The Duran Podcast - US Tries To Take Hormuz Or Trump Takes Pickaxe Mountain Off Ramp

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

US Tries To Take Hormuz Or Trump Takes Pickaxe Mountain Off Ramp

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening in Iran. Axios, they put out an interesting article based off a short interview that they had with the U.S. President, where they claim that Trump is preparing, almost ready. He hasn't made up his mind quite yet, but he's almost ready to launch a big strike against Iran, a strike that according to Axios and according to Trump's own words will be much bigger than Epic Fury. Your thoughts on this escalation, as we have been predicting on this channel for quite some time, continues.

Yes, absolutely. And I think we have to take this seriously, by the way. I mean, Trump has made many claims that he's going to conduct massive strikes against Iran. And when the strikes happen, they always turn out to be rather less massive than we been led to expect. That doesn't mean they didn't do a huge amount of destruction and they don't kill people. They do all of those things. But they're never quite the knockout blow that we've been led to expect. But the problem is that whereas in February, March, early April, we did have some kind of diplomacy going on. The Pakistanis were acting as mediators. They were sending their

people to Iran. They were meeting with Iranian officials. They were sending messages to the Americans. The Americans were sending messages back. It was all very unsatisfactory. And we know that the result was in the end. Well, a failure, the MOU never really had any prospect, I think, looking back on succeeding. But anyway, there was at least the hope that there would be an end to the escalation cycle because we would find some kind of common ground and agreement between the parties. It doesn't look like we have anything like that going on. So given that this is so, what we're going to get instead, it seems to me, is a continued pattern of escalation from each side against the other.

And one of the big mistakes that the US and Israel, or so the US, I mean, you know, the administration, the neocons, all those people, and the Israelis have been making, is that they consistently up to now have underestimated the ability for escalation on the Iranian side. And so we will get this enormous strike from Trump. I am sure this will happen. We will probably get this big attack on pickax mountain eventually in some form. But that doesn't mean it's going to knock out Iran. And Iran will retaliate as well.

And Iran's retaliations will also be increasingly powerful as compared to what we have seen before. The entire war right now, and we're on 13 consecutive days of air strikes, the whole thing is about Hormuz. And we've said this on many videos. You've said this on your channel. I've said this on my channel for the United States. And this is the correct calculation. If you look at it from the U.S. military side of things, if you are going to defeat Iran, you have to gain control of Hormuz somehow.

Or at a minimum, you have to get the traffic moving through Hormuz. because that gives you the time that you need pushing the price of oil down for you to eventually execute on your regime change of Iran. So you have to have the price of all down. You have to get trade moving. That means that you have to figure out a way to get control of Hormuz or to get Iran to allow the ships to pass through Hormuz or to pass through the southern route of. of Oman without any fear that something's going to happen to those ships. As the U.S., that's your ultimate goal right now. And then once you accomplish that, then you can settle into the long war.

And we've talked about, and you've mentioned how Iran has identified this, and they understand this. And they don't want to end up in a long war. And they understand that Hormuz is their leverage. Yes. Right? So they're going to hold on to Hormuz, and they're going to fight for Hormuz. So when you look at the map of the airstrikes, they're concentrated on the southwestern part of Iran,

and they're concentrated along the coast and in the Hormuz area. Yes. So the U.S. is options, if you look at it, are maybe two or three options they have going forward, given that they're running very low on SPR and oil reserves. And the entire world doesn't have any oil reserves to throw at this problem in order to suppress the price of oil. Oil is already at 100. The tools to keep it under 100 have pretty much been exhausted from the previous war. If you're the United States, you're on a tight schedule.

The clock is ticking. So you either have to launch massive airstrikes and hope that Iran is going to consider. succeed or succumb, very unlikely. But maybe if you're the Trump administration, you say we're going to launch such massive devastation. And it has to be done quickly because, once again, the reserves, the price of all is rising and there's no reserves to keep it down. And we're going to hit an energy crisis. So you hope that these strikes can be so devastating that Iran says, okay, enough, we'll open up Hormuz or will give you control of Hormuz or whatever these guys are thinking, you, the other option is to launch airstrikes that opens up the way for ground

troops somehow. Yes. Whose ground troops, maybe U.S., maybe Kurds, maybe someone else's, who knows? You know they're talking about this in D.C. as well. Yes. But they can't figure that one out. No. Or you create an off ramp.

Yeah. Like pickax mounted. Yes. An off-ramp. We obliterate some mountain. We blow it up. Who knows? If the mountain exists, who knows if we blew it up? This is Trump's wheelhouse. He can sell this to the American people. No problem. And then you gain a couple of months to resupply, rearm, restock, and then go at it again. Yes. The other option is to agree to a deal and stick to it, which is impossible.

It is impossible. I mean, what do you think of those? Because I joke around about Pickax Mountain in my videos, and I always joke around and say it's very, very cinematic, right? Pickax Mountain, Pickax Mountain in Iran. Okay, Pickax Mountain. Let's call it that. And we're going to obliterate it like we did with Midnight Hammer.

