

Operation Epic Fury sparks a high-stakes balancing act in India
This week the focus is on the widening war in West Asia, which matters to us as there are 9-10 million Indian expatriates in the region.It’s now day 7 of Operation Epic Fury, launched jointly by the US and Israel on 28 February. It’s what we were all warned about for years, perhaps even decades – a conflagration in West Asia. As it stood, Iran was at its weakest in decades and Israel perhaps saw it as too good an opportunity to pass up.
TheWashington Post reported how Israel and Saudi Arabia pushed US President Donald Trump to launch the campaign despite the US being unsure that Iran posed an imminent threat.Here’s what we know. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on 28 February. If the US was hoping for a regime collapse after the decapitation strike, well, it hasn’t happened.
An Iranian leadership council that includes President Masoud Pezeshkian, former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, senior cleric Alireza Arafi, and head of the judiciary Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei seems in charge. The initial US call for Iranians to rise up hasn’t inspired them to do so, it seems. Given that one of the first US-Israel strikes seemingly hit a girls' school, killing 150, is it surprising that Trump’s call to arms hasn't had any takers yet?Trump, meanwhile, has changed his reasons for striking Iran multiple times.
First the attack wascharacterized as defensive, intended to eliminate “imminent threats” from Iran. Trump later added he had a “good feeling” that Iran was planning to attack the US. In private briefings to Congress, US officialsacknowledged there was no evidence showing Iran was preparing to strike.
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