Op Epic Fury: The inmates are running the asylum

AMID the unprovoked and illegal attacks launched by the United States and Israel on the Islamic Republic of Iran on February 28, the rupee is falling, stock markets have crashed, oil prices have soared and there is a looming shortage of LNG and LPG. None of this is linked with the fiscal strategies of the Ministry of Finance or monetary policies of the Reserve Bank of India. And it comes in the wake of the chaos unleashed by US President Donald Trump’s tariff tantrums and the turbulence created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Welcome to a brave new world where geopolitics has become the new macroeconomics.

In Trump’s topsy-turvy Washington DC, there is a dense fog over the objectives of the attacks. Initially, the stated focus was on Iran’s nuclear programme. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi mediated several rounds of talks in Muscat that brought Iran and the US close to a final agreement. But the guns were locked and loaded, forcing the usually low-key Busaidi to make a desperate public plea. Give diplomacy a chance, he said, because Iran had finally agreed that it would not accumulate or stockpile any enriched uranium.

That didn’t prevent Israel and the US from launching a volley of strikes on the morning of February 28 to assassinate Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other senior members of the theocratic regime in Iran. Because neither President Trump nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could take Yes for an answer.

It wasn’t just the nuclear programme; it was also Iran’s missiles and launchers, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later clarified. No, the real problem was the regime itself, Trump asserted. Regime change? Surely Washington hadn’t already forgotten its disastrous experiments with regime change in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan? In Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s alleged nuclear weapons were never found but he was defeated, deposed and captured in 2003. The power vacuum created by the dismantling of the Ba’ath Party gave birth to the Islamic State and a host of other extremist groups. The Americans ended up with 37,000 casualties (dead or injured), a bill of $2.9 trillion and a battered and bruised country.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban paid the price for hosting Osama bin Laden in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. They were defeated and removed from power in 2001, only to triumphantly return to Kabul in 2021. The Americans suffered over 25,000 casualties and spent $2.3 trillion in the taxpayer-funded fiasco. In Libya, Muammar Qaddafi was taken down in 2011, but the country went through a destructive civil war and still remains cleaved into two antagonistic parts. Arms flowing into Libya have also fed into Islamist groups in the Sahel, leading to violent insurgencies in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Regime change has consequences.

Israel, though, has no such misgivings. Netanyahu is quite clear that his end goal is to get a friendly regime in place in Tehran. “This is what I have aspired for 40 years,” he crowed. Don’t miss this opportunity to take back your country, he told the Iranians. And unlike the Americans who were looking for a quick exit, Israel is quite prepared for a campaign that would last several weeks. The emerging script suggests that we are, once again, witnessing a case of an aggressive tail wagging a befuddled dog.

For the Iranians, who have been at the receiving end of an unpopular and repressive regime, it isn’t a question of simple binaries. Hating the theocratic regime doesn’t mean embracing the US and Israel. The Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) Operation Ajax in 1953 to remove then Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and install the Shah hasn’t been forgotten. Bombing a school in Minab and killing over 160 schoolgirls isn’t going to win hearts and minds in Iran. Nor will reports that the CIA is planning to arm the Kurdish minority to rise against Tehran. Having seen Iraq and Syria next door, they would also realise that even a bad government is better than having no government at all.

Iran’s own response to the bombings appears to have caught the US by surprise. The regime has survived the decapitation of its top leaders by pivoting to a collective leadership and a more decentralised command-and-control structure. They have managed to land some blows on US military bases in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. They have also hit airports, ports, hotels and energy infrastructure in each of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states and announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping traffic.

In lashing out at its Arab neighbours, Tehran appears to have reserved a special ire for the UAE, despatching over a thousand missiles and drones at Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Fujairah. Effective air defence systems have kept damage to a minimum, but Tehran clearly hopes that its attacks will force the rulers of Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia to use their special relationship with Trump and bring the war to an early halt.

That tactic might backfire. Abu Dhabi has formidable defence capabilities but has so far chosen to act with restraint, as have the other Gulf nations. This is not our war, they have maintained, even as they have asserted their right to respond to Iran’s aggression.

Over the last few years, the Gulf countries had worked assiduously to mend fences with Iran. They had actively opposed this war, not only for its potential to destabilise the region but also because a belligerent Israel had started to appear as a larger strategic threat than a weakened Iran. But Iran’s actions over the last six days have endangered their economic security and may even push some into joining the US-Israel coalition. It is a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Finally, spare a thought for Canadian PM Mark Carney’s spirited plea in Davos for a concert of middle powers to counter Trump’s unilateral violations of international law. The last week has shown Carney, along with the leaders of France, Germany, Australia, UK and even India, delicately tiptoeing around the debris of the rules-based order. Because the inmates in Washington DC are running the asylum. And nobody wants to mess with them.