Iran has won the war, decline of once-great US begins & why this wasn't Indian diplomacy’s finest hour : Navdeep Suri

The 39-day war in West Asia has been put on hold for two weeks in the wake of a US-Iran agreement brokered by Pakistan. In this inaugural episode of The Tribune Newsroom, India’s former ambassador to the UAE and Egypt Navdeep Suri spoke to The Tribune Editor-in-Chief Jyoti Malhotra and reporters in the Newsroom on the politics of the war, why US President Donald Trump escalated the crisis, the dilemmas of the Gulf states and who won.

Suri said it was a “privilege to be the very first guest for this inaugural edition”. He said The Tribune was associated with his growing-up in Amritsar and had been part of his consciousness for at least 50 years. “It's the paper everybody in our family would read, and I still read, every single day, the old-fashioned way in print, except when I'm travelling, and those are the times when I go online and check it out,” he said.

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW

I am with Navdeep Suri, India's former ambassador to Egypt and the UAE. Ambassador Suri was in Egypt from 2012 to 2015 and in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the Emirates, from 2016 to 2019. Ambassador Suri is an expert on the Arab world, of course, but also has served as India's ambassador in other parts of the world, including in Australia.

I'm Jyoti Malhotra with the Tribune, and this is the inaugural episode of #TheTribuneNewsroom, a brand new multi-media property of the Tribune newspaper. As you know, dear viewers, the Tribune is India's oldest daily newspaper, launched in 1881. We've just completed, celebrated 145 full years. Many of you have been reading the newspaper for years, if not decades. Now please do start watching us on our YouTube channel, subscribe to our website and tell us what you think about our work.

And this, as I said, is the inaugural episode of the Tribune newsroom, and today we have with us right here in the Tribune newsroom, Ambassador Navdeep Suri. Welcome so much, Ambassador, to the Tribune.

Navdeep Suri : Thank you very much, Jyoti. It's a pleasure to be here, and I must say it's a privilege to be the very first guest for this inaugural edition. The Tribune is associated with my growing up in Amritsar.

It's been part of our consciousness for at least 50 years. It's the paper that everybody in our family used to read, and I still read it every single day, the old-fashioned way in print, except when I'm travelling, and those are the times when I go online and check it out. Thank you so much.

Jyoti Malhotra : You're a son of Punjab, as we say. Your grandfather, Nanak Singhji, was a great poet, and a lot of people here remember him for that. But Ambassador, my first question to you is on the crisis in West Asia, the war between Iran, the U.S., and Israel.

Donald Trump, he's said and done many things these last many days, but overnight there has been a ceasefire for two weeks brokered by Pakistan and China and others. What are your first reactions to this ceasefire, this war that has gone on for 39 days?

Navdeep Suri : Thank God, or Alhamdulillah, as they say in the Arab world, because I think this has been one of the most pointless and most destructive conflicts in recent memory. It's also one that was the most blatantly illegal under any aspect of international law.

There was no UN cover. There was no legal sanction for U.S. and Israel to have attacked Iran the way they did on the 28th of February. And it's also equally illegal under the same provisions of international law for Iran to have attacked its neighbouring countries in the Gulf the way it has, or now to start asserting control over the Strait of Hormuz, which is an international waterway.

So at multiple levels, the last month and a bit, 39 days, have seen an utter and complete breakdown of whatever we thought was a rules-based international order, because the guys who were making the rules and trying to enforce them are the ones who have first broken them. And then we see other bits and pieces falling apart. So right now, I think what we have is a two-week ceasefire.

I hope it holds, because one key element of that ceasefire, which still remains under doubt, is that it also extends to Lebanon, according to what the Pakistani Prime Minister tweeted, but according to what Prime Minister Netanyahu from Israel has said, it does not apply to Lebanon. So I hope that does not become an excuse or a justification for bringing down the ceasefire, because I can tell you that the one country which is not happy with the ceasefire is Israel. I see.

So it's been 39 days, shall we say, exactly 39 days. On the 28th of February, Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader of Iran, was assassinated by an American missile. Who do you think, Ambassador Suri, who has won this conflict? At a very human level, there are usually no winners in a war.

