The Duran Podcast - US-Iran talks or certain military clash

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

US-Iran talks or certain military clash

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Iran. What are your thoughts as to what is happening in Iran? It looks like the government is starting to get a handle on these protesters or insurgents or whatever they are. It started off as a protest over inflation and economic matters. And as was the case with Syria, it does remind me of Syria around 2010 when you had similar types of protests. and then they were infiltrated, and you ended up with the conflict, and this would eventually brought us to the regime change of Assad many, many years later. So that's what Iran reminds me of in a way, but what do you think about everything that is happening in Iran?

You're absolutely right, and it reminded me of the same thing, and I followed the protests in Syria very, very closely. So the parallels are indeed extremely strong. So there's a number of things to say. Firstly, there are two aspects of this. and they go alongside each other. And that makes it, I think, more complicated, more difficult in some ways to get a clear understanding of what is going on. Firstly, there is the internal problems within Iran, the economic and social problems that exist there, that have existed there for a long time, and which in some ways, in my opinion, the government of President Peskian has aggravated, though I don't want to give the impression, you know,

that I'm throwing everything on him. Iran has never managed to run its economy in a particularly efficient and orderly way. You get problems with the currency. It fluctuates wildly. Issues of inflation exist. That does create stresses for many people. And of course, there are sanctions and the sanctions are very tough and a country like Iran obviously is going to be affected, badly affected economically by the sanctions. But, and I have to say this, I think an Iranian government that ran the affairs of Iran properly and well and had a more orderly and consistent approach to economic policy would nonetheless have managed to handle the situation better. Iran is a very big country. It has large economic resources. It's basically

self-sufficient in energy and food. It's got a large and fairly sophisticated industrial base. Even despite the sanctions, you should not be getting this constant economic instability that you see in Iran. So I think that this has been a problem. It's a longstanding problem. It's not new to the current situation. But I think President Pezschkian came in with a team of so-called reformers. They've carried out all kinds of economic changes. They tried to liberalize the economy in some ways. They've done it, I think, in a tremendous hurry. They've not always thought it through well. The previous chair of the central bank, I think, did not fully understand some of the things that he was doing. The result is that we saw the currency collapse, we've seen a surge in inflation,

we see protests connected with all of that. That is completely understandable, and it is an internal problem. So that is one thing, but it's happening within an overarching framework of a campaign that has been ongoing for some time, but which intensified with the, the war, the short war, the 12-day war, that took place in June to try to destabilize and overthrow the Iranian government. So if you go back to what happened during the 12-day war, and again, it's strange in some ways how people have still misunderstand the 12-day war. The 12-day war was not about Iran's nuclear enrichment program. That was the problem. That was the pretext for the war. If you look at what happened, especially on the first day, it was clearly

an attempt to achieve regime change in Iran. You remember, it was the political leadership, Pezestan himself, other officials, senior civilian officials in the Iranian government, Hameh himself, as the Israelis have admitted, and the top military and security leadership, that were targeted on the first day, and many of them were killed. It was an attempted decapitation strike with the intention of provoking an internal crisis in Iran and the collapse of the political system there. As we know, it failed. The Iranians were indeed caught by surprise, which is itself astonishing, but we'll talk about

that in a moment, but they were caught by surprise. Many of their people were killed. But the political system itself survived. The very top people, Hamaday, Peziscan, the others came through alive. There were no defections from the government, despite attempts to try to get people to defect and to flee. They were getting telephone calls and messages telling them to flee, but they didn't. The government reconstituted itself, went back on the attack.

It started to strike back at Israel, in particular. and eventually after 12 days, the Israelis who were starting to suffer serious damage called for a seized fire, and the Iranians, after some internal discussion, agreed. Now, that left the whole situation in between Iran and Israel, between Iran and the United States, unresolved, because the regime, I use the word regime. Some people don't like, always like using that word, but we're talking about a regime change operation. So I think it's easier in that context to understand that from an American and Israeli point

of view, this is a regime. That left the regime in place. Regime change was not achieved and given the entire direction of American, Israeli and European policy towards Iran, which remains implacably hostile and is still committed to achieving regime change there, it was inevitable that there would be more incidents, more attempts to destabilise the regime. So what happened is we got protests caused by the very real economic stresses that have taken place in Iran. And at the same time, some people, Iran, the Israelis, the Americans have many, many agents in Iran. They tried to use these protests. They tried to

catapult a crisis against the government in Iran using those protests. And we saw that happen. So the original protests were by business people, by people within the Iranian bazaar, and then, starting from last week, the protests became increasingly violent. There were attacks on police stations. There were attacks on agencies of the government. It's exactly the same of what happened in Syria in 2011. But here is where I think the difference is, because Iran is a much bigger country than Syria. It is a much more sophisticated country than Syria. The population is better educated. The security services are far larger and better organized.

