Hezbollah chief: Chance of US-Iran war down by 99%, Trump’s strategy failed

The likelihood of war between the United States and Iran has decreased by 99 percent, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah claimed Monday.

Nasrallah said regional actors had been preparing for such an eventuality but that it had become far less likely.

He credited “a change in the positions of some Gulf countries, in addition to the steadfastness of Iran after [US President Donald] Trump’s exit from the [2015] nuclear agreement.”

Nasrallah added that “strategic observers in America and Israel confirm that Trump’s strategy failed… the war on Iran is gone, Trump’s strategy has failed, and Iran has emerged strong.”

He claimed his terror group was currently at peak strength, and denied Israeli and American assertions it was trying to create a land corridor through which to smuggle Iranian missiles to Lebanon via Iraq and Syria.

“This is a false American claim. In truth, we have so many missiles here in Lebanon that we don’t know where to put them,” he said.

Members of Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terror group carry the coffin of their fellow comrades, who were killed in Israeli strikes in Syria, during the funeral in the Ghobeiry neighborhood of southern Beirut on August 26, 2019. (AFP)

Tensions have been high over the past year following the US pullout from the nuclear accord, with Washington reimposing crippling sanctions and Tehran gradually reneging on its commitments under the deal. The collapse of the nuclear deal coincided with a tense summer of mysterious attacks on oil tankers and Saudi oil facilities that the US blamed on Iran. Tehran denied the allegation, though it did seize oil tankers and shot down a US military surveillance drone.

Washington nearly responded with military strikes to the drone’s downing, but Trump called off the attacks at the last minute, saying hundreds would have potentially died.

Over the summer, Nasrallah warned that Israel would be drawn into any war between the US and Iran and could be “wiped out” in such a conflict.

Two F/A-18E Super Hornets launch from the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Mediterranean Sea while the ship travels to the Persian Gulf, April 25, 2019. (US Navy/Matt Herbst)

“Iran is able to bombard Israel with ferocity and force,” Nasrallah said in a July interview broadcast on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.

“When the Americans understand that this war could wipe out Israel, they will reconsider,” Nasrallah said.

Nasrallah said his Iran-backed group had significantly improved its military capabilities since the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. “Our weapons have been developed in both quality and quantity, we have precision missiles and drones,” he said then.