At a political level or at a strategic level, I would say that despite all the battering that Iran has suffered, it's come out on top.

Jyoti Malhotra : You think Iran has won?

Navdeep Suri : I think Iran has won at a strategic level. And the reason I say that, is because the objectives that were articulated in a very muddled and confused way by President Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and others, at various points of time were, an end to Iran's nuclear programme, an end to Iran's missile programme and a regime change.

As of date, none of those key objectives has been achieved. The Islamic Republic is still intact, maybe under different leadership, but they're still very much there. The IRGC is still ruling the place. The nuclear stockpile of 440 kilogrammes of highly enriched uranium is still somewhere in Iran, and Iran is showing no intention of giving up on its missile or drone programmes.

On the other hand, there's been a fundamental change in status quo, which is that on the 27th of February, before the bombings began, the Strait of Hormuz was open to international traffic. It was an international waterway, which enabled free access to all. I think what has happened in the 39 days is even the Americans have implicitly acknowledged Iran's control over the strait.

And I think whatever transpires in the next two weeks as part of the negotiations, even for a country like ours, it's deeply worrying, if Iran puts in a toll gate and says $2 million per every ship transiting. Because at the end of the day, Indian consumers will pay the price for that.

So I think, from an Iranian perspective, they are today in a strategically stronger position and I think what they've been able to demonstrate quite unequivocally is that with the best of air power and military might, you can't fight geography. And at the end of the day, the political will of a nation, the resilience that it has displayed can overcome the most powerful military that the world has seen.

Not just the most powerful country in the world. Also with Israel alongside, which is certainly the most powerful country in the Middle East. So two of the most powerful armies coming at you day after day, 15,000 sorties and all of that, and yet Iran has come out of it.

So I think in my mind, there is no doubt that when you look back at this period, you will see some degree of resurgence in Iran, that we stood our ground. For them, survival is victory. I think you will also see, when you look back at this period as the point of time in history, is when the decline of a once great American civilisation and power began.

Jyoti Malhotra : You think it begins with this?

Navdeep Suri : I think it began in 2025 with all of Trump's erratic actions on Canada, on Greenland, on all of the other stuff that we've seen. But if there's a finite point, I think this will be the point where it was demonstrated that even the greatest superpower cannot enforce its will over a much weaker country. And that's how declines begin.

Jyoti Malhotra : But tell me, were you surprised, Ambassador? You've lived in Abu Dhabi, which is right across the Persian Gulf or the Strait of Hormuz, if you like. And in Abu Dhabi, as well as elsewhere in the Emirates, a lot of Iranian missiles or drones have impacted some of those places. Were you surprised that the Iranians took on the Americans in this way? And what, in your view, what are the Arabs going to do now? What next?

Navdeep Suri : Look, I think as far as the Gulf states are concerned, my understanding of the sequence of events is that in January, Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited most of the Gulf capitals and delivered a message that if the Americans and the Israelis attack us this time, then we will have no option but to hit at you.

Because frankly, from an Iranian perspective, the softer target is Dubai, not Tel Aviv. That's right. Tel Aviv is a hardened target. It's 2,000 kilometres away. It's protected by all sorts of air defence systems. Abu Dhabi and Dubai are next door. Right next door. And one of the advantages that Iranian drones have is they can skim over the water and not be picked up by radars. So they're much harder to stop when they're flying at that low altitude.

Jyoti Malhotra : So were you surprised?

Navdeep Suri : So firstly, the Iranians telegraphed their intent and told the Gulf countries, particularly Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia, which have very good relations with Trump, to use their influence in Washington and say, don't do this. The first wake up call for the Gulf countries was that despite their interceding with Trump, don't do this, Trump went ahead with the war anyway.

And that gold plated 747 aircraft from Qatar or the $1.2 trillion of investment promised by the Emiratis or the $800 billion of arms purchases by the Saudis, at the end of the day, all came to naught.

