TEHRAN, July 22. /TASS/. Washington will use the proposed ten-day Iran-US ceasefire to plan a ground operation, so Tehran should reject the initiative, Iranian political scientist and international affairs expert Ruhollah Modabber has told TASS.

The Axios portal reported on July 21 that Qatar, Egypt, Pakistan and other mediators have submitted a ten-day ceasefire proposal to the United States and Iran. The portal said US President Donald Trump’s administration was examining it.

"This ceasefire is just another American decoy. In other words, the United States plans to use a new trick to deceive Iran’s [negotiating] team and government," the expert said.

In his view, the US plan to launch a ground attack on Iran from multiple directions is almost ready, and the option is being considered seriously.

Modabber believes that the ten-day ceasefire period will enable the US to arrange logistical routes and redeploy troops without worrying about a potential Iranian attack against its targets.

"Therefore, the so-called ten-day ceasefire has no other purpose but to deceive Tehran and to lay the groundwork for a US attack on a broader scale," he said.

Countries of the Persian Gulf who have US military bases on their territory are particularly interested in the success of the initiative, especially after the Iranian armed forces delivered a series of highly effective strikes on US military infrastructure in Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait, the expert added.

The latest escalation of the US-Iran conflict began on July 8. For the first time since the signing of the memorandum between Washington and Tehran, the US launched several series of strikes on the territory of the Islamic Republic, allegedly in response to the attack on a merchant ship in the Strait of Hormuz. On the same day, US President Donald Trump ended the ceasefire with Iran. As part of its retaliatory actions, Tehran began striking US facilities in the Middle East, including Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman.