The Duran Podcast - US-Iran talks, objective remains regime change

Episode Date: February 7, 2026

US-Iran talks, objective remains regime change

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the negotiations taking place in Oman between the United States and Iran, Wittkoff and Kushner, with the foreign minister of Iran, Araqqi, and his team. They were supposed to take place in Turkey. Then it looked like the talks were going to be canceled. Then the talks were back on again. Iran asked for a change in the venue, and they got it. The United States wanted the discussion. to focus on a list of demands that they had. Iran wanted the discussions to be focused more on or exclusively on the uranium enrichment nuclear issue. We ended up getting the meeting. It looks like if you go off of the reports that the meeting was very, very quick and not much came out of it. At least that's what the reports are claiming. There are, Some reports which claim that the United States, one of the demands, additional demand that the United States threw at Iran, was that they stopped providing oil to China, which is quite revealing. But your thoughts on these talks taking place. Yeah, I think you described it very well. I mean, the talks, the talks have been held because over the last week, there's been intense activity, intense pushback.

from Russia, but even more from regional countries, the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, to try to avoid a conflict between the United States and Iran. And Israel this time, for its own reasons, is holding back from direct involvement, at least for the moment. In fact, Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has actually said that back in December, at the end of December, the Russians broke at a deal, a private deal. It's not a formal agreement, but a private deal between the Iranians and the Israelis that neither would attack the other if the other didn't attack first. So that was the deal that was done. So in effect, the Americans at the moment are on their own and everybody, apart probably from the Israelis action, were telling them to stop. So they stopped.

And we've had this meeting. There's been this push to get this meeting in Oman. Well, the Americans wanted it to be in Turkey. Erdogan wanted it to be in Turkey. The Iranians who very understandably don't trust Odawan, remember they were on opposite sides in the Syrian War, and Turkey is a member of NATO. Anyway, the Iranians said, no, not Turkey.

We're not prepared to go there. We wanted to be held in Oman, where we have very good relations with the government there and with Oman altogether. The Americans eventually agreed to have it in Oman. They didn't want to originally. Then the Americans wanted to bring in all sorts of other topics, ballistic missiles, especially. The Iranians said it must be only about nuclear enrichment and nuclear weapons. There are the same proposals floating.

around, which were floating around in the first half of last year, and which we discussed extensively at that time, and which could be the basis of an agreement, that Iran, instead of enriching uranium by itself, join a consortium of regional states, including the Saudis and the Egyptians and others, that they all enrich the uranium together, that the Russians participate. There's been reports that the Russians have offered that Rosatom should actually be there, present, directly involved in the enrichment program in Iran itself. Whatever enrichment goes on in Iran, it should take place there. The Russians have also said that they're prepared to look after Iran's enrichment stoppile,

though they're careful to say it will continue to be Iranian. There are all of these plans and all of those proposals. And if there was goodwill, if there was a real intention to seek a compromise, a compromise, I have no doubt at all, could be found and found very quickly. The problem is, as we know well, the American, objective in Iran is not an end to nuclear enrichment. It is regime change. And that makes any real negotiation, any serious negotiation, all but impossible. And that probably explains why the meeting today didn't last very long and appears to have failed. And of course, the United States trying to dictate

Iran's oil exports, trying to deprive China of the benefit. of Iran's oil exports. Isn't this very like what the Americans did with Venezuela, essentially taking control of Venezuela's oil exports? It looks as if at some level they want to do the same with Iran. And of course, the Iranians are saying that. Yeah, the JCPOA, Alexander. The JCPOA and Trump walked away from it.

The goal is, yeah, the goal is regime change. We've been saying this for a while. There are even reports which claim that Kushner is requesting the help of various Iranian business people, business leaders in the United States or in the West so that they can start exploring what a government, an alternative government in Iran would look like should the regime collapse. Yes. Why is Kushner at these talks? Why is Whitkoff at these talks? Why are they going to all of these, they're covering everything these guys. What's going on with Rubio and the State Department?