The difficult situation, and I think it's not even a dilemma, it was, in a sense, a trilemma for the Gulf states, or what they were left with, was that we certainly have the capacity -- both UAE and Saudis certainly have the air force capacity, top of the line aircraft, etc — so should we go enter this war or should we maintain this is not our war? Because if we enter, and this was the debate till yesterday, if we enter as there were indications that Saudis might or the Emiratis might, what if the Americans pull out as they indeed have? It leaves them high and dry against a large and angry neighbour. If they don't do anything, you are left with a wounded, but still capable Iran, still capable of inflicting substantial damage on you. Is that your preferred solution, or is your preferred solution the third part of the trilemma, that we want Iran weakened by constant bombardments of its infrastructure, of its industry, of its steel manufacturing, petrochemicals, everything to a point that it can no longer be a threat to the countries in the Gulf.

But then you risk that you have then one solitary power, which is Israel, which is both belligerent and expansionist. So which is the lesser evil for you? Is it a belligerent expansionist Israel or is it an unstable Iran willing to lash out at its neighbours? So there are no good choices for the Gulf Arabs and they find themselves in this position today.

Jyoti Malhotra : You've been a diplomat for 35 years or so, perhaps more, and you've served in the US. Were you, as an Indian diplomat, surprised that the Iranians actually took on the Americans, the world's largest military power?

Navdeep Suri : I think, yes, I have no hesitation in saying that even though we expected resistance from Iran, the effectiveness with which they deployed asymmetric warfare tactics, the sophistication with which they used their drones, the lessons that they learnt from having been bombed in June 2025 under Operation Midnight Hammer. Their reaction at that time was to send waves of 100, 200 projectiles and then see them neutralised. This time they've been far more judicious in how they used their drones and missiles.

They actually tried to weaken the air defence systems of the opponents and then strike at weaker targets. I also believe that they had some help from the Russians and Chinese, especially from the Russians in terms of GPS and satellite data that enabled them to do the kind of precision targeting that they did. You know, when they struck the world's largest natural gas processing facility in Qatar at Ras Lafan, which has 14 trains which produces the LNG, which is 20% of the world's supply…they struck only two of the 14 trains and those two are owned by partly by Exxon. So I'm just saying the precision with which this targeting has been done is indicative that they were getting real time information and intelligence from the Russians and satellite data from the Chinese that has enabled them to do what they have. So, yes, there have been surprises for everybody and especially for the Americans and for the Israelis.

I think Iran has put itself potentially in a position to be a much more, much stronger regional player than it was before the 28th of February, despite the destruction.

Jyoti Malhotra : So I'm going to ask you one question, then open it up to the Newsroom.

The question is about India. How do you think India has played this Gulf War? Two days before it started on the 28th of February, Prime Minister Modi was in Israel. How do you look at that move? And in these last 39 days, what is your analysis of what India has done?

Navdeep Suri : My sense is that this has not been the finest hour of Indian diplomacy.

Whether it's a question of Indian diplomacy being overruled by political imperatives is something that I'm not in a position to pass a judgement on. But looking at the facts objectively, I think the prime minister's visit to Israel, his whole embrace of Netanyahu getting a medal from the Knesset, all of that was badly timed. And this is because we knew that a war was imminent.

Everybody was preparing for it in a sense. And it leaves two questions in my mind. Why go at that point? And if you did, did you try to use your leverage and friendship and relationship with Netanyahu to dissuade him from pursuing a course of action that has been so destructive to our national interest? Here's a friendly country which has embarked unilaterally, or, "with the Americans," on a course that has damaged our economy from being in a Goldilocks situation three months back.

Today, our GDP forecasts have been downgraded by everybody from Moody's to Goldman Sachs to IMF. So we've paid a real price for it. Second, I think there was zero downside to having issued an immediate message of condolence when Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed.

This is standard protocol. It doesn't cost you anything to do it. And we should have done that right away.

Not only did we not do that, but we were also tardy in going to the Iranian embassy in Delhi to sign the condolence book. It happened five days later. Finally, the Foreign Secretary went.

Third, you had an Iranian ship that participated in Indian exercises, at the International Fleet Review in Vizag. They were guests of the government of India.They had saluted our president. Again, the delay from our side (in condemning the sinking of a ship from a US missile) left much to be desired.

