries, and with 300 billion coming from the US and 250 billion coming from the EU. Anyway, we've done a million videos on the conflict in Ukraine. You would, if you were planning this war out, if you were the United States and Israel, of course, you would expect China and Russia to be providing some sort of satellite and intel. I mean, that's a given, right? Well, absolutely.

Just like you would expect the Straits of Hormuz to be closed. Or that Iran would try to close the state. Straits of Hermes. I mean, if you were planning this thing out, I imagine that those would be two of the most obvious things that you would plan for. Of course. I am going to make a guess, I'm going to anticipate, that in fact there were plenty of warnings from all sorts of people within the American defense and intelligence system who pointed these very obvious facts out, that one of the things that the Iranians would do, provided they survive the first.

day, which closed the Straits of Hormuz, attack all the bases, and that the Russians and the Chinese would become involved. After all, we discussed it all on our programs. Others have done so as well. I mean, it didn't need genius to see it. It was obvious that the Russians of the Chinese and the Iranians would respond in these kind of ways. So what I suspect happened is that Trump and the people around it, the small group of people who were pushing this, the neocons and all their friends, Lindsay Graham, Mike Wolves, all of those people. They didn't want to listen to all of this. They believed their own propaganda that Iran was weak, that the government was there,

was clinging on with its fingernails, that the Iranian people longed for its overthrow. It was presumably heresy to actually suggest, are there? amongst this group to suggest that the government might actually withstand the blow. So they shut all of this country information and all of these warnings out. And when I say they, obviously, I include the president himself. Yeah, absolutely. He appointed these people. He put them in the positions where they are.

And at the end of the day, he listened to all these. people. Where is Gabbard? She's disappeared. She's disappeared. Vance has disappeared. Yes. We heard him in the, he gave a couple, he made a couple of statements in the opening days of the conflict. But he's been, he's been gone now for 10 days. Yes. I haven't heard from Vance. Maybe he has made some statements and I just didn't pick them up. But he's nowhere. Where are the U.S.'s allies? Where is the coalition of the willing and the Europeans and the Atlantic Partnership. Where are all of these guys?

French troops actually got hit in Iraq. Yes. And one French soldier died. And, you know, I read Macron's statement. I did not get the sense that Macron is looking to get involved in this war, even with what happened with his soldiers. You didn't get the sense that he was saying, okay, now we're going to jump in. I didn't get, I don't know, maybe you got that sense from his statement.

No, I did absolutely not get the sense. The UK is not jumping in. Maloney's not jumping in. Scorski from Poland said, this is not our fight. No, exactly. Yes. I mean, they on the contrary, are horrified because they didn't want the war in the Middle East. They wanted the U.S. to focus on their war, which is the project Ukraine and all that.

That is what they care about. In fact, and I get to say it, I mean, not actually in articles, but on three, of articles in the British media, there's all of the usual people out there saying that, you know, this war is being fought because Trump and Putin has some understanding with each other and that this is Trump's way of weakening Ukraine. And this proves the collusion between the two. I mean, there is that zany idea floating around again. In other words, the collusion narrative is being revived because the United States is unable to

fight this war that the Europeans really care of. about, which is the one in Ukraine. And the British care about it, which is the one in Ukraine. So they are not happy about this war in the Middle East. And absolutely, they are nowhere. And by the way, that should tell Americans something about their so-called allies, because their allies want to use the Americans. They want the Americans to be there when they insert troops into Ukraine, when European troops are sent into Ukraine. They want the Americans to be providing backstops and security guarantees and all of those things. They want the Americans to be there ready to fight for them when the Russians come. But when America gets into trouble,

these same people who want the United States to come to their rescue so that they can fulfill their geopolitical objectives, those people are nowhere to be seen. Yeah, well, Calus did sanction Iran. So there you go. Of course. There you go. Of course. Calus places sanctions on Iran.