What are they doing? He's busy being the viceroy of Venezuela. They're busy blockading Cuba. Exactly. My bad. But I mean, there was a very good article actually. Well, I don't have been a good article. It was an interesting article in foreign policy, which is one of the big heavyweight magazines.

that exists in the United States covering foreign policy and foreign affairs and international relations. Very much of an American point of view, very much, by the way, mostly from a neocom point of view as well. Anyway, foreign policy said that for this administration, is business, seeking business opportunities. That is the most important priority. So, you know, the idea is overthrow the government of Iran, and then you move into Iran, and you make lots and lots of money then. I mean, that's basically what it seems to be about. It's the same as Russia, by the way.

Whitgolf is having meetings with Dimitriyev. These are going on, even alongside all of the other negotiations, the ones supposedly to end the Ukraine war and all of that. But, I mean, it's all about doing, cutting business deals with the Russians making money in Russia and that sort of thing. So this is really what it's about, I suspect, more than anything else. And that's probably why Kushner is there, because you're absolutely right. He is not a diplomat.

He is not somebody with a background in diplomacy. He did manage to get the Abraham Accords signed off by some of the Gulf states. But we see that in actual geopolitical terms, there's been almost no difference. What he's really trying to do is to open up these countries for American business. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it's not difficult to get the Gulf states on board with U.S. initiatives like the Abraham Accords because the United States pretty much controls those Gulf states.

I mean, it's not really difficult diplomatic negotiations there. It's the United States dictating its terms to these Gulf states. Exactly. I mean, it's not real negotiations. Exactly. Yeah, Kushner at these talks with Iran is just completely bizarre. Wikoff as well. I mean, you know, Wikov has done a good job, I guess you could say, at least opening up dialogue

with Russia. Yeah. From where Biden had left it, which was, you know, four years of just nothing. Yes. So okay, you know, Wikov broke the ice, I guess you could say. But, I mean, eventually you've got to start bringing in professional diplomats. You've got to bring in the Department of State. The same holds true for Russia as well.

I mean, eventually, if you are serious about talks, you're going to have to bring in the foreign ministry. And the same holds for Iran. I mean, you have the foreign minister of Iran. It seems to me that Arachi is a very, a very capable, accomplished diplomat and foreign minister. And he's in talks with Koff and Kushner. He should be in talks with Rubio. I mean, that would be the proper way to go about this.

If these were serious negotiations. Yes. Well, they're not serious negotiations because the objective is to set demands, to set demands which Iran can never agree to in order to prepare the ground for some kind of military operation that is going to result, as they hope, in regime change, in Iran. Whether they have really worked it through, whether they actually understand some of the complexities and risks, I really don't know. I get the sense that they don't actually. They don't, apparently Kushner and Witgolf don't pay much attention to intelligence reports. They think

they understand the intelligence, they have a better understanding of the other things that are really going on than the intelligence agencies do. They're not always wrong about that, by that, by the way. True. So, I'm going to this. But anyway, I gather they don't spend much time with that. They are not on good terms with the professional diplomats in the State Department. The professional diplomats in the safe state department anyway are mostly the products of the Georgetown Neocom.

They're neocons. That's the problem. Exactly. So I mean, we're not going to see very much come out of that world anyway. So, you know, we are basically in these very strange negotiations, which ultimately, I'm not going to lead anywhere, which is the truth of the negotiations with the Russians. And which, in the case of Iran, aren't even really negotiations at all. Yeah, that's the problem that the United States has. It doesn't have any capable diplomats.

And it doesn't have diplomats that are capable diplomats that are not neocon, warmonger hawks. Exactly. This is the problem. Exactly. Right? We are getting messages that claim that the United States now is back on military footing. Yeah.

With Iran, get out of Iran now. You're sending warning messages. Do you think this is a Trump bluff? Or are we going to get military action soon? Well, sooner or later, one way or the other, this week, next week, today or tomorrow, there will be military action. This is where this conflict is heading. We've been talking about this ever since the June war.

Up to the moment when the June war last year happened, there did seem to me to be a real possibility that there might be some kind of diplomatic settlement. with Iran. The Russians were doing their thing. Some of the Arab states were doing their thing. The Iranians themselves were keen and interested in negotiations. The June war showed that the real objective was regime change. And regime change was not achieved during the June war. Regime change was not achieved as a result of the January protests. But regime change continues to be, the objective, and sooner or later, one way or the other, the war will come. All right, we will end the video there.

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