When the Hamas attacked Israelis on October 7, 2023, we were right in condemning that terror attack. Our subsequent actions, particularly in the UN Security Council, in abstaining on resolutions at the UNSC, etc, demonstrated a marked tilt towards Israel. On top of that, when we were negotiating the FTA with America, we were being very mealy mouthed in terms of criticising anything that might offend the Americans. So I think we've sacrificed a degree of our much vaunted strategic autonomy.

In recent weeks, we've been trying to claw back some of it. By working with Iran on a bunch of things, including sending humanitarian assistance. In a sense, we are trying to make up for lost ground. We shouldn't have made those mistakes in the first place.

Jyoti Malhotra : Okay, I'm going to open this up. Vikram, would you like a question? Somebody can give him a mic.

Vikramdeep Johal : Hello, Mr. Suri. My question is on Pakistan, which has suddenly come to the forefront and emerged as a key mediator. What do you think the diplomatic gains Pakistan will make from this exercise?

Navdeep Suri : Well, you know, in the short term, they have definitely benefited. They've maintained good relations with the Iranians. They've maintained good relations with Trump. They may be transactional. These may be transient.

Trump has a pretty much a use-and-dispose policy towards friends and allies. So I don't know how long this honeymoon is going to last. But for now, definitely Pakistan has... Its diplomacy has gained a profile.

Let me say something, perhaps, controversial. I would resist the temptation of looking at this as a zero-sum game, that Pakistan's gain is our loss. I think whoever manages to bring this destructive war to a close — we are also beneficiaries from the ceasefire.

If LNG starts flowing and LPG starts flowing…Whether it's Turkey's played a role, Egypt's played a role, or Pakistan's played a key role in taking the messages back and forth. I'm okay with that, because we've also benefited from the ceasefire or should benefit from the ceasefire.

Longer term, I think it's going to be interesting to see whether Pakistan's temporary success is able to cover its many failures, both on the economic front and its old support for terrorist groups and so on. I think the fractures within Pakistan are much deeper. They've been able to paper over them with this spurt of fairly creative diplomacy. Don't know how long it'll last.

Sanjeev Bariana : Sir, I would like to ask you, what do you think of Trump not listening to his Congress, not to his judiciary, the United Nations means nothing to him, so where does that leave the world at the moment? Is there any way forward? And also the language he uses, is this the language of a world leader?

Sir, I would like to ask you, what do you think the role is being played by Trump, not listening to his Congress, not to his judiciary, United Nations means nothing to him, so where does that leave the world at the moment? Is there any way forward? Do you think something is happening? And also the language he uses, is this the language of a world leader?

Navdeep Suri : Trump has certainly created shock and awe across the world. I think if we were dismayed by some of the comments coming out of Howard Lutnick or others at the time of our FTA discussions, today, the Europeans are completely shocked, the Canadians are shocked, the Brazilians are shocked, the South Africans don't know what's hit them. Think of the poor Japanese and Koreans and others.

Trump accused the Japanese and South Koreans of not helping him. And poor Keith Starmer in London. You know, sometimes we have a tendency to overstate our own importance or sense of injury, but there's a pretty wounded field out there. On a more serious note, I think there are two or three things that have come forward, after watching what's happened in the last 15 months since he was sworn in as President.

One, is the old order is clearly breaking down. The transatlantic alliance that had held since 1945 seems to be breaking down. Trump is openly dismissive of NATO, he's dismissive of the Europeans. You can see that.

What (Canadian PM) Mark Carney spoke about at Davos about a concert of middle powers coming together towards shared interests. I think you may start seeing some of that happen, certainly in Europe, that some of those conversations within UK, France, Germany, Poland, Italy, and even Canada and Australia are beginning to take place. The virtual meeting that UK organised last week on opening the Strait of Hormuz was remarkable for the absence of the United States from the meeting. People are already talking about a minus one architecture today.

The second thing that clearly emerges is the two principal beneficiaries (of this war) are Russia and China. The Economist had a lovely cover story a couple of days back showing a very satisfied Xi Jinping, along with a quote from Napoleon which says, ‘Never interrupt an enemy when he's making a mistake’! So they are very happy to see what is happening.