And they are much more loyal to the government. And I think that the Iranians did get help from their Chinese and Russian friends, the internet blackout that was imposed on Thursday, which is the day when the crisis, and the violence peaked, suggests to me that they were getting help from their friends in the bricks. They imposed the internet block out. The security services started to take action. They brought the protests under control, apparently by Friday. The whole situation was destabilizing. So for the moment at least, the government is still there.

There is still the economic problems which remain unresolved. And that does create an internal fragility. But the government is still there. It is still in control. The agenda for regime change remains unchanged. And we see again the rhetoric coming out of the United States and out of not just the United States, but many countries, including in Britain, by the way, trying to find some means to exploit the protests, to try to justify a further attempt, perhaps through military

action to change the regime. Yeah, the UK is on board with regime change. Ursula also posted on X about regime change, pretty much about regime change. That was her point in her post. Mertz is talking about the same stuff. The protesters need to be protected and should be allowed to protest. And basically they're all on board. All of the collective West lackeys are on board with regime change in Iran while Trump is going

after Greenland, which I find very ironic. But anyway, the whole deal with Pesdashkan is interesting because, If the United States really wanted to deal with Iran, to talk with Iran, and to find some sort of solution with Iran, whether it be the nuclear weapons, uranium enrichment, or anything else for that matter, Petrus Ghan's your guy. You know, he is, he's very Western friendly. I'm not going to say Western oriented, but he is very Western friendly. and he's the guy that you want. If you're the Western, you really want to engage in diplomacy, then Bejuskan is very much open to that. So why not engage with Pejerskan? Why not use diplomacy?

Why do you have to go through a military or regime change a policy in order to affect change in Iran? You've got a president there who has said many times that he's ready and willing to talk. and we know that he is very friendly to the West, or very open at least to discuss whatever needs to be talked with the West. He is committed to a policy of reopening to the West beyond anything that you would probably imagine. I mean, remember, he was targeting. He was specifically targeted on the first day of the 12-day war.

He's had all of that. And nonetheless, in spite of that, he still seems to be completely committed to this policy. He's one of these many people in Iran, and there are many, many people in Iran, particularly in the middle class neighborhoods of Iran and other cities. And Iran, by the way, has a very large middle class who still see the future of Iran as making up with the West. So he's there. And he's within the regime.

the president of the country. He is the person who is in overall control of economic policy and much of domestic policy. Absolutely, if you wanted to do a deal with somebody, you could do a deal with him. The trouble is this is never the way the neocons, and we are always talking about the neocons. It is never the way they think. Neocons are not about a sense. establishing good relations with the country, sorting out whatever problems exist. Neocons are always about regime change because for them it is all or nothing. What they want is not a friendly government or a government in Tehran with which they can have friendly relations.

What the neocons ultimately always want is control. And Beziskan, coming from within a system, which will always, if it survives, seek to preserve independence in the United States, and which has itself managed to develop close relations with China and Russia and make Iran a member of the bricks, Beziscan can never deliver to the neocons what they want. Now, they have their own great hope at the moment, which is the former crown prince of the monarchy. They're building him up. They are getting their people on the ground to wave the old monarchist flag. They arranged the stunt in London where, you know, the flag of the Islamic Republic was knocked down

and the monarchist flag was put in its place. Now, the previous, the Shah of Iran, the father of this man, was, of course, not just an ally of the United States. He was a complete ally of the United States. I mean, he was an absolutely loyal, I mean, loyal to the extreme figure. And of course, if they are able to lever this person in and get him in control, well, they imagine that they can return to that happy situation, happy from their point of view. that existed before the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

So that tells you what those people's agenda is. And of course, the neocons are not identical with the government of Israel, which has its own objectives. But remember, the Shah of Iran had good relations with Israel, he had diplomatic relations with Israel. He worked quite closely with Israelis on many things, as you would expect of a friend, a close friend and ally of the United States. So again, one gets the sense that the Israelis are saying to themselves, and if the neocons want this person,

Mr. Bakhlavi back and want to restore him to the peacock throne in Tehran, well, we're perfectly happy with that. Probably, because we are probably much better informed about the realities of the situation in Iran, we know that this is. completely unrealistic. But if that's what the Americans, the neocons want, well, we're perfectly happy to play along, so long as the existing regime is overthrown. Maybe what would actually happen would be that there would be a systemic crisis in Iran.