No. Where are we heading with this, Alexander? What's your sense of Iran? They're now actually putting together some sort of a framework for demands, requirements that they're going to make of the United States in order to end this conflict. Yes. There are various bullet points that are floating around the media statements from Iranian officials. I don't get the sense that Iran is quite.

put together their official demands of the United States in order to bring this war to an end. But we are getting a sense as to what they're looking for. The Trump administration, they have nothing. Israel has nothing. The messaging, the objectives, the strategy, it's all over the place. No one knows what is going on. Trump is talking about ending eight wars, and this is going to be the nine. Ninth war that he ends. He's talking about excursions. He's talking about winning. We won.

He's talking about how this is going to be a short-term war. And then he says it's going to last as long as I want and I'm going to choose the leader. It's all over the place. So where are we heading with this? Sooner or later, and I think this is inevitably the way it's going to end. There's going to have to be a negotiation, a new negotiation. And because, I mean, we mustn't overlook the fact that Iran itself is being hammered. I mean, we've discussed how wrong this is going for the US, but of course, Iran is now absorbing an enormous amount of damage. And sooner or later, in one forum or of another, even the Iranians will want to come back to some kind of, um, you know, more stable, peaceful life so they can stop putting things together again and finding a way forward for their country, at least one would assume so. So there is going to be a negotiation. The US will want to stop. They will want to disentangle themselves from this. The trouble is that the entire balance of advantage in this negotiation has flipped completely.

Before the war began, it was the United States, which was the stronger party, demanding concessions, major concessions of Iran. This time round, it's going to be the opposite. It will be the Iranians who will be demanding the concessions and who will be making the demands. And it's going to be very, very difficult for the US to agree to them. And one can guess what these demands are going to be. I mean, some of them, sanctions or sanctions lifted. Iran allowed to enrich uranium, Massachusetts. Perhaps within the framework of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty,

though who even knows about that. Security systems in the Gulf states, all kinds of things of this kind, all but impossible demands politically for the US to accept at this present time. But, of course, the longer it goes on, the greater the pressure, what is impossible and unacceptable. Today might start to be at least, when I might say acceptable, but you have to at least start considering it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow as the pressure on you grows. And I still can't bring myself to believe that the Iranians will get all or even most of what they want, but they will get an awful lot.

And the world will see it as a defeat for the United States. What if, my final question, what if the U.S. can't give that? What if they refuse to all, to all negotiations, to any, any, any, any, uh, demands or concessions or, or negotiation points that Iran puts out there? What if, uh, the Trump administration says no? What if the people around Trump and the people above Trump tell Trump, no way. You got us in this mess and now you're going to stick it out or, or this is our last chance where they tell the Trump administration and the Trump administration says,

Israel as well, they say this is our last chance to try and affect regime change in Iran. If we don't do it now, we're never going to have this window of opportunity again to remove the regime and to create an Iran that we control or to break up Iran, which is what they're thinking. There's no doubt about it that they're thinking this is our only chance. And people like Lindsey Graham are saying, we've come so far. We finally got the war. This is what Lindsay Graham is saying. We finally got the war.

We're not going to back out now. So what if the policy, the administration says, forget about diplomacy, forget about negotiations, forget about an off-ramp, boots on the ground, ships in Hormuz, false flags, false flags, very possible. We need to figure out ways to escalate. We need to figure out ways to get the American people on board and to get their support.

We need to figure out ways to get our allies, our vassals, to support us. We need to get ways to get the Kurds involved, to get Turkey involved. We need to expand this thing. What if we go that route? Which is exactly, by the way, the kind of route that the United States followed in Vietnam. Because again, the North Vietnamese made demands that the United States could not accept. The United States escalated. They intensified the bombing.

They continued the war, the ground war. They expanded the war massively across Indochina. And of course, it deepened the quagmire, as people started to call it. There was concerns about what was called a credibility gap, because more and more people in the US began to question everything and anything that the US government was saying. And of course, the United States still lost. It eventually lost completely.

It didn't just lose in Vietnam, but it lost throughout Indochina. And there was a major political crisis in the United States. Watergate, by the way, is centrally connected. to the events that I've just described. I mean, one of the reasons for Watergate was that the Nixon administration was starting to do more and more things that were unconstitutional and illegal in order to prosecute the war, like secretly bombing Laos, for example. I'm not going to rehearse the whole history.