But longer term, I think, despite all the criticism of America, in many ways, it was an exemplar. And what Trump has done so effectively and so destructively in the last 15 months, he has undermined each of the institutions that made America great. First and foremost, from Nixon's Watergate onwards, people respected America because of the rule of law that even a President could be taken down. The Department of Justice and the FBI had a certain aura about them. Trump's converted them into his private law firm for carrying out vendettas against people that he doesn't like. Second, look at the whole superstructure of universities and their academic freedom. Look at the way he's gone after Columbia and Harvard, which were a magnet for students from all over the world. Third, it was immigrants that made America great, right? And Indian immigrants amongst them. So when you look at his attack on immigration, you can see that as immigration dries up, it will logically lead to constriction of demand, etc.

I see these as longer term trends. And that's why I say that 2025 will mark the decline, the beginning of the decline of America.

It will take a long time to come down. But if there's a point of time in history that you will look back on, I think this is the period, this is when it started. And a major milestone being the Iran war, which showed that there are limits to raw military power, if it is not supplemented by soft power and other attributes that America was so good at.

Ruchika Khanna : Sir, My question is, do you think the purpose of the war, the real purpose was actually to take away the enriched uranium from Iran? And also, where does this leave cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi? Does it take the sheen off these cities as investment destinations?

Navdeep Suri : So, you know, amongst the Israelis, Benjamin Netanyahu specifically, has been obsessed about Iran's nuclear programme for three and a half decades. If you go back and check in 1992, when he was a young member of the Knesset, in one of his early speeches, he said that Iran is barely six months away from making a nuclear bomb. That was 1992.

Right through there has been a pattern. There was this famous speech that he did in 2012 at the UN General Assembly, where he had a cartoon of a Mullah with a bomb, that kind of thing, saying Iran is on the threshold (of going nuclear). Then, when Obama signed the JCPOA, the 5 plus 1 nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, it was quite extraordinary that Netanyahu went to address a joint session of the Congress in opposition to a sitting President of the United States, to make the case against the JCPOA.

And there's this fascinating book that I would commend to you, which is a fairly recent book called Target Tehran, by two Israeli journalists. It brings out how three successive Mossad chiefs undermined Iran's nuclear programme, from putting viruses that made the centrifuges go spin faster than they were designed to do and burnt them off, to sabotaging spare parts and power transformers to assassinating scientists of Iran's nuclear programme.

Finally, Netanyahu brings in a Mossad chief of his choosing and they embark on this destructive campaign. So today, you are no closer than you were on the 27th of February. In fact, on the 26th of February, Oman's foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, went on CBS to make this very public, desperate plea to say, we are so close to a deal. That for the first time, Iran has agreed to zero stockpile its uranium and give diplomacy a chance.

So my own understanding is the message from this war to Iran and to a lot of other middle powers is that against a rampaging America and Israel, your only security guarantee is a nuclear device. Why hasn't North Korea been attacked? The message is clear. Why was Ukraine attacked by Russia? Meaning, if you want to assure yourself, then you need a nuclear device. Which doesn't help the cause of non-proliferation at all.

On Dubai and Abu Dhabi, yes, they've taken a hit, definitely. But I also think, and I have many friends there, I keep speaking with them regularly, that the government has been remarkably adept at handling the crisis at two different levels. One, the very sophisticated and effective multi-layered air defence systems that have managed to thwart some 92 or 93% of the 2500 projectiles that were thrown at them.

By and large people say the malls are open and there's no shortage of anything and life is tense, but continuing. The second aspect, I think for them, is the way the leadership in the Emirates has gone out of its way to reassure expatriates that we are with you and you're safe. The third thing going for them is $1.3 trillion in sovereign funds between Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Mubadala and ADQ.

They have very deep pockets that can be deployed to ride this period out. At the end of the day, it's only 10 million people, of which only 1 million are Emiratis. But, and this is a big but, tourism is one of the most fickle industries. And to the extent that tourism has collapsed, the layoffs have already started from the hospitality sector and other related sectors, like the travel industry. And unless there's a revival, the first persons to feel the pinch will be Indians, because we are 40% of the country's population — 4.3 million Indians in a population of 10.5 million.

So, the impact on Indians is going to be disproportionate on remittances. Remember, last year, we got $22 billion in remittances from the UAE alone. And this sustains many, many families from Kerala to Punjab.