Maybe the whole country would collapse, but we're fine with that. Yeah, no one likes Bakhlavi. in Iran, that is. No one. No. He has zero support. So why would anyone think that this is the guy that you're going to put in power when no one supports him? And he even admitted the other day to Fox News that he hasn't been in Iran since 1978. What could he possibly know about Iran, this guy? So I mean, the whole thing's a farce. It's ridiculous. And he comes off looking very ridiculous, that guy. But anyway, the whole thing with Iran started actually in Trump's first term when you think about it. He pulled out of the JCPOA. And the JCPOA was working. Everyone accepts that the JCPOA was working, including the collective West partners, the Europeans that were involved in the JCPOA. They all accept that it was working. And it was Trump that pulled out of the JCPOA. And that's how we are, where we are. He got the ball rolling in his first term. So obviously, this project of regime change in Iran goes way, way.

back. Yes. And Trump started the current course of regime change for Iran. And here we are with protests now. And these were tense protests. These were serious protests. You know, the government for a certain amount of time for a couple of days or even a couple of weeks was in trouble. I mean, they weren't getting on top of it. And that speaks a lot to the Iraq. in government and to possess Chiyan. Now it looks like they are on top of it. I agree with you, it does look like the BRICS countries helped out. So Trump is now signaling that Iran wants to talk. Perhaps they do. I don't doubt it. I imagine that they have reached out to the United States and are ready to talk. That is what he said when he was on Air Force One. But of course,

He also says that if Iran goes after the protesters, then he's going to attack Iran, to hit Iran very hard. Of course, he qualifies it by saying that at the moment, I've not seen Iran go after protesters, or at least I've not seen the death that the going after protests that would prompt me to go after Iran. Most of the protesters that I've seen killed are from the stampedes. So he kind of, he leaves himself a way out for the moment by saying most of what we've seen the violence is from the stampede and not actual the Iran regime going after the protesters. So he says stuff like that.

It's classic Trump, right? It's classic, you know, carrot and stick, leave himself with a way out in case he doesn't go through with military action. But you have the Wall Street Journal talking about how the Trump administration is exploring their options for military action. And you have Trump saying that they want to negotiate with the United States because Trump is a great negotiator. So, I mean, where does this leave us? More trickery is Trump going to pull back for now?

Will the neocons eventually convince them to go ahead with a strike? Are we looking at some sort of a false flag against the protesters, which would compel Trump to go after Iran? Where do you see the situation? I personally think that sooner or later in some form were rather an attack on Iran. Iran is going to come. And I mean a military attack on Iran. If they cannot destabilize the government internally, they will try to attack Iran externally. And all of this talk about wanting to do a deal with Iran and all of that, we should be extremely careful because of course that was what was going on before the 12th day war. There was a lot of talk, if you remember, of the United States

negotiating with Iran. There were successful. successful meetings between Arachi and Witkoff. There was talk that the Russians might be involved. In fact, Trump himself floated in an interview he gave on Air Force One, that the Russians would be involved. And the Russians were prepared to help, and did him very apparently help. So there was an awful lot of that going on, and there was supposed to be a meeting between Arachi and Witkoff in Oman.

