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Expert: Israel wants to draw the US and Iran into the war

Now it's total war and Nasrallah is dead, says Iran expert Rouzbeh Parsi. According to him, it can lead to the region's heavyweights – the USA and Iran – being forced into the war.

» Updated: September 29 2024

» Published: September 28 2024

Expert: Israel wants to draw the US and Iran into the war
Photo: Vahid Salemi/AP/TT

Rouzbeh Parsi, program director at the Foreign Policy Institute's Middle East and North Africa program, is convinced that Hezbollah will respond to the Israeli attacks that killed leader Hassan Nasrallah.

But how Iran's involvement - which founded Hezbollah and has since financed the militia to strengthen its influence in the region - will look is difficult to say.

Iran will have to think about how much they can tolerate, says Parsi.

Testing Iran's Red Line

He means that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to get Iran to react in a way that makes the US have to act.

Most of what Israel has done this spring in relation to Iran has been to push Iran's red line. If you cross that line, Iran will respond, and then the Americans cannot stay out.

Iran could also back down and let Hezbollah take care of the retaliation itself, according to Parsi. A possibility that Isabell Schierenbeck, political scientist at the University of Gothenburg, also mentions.

They (Iran) are not interested in further escalation and a big war in the region, she says.

That Nasrallah, who has ruled Hezbollah for over 30 years, has now been killed is still considered a major victory for Israel and a setback for Hezbollah.

Hezbollah must now show a new leader very quickly and show that their military capacity is so intact that they can retaliate, says Rouzbeh Parsi.

Power Balance in Flux

Anders Persson, political scientist at Linnaeus University, describes the recent Israeli attacks as the country's greatest successes in war in many years.

The last ten days are Israel's greatest successes in war in 50 years. They have managed to inflict so much damage on Hezbollah, by killing the highest leader and very many under him, without Hezbollah having been particularly strong in return. Very few analysts believed that such a scenario was possible.

This is probably just the beginning of a long war.

With the death of the Hezbollah leader, the power balance in the region is also in flux, according to Persson.

The power balance in the Middle East between the US, Russia, and China is now in disarray. How strong will the Iranian alliance between Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas be after all this? All those questions are on the agenda.

What happens depends on how Hezbollah responds and how Israel and Iran act, emphasizes Isabell Schierenbeck.

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By TTThis article has been altered and translated by Sweden Herald

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