What happens in the next two weeks is crucial. If the ceasefire translates into a durable peace, and I choose my words carefully, then the impact on Dubai, Abu Dhabi may be transient. They still have a lot going for them. But if the instability continues, then it will scare away capital, particularly if it reverses the trend of many British, Australians and people from Hong Kong and Singapore moving to Dubai with capital and talent. Indians won't leave unless they get jobless. But the first to leave were the White guys, because their countries issued the advisories that it is no longer safe for you. So, I think that's the trend we will be watching.

Mohit Khanna : Sir, what is the status of the resistance inside Iran, which had grown quite large following the death of Mahsa Amini and other such activists? What is their status now? Are they sandwiched between the IRGC and US forces?

Navdeep Suri : That's a really good question. I think not just the violence and the protests that you had seen after the unfortunate and terrible killing of Mahsa Amini in custody, just for the sin of showing her hair. But the more recent protests that you had in January, which were also put down with a very heavy hand.

Look, there is zero doubt that by most standards, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a regressive regime when it comes to its approach towards religion. It's a theocracy. There is no doubt that probably the majority of Iranians would like to see the back of the regime.

But I think the mistake that the Israelis and by extension the Americans made, is by having binary of thinking : I hate the Khamenei regime, therefore, I will welcome Israeli intervention. No, you can hate with equal passion, the Khamenei regime and the Israeli intervention.

And when a foreign adversary comes, it actually has the opposing effect of rallying under the flag. So, your nationalist sentiment then becomes more powerful than your hostility to the regime.

It was a fundamental miscalculation, I believe, by the Israelis who thought that if we decapitate at the top, it will bring everybody out in the street and the regime will be toppled. Instead, what you saw was an upsurge of nationalism. Even by those who came out in January, because the violence used against them was so brutal.

And because the guys, whether IRGC or the Basij, the guys with the guns are still around. How many people would want to rise in protest when the Americans and Israelis are dropping bombs and the IRGC and Basij have said that any protest will be seen as a sign of treason. And, you know, there's one final point that I want to make, and I think this is insufficiently appreciated. Iranians are a very smart people. They've seen what happened next door in Iraq after Saddam was toppled. 20 years of chaos, which gave birth to ISIS and all manner of extremist groups in a power vacuum, essentially.

And I think the recognition is that even a bad government is better than no government. No government is the worst situation because of the scale on which the mayhem is unleashed. People say that it was the Los Angeles lobby of expatriate Iranians that was trying to rouse the domestic Iranian population to rise up against the regime. But even they, after they have seen Gulistan Palace being damaged or other places in Isfahan being damaged or the power plants and bridges damaged, even they are saying, hey, we were cheering for the end of the regime, not the end of the state. We still want the country to be livable. We still have family there.

Bhartesh Thakur : Sir, has India has gained by getting closer to Israel?

Navdeep Suri : You know, India has gained a lot. From Kargil to Sindoor, Israelis have been critical in terms of providing us hardware, technology, intelligence, the works. And there's a deep appreciation in our defence and security establishment for that, a genuine sense of appreciation that when others were reluctant, Israelis were the first to come forward. There's also the 41 centres of excellence that Israelis have established across the country to help with water conservation and agriculture and so on. Plus a lot of stuff that is happening in the startup sector and so on. But the point for us to consider is, there are also costs now being associated with too close an embrace of Israel.

And we must keep those costs in mind. We must look at the damage that it is doing to perceptions of India being a principled country or one that stood by principles. My first passport, when I joined the foreign service, used to have a stamp not valid for South Africa and Israel. Because we opposed apartheid in South Africa, and did not at that time have diplomatic relations with Israel.

But across the world, India had a certain moral standing. We were poor, but respected for a certain principled stand that we could take. And I think today, if we have aspirations of being the voice of the global South, then we will have to stand up occasionally, even against a friend like Israel, because what it is doing is so illegal.

I'm not even saying immoral. It's also illegal. So to the extent that we have a stake in a rules-based order, then we should be willing to speak up and say that this is wrong.

I think we're losing out. Now my concern is that we are the Chair of BRICS -- and if you look at the five original BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa, all of them are on one side and India is on the other.