And it all turned out to be a deception. and in fact it was all arranged so that the Iranians were deceived and it was all of the political leadership, the military leadership, were out there in the open. So on the first day of the 12-day war, the Israelis were able to come after them. So we've got to be very careful. And I think that Donald Trump, he talks about negotiations and doing deals,

but it's always been clear to me that he loaths the government in Iran and does indeed want to see it overthrown. And sooner or later, I think we're going to come to that. However, there is disorganization and dissonance on both sides. If we talk about Iran, the Iranian political system has a kind of structural chaos about it that makes it extremely difficult to read. I mean, the security services, the Iranian security services can be quite thorough and efficient in some respects, and they are utterly hopeless in others. So we see assassinations take place in Iran on a regular basis. We see the Iranian authorities unable to get control of that. We saw a whole succession of assassinations take place in 2024, for example. No real science. that the Iranian government was able to do that. You remember the head of Hamas was killed in a building on the day that Pezishkan was supposed to be inaugur, what was inaugurated, president. And we've seen

other people assassinated in Iran as well. So, I mean, the government has never had that kind of thorough control over its internal security. And to add to the diplomatic confusion. There is always dissonance within the government itself between people who are much more hardline and who say, why are we wasting time with the Americans? Why are we bothering to negotiate with them? The Americans are obviously hostile. The Israelis are obviously hostile. We must commit fully to the bricks. We must work to build up our forces and other people like Pezestrian who do want to negotiate and who do want to reach out to the Americans and to the Europeans. and who do reflect, and this it must be again said, do reflect a very strong current within

wider Iranian society. So there is dissonance on the Iranian side, which makes it difficult for the Iranians themselves to develop a coherent and consistent policy. And on the American side, I suspect that again there are two things at play. Firstly, I get increasingly the sense that a lot of the decisions are being taken by a very, very small, tight-knit group of people. Radcliffe, Trump himself, Heggseth, maybe outliers like Pompeo, assuming there's any contacts between him and Trump himself, which I'm not. I don't know that there is. Whereas others like perhaps J.D. Vance and even more so Tulsi Gabbard, who is supposed to be director of national intelligence, are completely locked out.

They're completely out in the cult. So when that sort of thing happens, when you see cliques developing within the US government that are carrying out policy, that always almost automatically means that policy isn't properly structured. and properly thought through. And so you see this push for regime change that took place over the last two weeks. But none of the assets to carry it out the military assets that would be needed to conduct a conflict with Iran were there. The aircraft carriers are not there. The carry groups are not there.

The bases in the Gulf have not been put. on a war footing. So there's nothing, nothing is ready for that kind of kinetic assault. What I suspect will happen is that over the next few weeks, the Iranians, to the extent that they can, will start to try to organize themselves, because they must be aware that something is coming. And I suspect the Americans will start to organize themselves as well. I would not be surprised if at some point in a month or two we move back towards a confrontation. And of course, we could be seeing more protests, we could be seeing more violence. It's always possible to get this reactivated, though, of course, the protests and the violence that have occurred will have exposed more of the operatives who are.

located inside Iran and who are under the instructions to carry out these kind of protests. So we will see that. And I hear I do really want to say something, which is that those of us who've followed these events carefully, yourself, myself, myself, we've seen this play out before. We see the protests, we see the warnings about not doing bad things to the protesters. We see the extraordinary stories about hundreds or thousands of people killed, of wildly implausibly, vast estimates of numbers of people killed. We see that this is then used to delegitimize or to pretend that it delegitimizes the government. They did that with Yanukovych, they did that with Assad, they've done that with Gaddafi, they do it with all of these sort of

people, there's often talk about the fact that the leaders of the countries that have been targeted have gone insane or have lost their senses, that they've bloodthirsty psychopaths and all of that kind of thing. We could very well be seeing all of this narrative. The fact, we probably will see all of this narrative play out again. The attack comes. Sometimes the regime change happens. Nobody then ever goes back, looks, even as the Data afterwards comes through. We learned that the protests were never as big, never as violent. Far fewer people were killed than was being reported at the time, but this is never corrected.

And all the various other allegations about, well, a large-scale use of exotic weapons. And be careful in my choice of words, afterwards, it turns out that either that didn't happen or it didn't happen on anything like the scale that was alleged. I would urge people to be prepared for all of that. We could very well see this narrative play out all over again, and we should be ready for it. But to go back to your question, I have to say that despite Trump's words of restraint, I don't believe there's going to be a negotiation, even though Perez-Igand wants it. I think we're heading to a clash, and I think that clash will probably happen fairly soon.

The neocons always get their way. Absolutely. Unfortunately, okay, we'll end the video there at the durand.com. We're on X, we're on Rumble, we're on Telegram. Go to the Duran Shop, pick up some merch. The link is in the description box down below. Take care.