And there's never been an obliteration like Pickax Mountain ever in the history of the entire world. It was the greatest military operation in all the world. So now that we've done that, we can back off for a couple of months. I mean, what do you think of all the options that I've laid out? I can't think of any options that that exist. Given the energy situation and the economic situation, which is on a tight schedule. The clock is ticking. I think you've set them out perfectly. I think you're absolutely correct. So you conduct massive strikes, see whether that works. You look at the possibility of a ground war. I have heard that there is now growing calls in Washington for a ground operation. Somebody, one of the think tank people told foreign policy,

one of these American magazines, that there is now increasing chatter in Washington about the need for some kind of ground operation. And make no mistake, if it happens, it'll be done by Americans. I mean, nobody else has any ability to conduct a ground operation against Iran. Nobody else will want to be involved in this. The third, as you rightly said, is attack pickax mountain. say that you've achieved some tremendous success, that you've obliterated Iran's remaining enriched uranium. As you said, it's cinematic. The pictures that we've seen of the mountain

are actually extraordinarily appropriate for this. I mean, it looks like a sort of pyramid, doesn't it? I mean, it's quite amazing to see. So it's almost made for a Hollywood movie. I mean, you could almost imagine, you know, like Luke Star Skywalker and attacking this thing. So you do that and then you pull back. But then, of course, you've still got the problem if you do that of what do the Iranians do

with the Strait of Hormuz. Now, if you are clever, you end your sea blockade. And the Iranians then impose their toll on the Strait of Hormuz because the Iranians have always said that, They will only keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and during periods of attack. And then, of course, people will pay more for sending ships through the Strait of Hormuz to the Iranians. And the Iranians will control both sea routes, the Oman route and the northern route, which is closer to their territory. But you will get oil moving and you will get oil moving through the Red Sea as well.

Right. And then it's humiliating, it's embarrassing, there's all of these problems, but that does give you time to get back, reorganize, retrench, rebuild your stoppiles, and then prepare for the next round. And the next round, the third round, I suspect will involve ground. Fourth round, fourth round, right. The fourth round round, will involve ground troops. because I can't see.

I can't see how else it can happen. So that could be the strategy. And this pickax mountain thing could be the clue to the direction that the United States is actually taking, that they're going to go for pickax mountain and then call a stop to the current military operations. get the oil moving again, get the price of oil down, hopefully start rebuilding the reserves this time, and move forward with preparations for the next big attack on Iran.

Now, that then puts the Iranians in a difficult position because they will understand all of this, but it may be very difficult for them to keep Hormuz closed if the Americans are no longer attacking and if they have pulled their forces back. And China won't like it, India won't like it. The Russians probably understand why the Iranians would do it, but they won't want to speak out against the Indians and the Chinese. So the Iranians are unlikely to be able to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed in that case. What they need to do is to develop further, closer economic and military tries with the Chinese and the Russians in preparation for the fourth round. But this is a conflict that is going to go on and on and on.

I mean, this is not going to end any time soon. Yeah, I mean, we'll see if those big airstrikes are launched and we'll see to what end. What's the goal of these airstrikes? What is it all about? And we'll see if there is some sort of a pickax mountain operation. Look, it's August. Sorry, we're coming into August. Yes.

Midterbs are in November. Yes. If Trump does something with pickax mountain around August, August, he has to basically buy, you know, three months. It's easy for Trump. Yes. That's easy for him to do. And, you know, you said that it would be a humiliation for Hormuz to be controlled by Iran. And Iran will have to open Hormuz if the U.S. pulls out after Pekax Mountain, which Trump will declare it as a military victory. So he'll sell Pekax Mountain as this big military victory for the United States.

The blockade is lifted. Hormuz has to be opened. The price of oil will come down. Things will stabilize. Three months is something that Trump can easily sell to the American people with regards to a military victory in round three of this conflict as they prepare for round four. I think ground troops, I just don't think the U.S. is ready

for that at this stage. They're going to need a round four or round five for ground troops. So, you know, maybe that is the calculation. Let's do something in August to buy us three months, get through the midterms, get through all that stuff. And then as we head into the new year, we can ramp up to round four. And they need to sell a big victory right now. And I think that gives it to them. Absolutely. Trump is good at that stuff. He's made for that stuff.

Absolutely. And the word is that he's going to go out on campaign again. That he's going to go out into the states and actually campaign as he used to do. And you can see that he can take that message with him. And he's very, nobody's better on campaign and selling these messages than Trump is. Yeah. So, you know, much of the world will understand that Iran controls Hormuz. They've got a fee or a toll.

Okay, but when Trump hits the campaign trail, he'll sell the victory of Pickax Mountain. Exactly. And that'll get him through the midterms. Yes. Maybe that's a plan. I mean, what he needs to do, what I think he wants to do with the midterms is hold on to the Senate. Yeah. If he can retain control of the Senate, the Republicans can.

retain their control of the Senate, which is starting to look as if it's possible, doable, then, as I said, I think you'll say to himself, I've avoided the worst. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Okay, we'll see what happens with these airstrikes. If it really does happen and we get big airstrikes. And if we get the pickax mountain operation as well, things will clear up then. Okay, we'll end the video there. The video there, the Durand.locals.com. We are on Rumble Telegram and X. We are also on Substack. Go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch, 25% off sale, summer sale. So check that out. And we will see everybody soon. Take care.