But anyway, so a major, major political crisis in the United States. and, of course, a major economic crisis. And here I want to just say something which perhaps people have not really understood this. There's a great misunderstanding about the energy shock of 1973 and its connection to inflation. The point is that there was already a huge buildup of inflation in the United States before the 1973 war. What happened in 1973 was that oil prices quadrupled

in order to catch up with the already rapid underlying growth of inflation. And that, of course, the quadrupling of oil prices then caused inflation to spiral upward still further. So the war itself, the spending needed to sustain the war because, of course, again, in Vietnam, you have the burnout of equipment that we see today. Of course, we're talking about a different industrial landscape, but the burnout of equipment, all of that started to create increasing inflationary pressures in the United States.

It will be a different type of economic crisis this time, but there will be an economic crisis as well, because the administration, any American administration, will not want to risk in the middle of an unpopular war taking the kind of austerity measures that are needed in order to prosecute financially, fiscally, a war of this kind responsibly. So that's where we are heading, if they do choose the path of escalation. And I am afraid you're absolutely right. And I would add also that what also happened was that in, I think it was 1974, the United States in the Paris negotiations faced with all this enormous buildup of pressure, was obliged to accept the original Vietnamese demands, which in 1968 it had considered unacceptable. A final question. What if the Trump administration, actually two questions to end the video.

this will end the video. Do you think that the Trump administration has something up their sleeve in order to get the regime change? That's question number one. Maybe something that we're missing, something that we don't see. And question number two, what would happen to U.S. President Trump, his administration? Not Israel, not the United States and Israel, not the U.S. military and the Israeli military, the Trump administration.

If he just said, you know what, we got comments. We destroyed a lot of their missiles. We're leaving. We're done. As simple as that, if you just announced that. Yes. We're done. We went.

We destroyed missiles. We got the leadership. Now we're leaving. Without even asking Iran. I mean, not even asking Iran, who cares about their demands. None of it. We just route. Yes.

That is absolutely the route they should follow. They would still, I think, be able to package it. And there would still be a constituency of people in the United States who would stick with them and who would accept that. I mean, most of the world, many people in the most of people in the United States might see through it. But in politics, you don't need to keep everybody on some. you only need to keep enough people on side to keep the show going. And that undoubtedly, unquestionably, is what the administration should do. I mean, that is what they should do.

If they don't do it now, if they embark on this process of escalation, exactly like Lyndon Johnson administration did in the city. then what will happen is that the Lyndon Johnson administration, which had a very ambitious domestic program, could completely consume by the war. The same will happen to the Trump administration. The Lyndon Johnson's electoral base, the Democratic Party base split exactly as the Republican base is already starting to show some signs of dealing. I know that there are. opinion polls out there, which claim the opposite, but look at who is speaking out, the kind of people who are speaking out against the war. And of course, Robert Barnes warned us

to be very, very careful about some of the opinion polls. I have no doubt at all that the base is starting to split. Can you just remind me of the first part of your question? The first part of my question was, are we missing something? Does Trump have something? up his sleeve, does the US have something up their sleeve for a quick victory? Yeah, that is actually, well, it's possible. It's possible that there is something going on beneath the surface that we are unaware of, that they are still in contact with some general or rather in Tehran or some people within the IRGC, that some kind of quiet negotiation is underway.

or that they've worked out where the latest Supreme Leader is. Who knows? With every day that passes, that looks less and less likely. So today, as of the making of this program, I think we cannot exclude completely the possibility that they do still have. some unknown ace up their sleeve, some magical way upon blocking the Gulf of Hormuz, for example, or of sending special forces into Iran and seizing the uranium there. There may be something like that that we are not aware of and we don't know about.

But with every day that passes, I have to say that seems less and less plausible. And already it's bad if there is this ace of the sleeve, the two weeks into this war, that ace has not been placed. I agree. Just wanted to throw that out there. Okay, we'll end the video there at the durand.com. We are on X rumble and telegram. Go to Durant Shop, pick up some merch. And also check us out on Substack.

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