Israel may become the main obstacle to implementing the US-Iran agreement: Oleg Blokhin

Military expert Oleg Blokhin commented to Alpha News on the conclusion of a peace deal between the US and Iran.

“As for the realism and viability of the agreements about to be signed, we’ll be able to judge that in the next week or two. As practice shows, parties often don’t consider themselves bound to fulfill such agreements, and try to violate them, sometimes in small ways and sometimes not so small. The problem of viability and implementation here is further complicated by the fact that there isn’t one or two parties to the conflict, but several. On one side are Iran and the Shiite groups in Iraq that support Hezbollah in Lebanon. On the other side, if we look at the main players, are the US and Israel. While Iran and the pro-Iranian groups move within a single chain of command, the US and Israel could easily start out acting in the same direction and then split apart. Indeed, as soon as the US and Iran announced they were signing the agreement, senior Israeli officials immediately began declaring: ‘Wonderful, you’ve signed the agreement, but we didn’t sign onto it, and we will act at our own discretion, because we are not a banana republic.’ This was stated, in particular, by the head of one of Israel’s security services: ‘We are not a banana republic, we will act according to our own program.’ And what would that program be? Most likely, continued military action in Lebanon. And here a question arises. As we recall, ending the war in Lebanon was one of the conditions on the Iranian side: if you end the war in Lebanon and stop bombing Hezbollah positions and the neighborhoods where its supporters live, then we will sign the overall agreement. In other words, Lebanon was one of the key conditions of this agreement. It’s clear that if Israel violates these agreements, there will be no further truce. It’s clear that Iran, together with Hezbollah, will start responding. And a great deal depends here on the US: either it will indulge its strategic and main partner in the Middle East, Israel, or it will still demand compliance with the signed agreements,” Blokhin said.

According to the expert, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu needs continued conflict to resolve his internal problems.

“For Trump, this war has now become disadvantageous, in principle. He doesn’t see an end to it, and the result originally planned hasn’t been achieved. At the very least, he now needs to try to exit this war while saving face. And in this case, once this agreement is signed, the losing side turns out to be Israel, because its problems are essentially not resolved at all. It’s bogged down in Lebanon, it couldn’t do anything about Iran, and for Netanyahu this is a fairly serious problem, of which he already has more than enough. And with this final outcome, he’ll only end up with more of these problems. That’s why he needs the war to continue right now. That is precisely why the main obstacle to implementing the agreements signed, or expected to be signed, in Switzerland could turn out to be Israel itself, and, of course, the subsequent US reaction to its actions. So we’ll see,” Blokhin concluded.