The ever-widening conflict also sucked in Beirut in Lebanon as Israel was hunting Hezbollah targets even as US President Donald Trump talked up the amount of ammunition his country has and how that would help pound Iran for four to five weeks “if necessary”
The escalation of the US-Israel war on Iran into a much wider open regional war with Iran retaliating to the point of indiscriminately hitting civilian targets in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Manama too has led to the crossing of so many red lines that we must fear where this needless conflagration is heading and whether there will be a cessation of hostilities anytime soon.
The ever-widening conflict also sucked in Beirut in Lebanon as Israel was hunting Hezbollah targets even as US President Donald Trump talked up the amount of ammunition his country has and how that would help pound Iran for four to five weeks “if necessary”. Even then, his administration remains vague about the immediate scenarios, on the battlefield and in what shape the replacement government in Tehran will take.
The death of its ‘Supreme Leader’ may have pushed Iran beyond the point of no return as it aimed its projectiles right across the region, including in a strike on a refinery in Saudi Arabia belonging to its biggest oil extractor and refiner. Uncaring of where its relationship with its neighbouring Islamic countries may be going, Iran seems hell-bent on revenge even as it takes more intense hits to over 130 cities from two attackers in the USA and Israel.
The merest straw of hope to clutch at was heard in the offer of talks by some members of Iran’s new leadership, including Mr Ali Larijani, who were keen to speak with the US President, according to Mr Trump’s remarks to an American magazine. Meanwhile, the missiles and drones are streaking across the skies of the Middle East, enveloping the region in more deadly rounds of explosive firepower.
Oil prices have surged 13 per cent since the weekend strikes, while stock markets are plunging, and countries are scrambling to ensure supplies as the Strait of Hormuz which sees the movement of an average of 20 million barrels a day being closed by Iran. People are stranded worldwide as the airspace over Middle Eastern hubs has been closed while airports like the world’s busiest in Dubai have been shut.
As a pointless war, avowedly over Iran’s crazy ambition to own nuclear bombs as well as its stockpile of missiles and relatively inexpensive kamikaze drones, rages and spreads, India’s first response has been to sympathise with the UAE over the dastardly attacks on its two major cities as conveyed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the UAE president Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. With the situation so complex in a war that started with an attack on Iran, sympathy for all those suffering, including the Iranian people, may have been the better option.
Leaving aside formally mourning the death of a despotic figure in Ali Khamenei, not to acknowledge that the original cause of the war was a brazen breach of international law and sovereignty and look only at the welfare and safety of the diaspora working in the Gulf, was an extremely narrow view of ties with nations of the region, especially as India’s relationship with Iran, based on mutual interests, has served both nations well.
