As recently as two weeks ago, I wrote that despite the US-Iran memorandum, it is not realistic to seek lasting peace in the Middle East. One of the reasons is that the US, as a superpower, will not want to retreat from its strategic goals and planned global thinking in this region. After all, isn’t the US attacking Israel for its “lovely eyes”? In fact, the interests of not only the US and Israel, but also other Persian Gulf countries coincided at this stage of time.
And Iran, as a regionally influential state, with its millennia-old traditions of statehood, cannot afford to retreat from its national interests and red lines easily and without a fight.
Along with all this, if we take into account that Israel, with its great lobbying abilities, continues to insist on the inadmissibility of Iran’s nuclear program, then the process of negotiations that have begun (to the extent that it is available) is still not encouraging.
The military strikes that started late last night are proof of that. The Americans bombed the military facilities located in the coastal areas of the Islamic Republic of Iran. President Trump announced on his social platform that they were a response to Iran’s attacks on commercial ships in the Persian Gulf yesterday. He also claimed that if the Iranians do not stop their actions, the consequences will be more severe. In response, Iran announced that the revenge will be terrible.
This is the kind of war-threatening “negotiations” going on in connection with the announced 60-day ceasefire.
Recently, I wrote on one occasion that the breath of Russia-NATO open war is already noticeable in the actions of a number of European countries. Conclusions should be drawn from the joint statements of the NATO summit held in Ankara and the subsequent process.
Analyzing the possibilities of resumption of existing conflicts and clashes of interrelated interests in the changing world, it is not excluded that the military developments in the Middle East region will have a wider escalation with a chain reaction.
God forbid, all this will come true in any way… And what will Armenia do, who will be the guarantor of our country’s security and neutrality? Europe, Russia, the USA, Turkey, Azerbaijan, or Pashinyan, who endlessly divides his own society and invents images of the internal “enemy”?
It is necessary to think seriously about all this, about the future of our country and people. Also keep in mind that we have Armenian communities in the above mentioned regions.
P.S.
I am sometimes told, maybe I am exaggerating the situation, and in fact there is nothing to seriously worry about. God forbid it be so.
I tell those people that 8 years ago, no one would have believed that we will be completely deprived of Artsakh and it will be de-Armenized. 7 years ago, no one would have believed that a war could break out between Russia and Ukraine. Today, that war has been going on for four and a half years and instead of ending, it may turn into a bigger conflict.
Nothing can be ruled out.
Former RA Deputy Minister of Defense Artak Zakaryan
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