US will not achieve major successes in Iran in the near term: Oleg Blokhin

Oleg Blokhin, a Russian military expert, commented to Alpha News on the likelihood of an escalation of the conflict around Iran amid statements by the United States. In the expert’s view, the probability of a new phase of the conflict beginning is high. At the same time, he does not expect significant results from possible US military action in the near term, noting that the Iranian regime remains resilient even after losing a number of leaders and commanders.

“The conflict is more likely to escalate than not. The Americans have drawn some conclusions; clearly, during this time they have been building up forces and preparing. And clearly, on the periphery they have somehow stirred up, supported and at the same time prepared groups that will now pull Iran in different directions to distract it. So in all likelihood the conflict will most probably start, although there could be a miracle and they might somehow manage to reach an agreement. But most likely it will start, as always, with bombing, and then there will probably be an attempt to work on the ground in some way. If it is US forces, then presumably there may be a seizure of an island or several islands. And on land, from the direction of Iraq, they will try to operate, only not at the beginning and not with their own forces, but with the forces of groups they have managed to prepare by that time,” Blokhin said.

The expert believes that Trump will not achieve his goals in Iran any time soon, since that would require a ground operation or an internal uprising, and there are no preconditions for either at present.

“The US has had simply insane ammunition consumption. They haven’t particularly increased their troop presence. What could put an end to it and fulfill all of the US’s goals is either a ground operation or an internal uprising, and neither is foreseen yet. The Iranian regime has so far shown its viability. Despite the deaths of leaders and commanders, they are calmly making up for the losses as usual and continuing to operate normally. They had also contained the protests before that.

And a great many people, even those who were against the regime, sided with it because the US acted not very wisely when it started simply smashing everything to pieces. People were killed, and clearly the US certainly won’t be praised for such reckless bombing. So in the near term, there will certainly be no major achievements there. In the long term, they can only count on Iran being hit by some kind of economic crisis or collapse. And that is when internal protests might become possible. But counting on that is a dubious bet. Iran has long lived this way and, in principle, has the immunity not to buckle under it,” Oleg Blokhin concluded.