Rohit Bhan : Ambassador Suri, what, according to you, is the biggest takeaway for India? What should India learn from this Iranian crisis to be better prepared for such global shocks in the future?

Navdeep Suri : I think all our defence establishments should be looking very, very carefully at the new style of warfare. I think we were already watching what was happening in Ukraine. But I think what Iran has demonstrated once again is that your multi-billion dollar, super expensive platforms are no use against the kind of asymmetric warfare that you're beginning to see. And we will have to invest a lot more. I was talking to one very senior army general last week in Delhi, and he said, I would place orders today on a factory that can give me 100,000 drones in the next six months. And place another order for 100,000 of the counter drones that the Ukrainians are making, because clearly that's where the wars are being fought. So rather than prepare for yesterday's war, one of the key lessons is tomorrow's war, which we are witnessing already today. And this is just the starting point.

I think the second thing that defence people are recognising, and this is from the Americans, is the jointedness of satellite communications, real-time intelligence, artificial intelligence to process the real-time information that is coming to you through satellite feeds, and then use all of that to create a battlefield picture. And again, we are witnessing real-time, some of these things happening before us. And so we have to invest aggressively.

And what people are saying is, that means the old DRDO model is simply not going to be nimble enough to respond to the kind of rapid changes that you're seeing on your battlefield. But also on the economic front, I think the two things that have been exposed are our over-dependence on energy resources from the Gulf. So we will need to perhaps diversify even more aggressively.

And second, we've been talking about this for a long time. And I know a little bit about this because the first agreement that we signed for a strategic petroleum reserve in Mangalore, was with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). And the second one in Padur was also with ADNOC. And we are doing a third in Vizag. And we plan to do a fourth in Odisha and so on.

It is nowhere close to our requirement. I think we should urgently start planning to have at least 90 days worth of strategic petroleum reserves, so that we do not end up in the kind of situation where we are looking at where the next ship is coming from and when it is coming. Look at what China has done, for example, in terms of its strategic reserves or Japan or others.

And we'll probably have to think of the same for LNG.

Chandni Chandel : Sir, I wanted to ask, will Iran rebuild its stockpile? Is it in a position or will it just give it up?

Navdeep Suri : That’s a million dollar question. So you have to ask yourself, why were the Israelis killing Iranian scientists? The first one they killed was Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, called the father of Iran's nuclear programme, because the Israelis realised that Iran could undo the damage or replace the damaged parts within six months. But it takes three decades or four decades to create a scientist of that calibre.

But the conventional wisdom still is you can't bomb knowledge. And so the Israelis this time have taken this to the next level, which is bomb their research institutions, bomb the universities. And again, it is trying to destroy knowledge.

So I think the game is to make it much harder for Iran to rebuild its nuclear programme. But what Iran has demonstrated over 30 years, and we have a lot of historical data on this now, that it has the will and the resilience to keep trying and building again. They move (the enrichment) from 3% to 60% and they could have moved from 60% to 90% and make the 440 kg of 60% uranium, which is enough to make 10 devices.

That's still around somewhere. It may be buried, but it's still around somewhere. I think Iran will want to extract major concessions if it wants to give up that stockpile.

Otherwise it will say, that's my insurance policy. And by virtue of the manner in which the Americans have acted and the Russians have acted is that now the nuclear bomb becomes an insurance policy. So the Iranians may continue with a covert programme, even though they appear on the face of it to be complying with IAEA guidelines.

And I just want to make a final point that under JCPOA, the Iranians were subjected to the most intrusive inspection regime ever. There were CCTV cameras and live cameras at every point to monitor what they were doing.

Jyoti Malhotra : On this note, Ambassador Suri, that you cannot bomb knowledge, I'd like to say that the Tribune is always thirsty for knowledge. So thank you so much for your time, for your expertise, for coming all the way from Amritsar to Chandigarh. We're really grateful for your visit.

And to you, dear viewer, dear reader of the Tribune, thank you for watching this inaugural episode of the Tribune Newsroom. Do tell us what you think. Follow us on all our social media handles across Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and across the social media handles of our sister publications, the Dainik Tribune and the Punjabi Tribune.

We look forward very much to hearing what you say. Thank you so much for watching.