"I think we are heading towards escalation," Marandi told Sputnik. "It's not inevitable, but it looks like that's where we're going. And ultimately, if it escalates too much, then we can reach the stage where we have a regional war. But I think it will be a bit difficult for the Americans to move in that direction because a regional war would mean that American assets across the region will be targeted. And that means Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. It would not be a win for the United States. It would be a defeat."
"The United States is vulnerable across the board because the United States has illegally occupied one third of Syria," the Iranian professor said. "They are taking the oil and the wheat and exporting it. Their proxies are there to support them. So they're vulnerable in Syria. They're vulnerable in Iraq because there's a lot of outrage in Iraq and a lot of hostility in Iraq toward the United States. US bases and interests exist across the country. In Lebanon, obviously, if the United States gets involved, they have long-lasting interests there."
"I think escalation has stages," said the Iranian academic. "So already we're seeing intensified conflict a bit on the [Israeli] border with Lebanon. We've seen that over the last couple of days, the two sides have been hitting each other much harder. And of course, the Israeli regime is hurt much more than the Lebanese because they have much more infrastructure. They have much more to lose in this exchange. So their infrastructure is being targeted. Their soldiers are being targeted at a time when they are fighting a war in the south."
"The only thing that can end this is a ceasefire. Nothing else is acceptable. US aircraft carriers have no impact on the resistance. US nuclear submarines, they have no impact on the decision-making process. They are misleading themselves, the Americans, if they think otherwise. And that's a dangerous miscalculation. The only thing that is important is that the war in Gaza ends," Marandi concluded.