AZE.US
The war with Iran has not ended. What the world is seeing now is only a pause, not a real settlement, Azerbaijani political commentator and head of the South Caucasus Politologists Club Ilgar Velizade said in an interview on the Echo Baku channel.
According to Velizade, the current reduction in hostilities does not mean the conflict has been exhausted. In his view, the sides have simply reached a point where continuing the same level of military action has become difficult for practical reasons. That, he argued, is why the fighting has slowed, not because the underlying dispute has been resolved.
Velizade said Iran has managed, at least for now, to avoid political collapse under pressure. He stopped short of calling it a victory, but said Tehran has shown it can endure and resist even under severe military and geopolitical strain. In his reading, that alone changes the meaning of the current phase of the war.
He was also skeptical about scenarios involving a dramatic escalation. Velizade argued that the idea of using nuclear weapons crosses a line that would be hard to justify even domestically, while a ground operation would be far more dangerous and complicated than many assume. Such a war, he suggested, would not just be fought against the Iranian state, but against a society likely to rally in the face of outside attack.
One of his central arguments was that external pressure may end up strengthening, not weakening, the Iranian system. Velizade said wars of this kind often consolidate governments rather than break them, especially when the public begins to see the country as the target of foreign aggression. That, he warned, may be exactly the opposite of what Iran’s adversaries intended.
He also pointed to wider geopolitical consequences. In his assessment, Russia benefits in part because global attention has shifted away from Ukraine, while China emerges in an even stronger position because it remains the only major power not directly entangled in a large-scale war. As others drain resources and political capital, Beijing, he argued, is quietly gaining weight.
Velizade devoted special attention to Azerbaijan’s position. He said Baku has chosen not to interfere in the conflict while openly expressing support for the Iranian people and providing humanitarian assistance. In his view, that is the posture of a responsible state: wars end eventually, but neighboring nations still have to live with one another afterward.
The broader conclusion from Velizade’s remarks was stark. The modern world, he suggested, is entering an era of wars that are much easier to start than to end. For countries in the region, that means the priority is not emotional alignment with one side or another, but strategic restraint and a clear understanding of the long-term consequences.