By Mehdi Mohammadi
In recent days, the enemy has promoted fears of a ground invasion of southern Iran and the occupation of parts of its territory. However, the reality on the ground appears to be different. The United States and Israel are not pursuing a medium-term territorial campaign. Rather, their objective is to extend the conflict deep into the country through targeted assassinations of senior officials, the instigation of urban unrest, and attacks on critical infrastructure. At the same time, developments over the past 48 hours have demonstrated that the cost of such adventures would be extremely high for them across the entire region.
Cognitive Warfare: More Important Than Military Warfare
In this conflict, words function like bullets, and their victims may lose resilience without a single drop of blood being spilled. Anyone inside the country who, knowingly or unknowingly, fuels internal divisions effectively becomes part of the enemy's war machine. Whether reformist or conservative, anyone who projects an image of Iran as divided and weak contributes to national harm.
The Strait of Hormuz: The Central Battleground
The enemy has devoted considerable effort to breaking Iran's dominance over the Strait of Hormuz but has reached a dead end. Narratives about a ground operation in southern Iran are, in large part, a psychological tactic. According to this perspective, the realities are as follows:
Strikes on bridges and tunnels have had little lasting effect, with transportation routes reportedly restored within a day.
Any attempt to land forces in southern Iran would effectively expose American troops to Iranian military operations. The experiences referred to as "Operation Dasht-e Mahyar" and "Second Tabas" are presented as evidence of this claim.
Achieving control over the Strait of Hormuz would require occupying the entire coastline from Khuzestan to Chabahar, along with all the islands in the area—an undertaking that, according to the author, even an army three times the size of the U.S. military could not accomplish.
The Enemy's Main Tactic: Frightening the People of Southern Iran
The purpose of this scenario, the author argues, is to create fear and provoke emotional reactions among the residents of Bushehr, Hormozgan, and Khuzestan. By encouraging people to flee their cities and crowd the highways, the aim would be to disrupt the country's social order. However, the people of southern Iran—described here as courageous and resilient—are portrayed as unlikely to fall for this form of cognitive warfare.
Strategic Conclusion
According to the author, Iran's enduring control over the Strait of Hormuz is an asset comparable to, or even more valuable than, nuclear weapons, as it represents influence over global energy markets, high technology, artificial intelligence, and international supply chains. Now more than ever, the author contends, national unity and avoiding signals of internal division are the key to preventing adversaries from extending the conflict deeper into Iran and to safeguarding what is described as a historic strategic achievement.
The article concludes by asserting that if the enemy were ever to attempt landing ground forces on Iranian territory, it would face what the author describes as the greatest defeat in the history of the U.S. military.
