It may now be time to question the price India is paying for Israel's disregard of the serious undermining of India's energy security, asserts former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
Key Points
- The US-Israel war with Iran has intensified, with Israel pursuing long-standing strategic objectives shaped by decades of regional conflicts.
- Israel's military and intelligence strength is offset by limited geography and demographics, driving ambitions like the 'Greater Israel' vision.
- Iran is responding with asymmetric tactics, targeting economic and geopolitical vulnerabilities, particularly in Gulf economies and global energy routes.
The war between the US-Israel alliance and Iran is now into its fourth week and is escalating in scale and intensity.
Israel is working on a script that it has long prepared and which follows lessons it has learned in the other conflicts it has been engaged in ever since its birth in 1948 as a sovereign nation implanted in the heart of Palestine.
It has evolved into a garrison State with a perennial sense of being under siege, of being claustrophobically confined to a narrow strip of land, with enemies that must be vanquished, adversaries that must be neutralised, and allies that must not be allowed to stray.
It has used its deep relationship with the United States to emerge as the strongest and most advanced military power in the West Asia/Gulf region.
Over the years, it has leveraged its deep connections with the tech and corporate giants of the US, several of which are headed by Jews, to advance to the cutting edge of the technological frontier, developing capabilities that are admired and sought after even by its more powerful patron.
Among these capabilities is a formidable intelligence-gathering network with tentacles not only within the region but also among its allies and partners.
But what it lacks are the two key components of major power status -- spatial depth and demographic mass.
The lure of a 'Greater Israel', stretching from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, draws on this sense of confinement.
The need for demographic mass is sought through a close connection with the substantial Jewish diaspora, particularly in the US.
There are about 7.2 million Jews in Israel and around 6 million in the US, with roughly half a million each in France, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
The global total is about 16 million, but the Jewish population in the US is the most significant; An estimated 700,000 are dual citizens of both the US and Israel.
It is well known that the Jewish community in the US exercises political influence beyond its numbers.
Several leaders of the community are some of the most wealthy families in the country, and key contributors to both the Republican and Democratic parties.
The mainstream media in the US is also dominated by Jewish editors, news anchors and journalists. Until recently, Israel was able to impose its own narrative of events occurring in its region.
Dissenting voices were muted and the charge of 'anti-Semitism' was enough to compel detractors to run for cover.
Global energy shock
This may now be wearing somewhat thin.
The genocide in Gaza and Israel's relentless assaults on the hapless population of Lebanon have begun to lead an increasingly large segment of the American public, including many Jews, to question the US' unqualified support for Israel.
This is one reason why Israel's leaders believe that they must accomplish their strategic objectives before the US begins to assert its interests where they do not converge with Israel's expansive ambitions.
There is a sense of urgency driving the effort to neutralise Iran as a major actor in the region for which US military and economic support are critical.
Benjamin Netanyahu's success lies in convincing US President Donald Trump that the destruction of the Iranian revolutionary regime would be a quick and easy win and that a more pliant leadership could be installed in Tehran to follow the dictates of the US and Israel.
That Mr Trump would also get his hands on Iran's significant oil and gas reserves is an added attraction.
What is important to note is that Israel does not care if this scenario fails to materialise as long as the US continues to join Israel in reducing Iran to a heap of rubble, precipitating the collapse of its economy and the destitution of its people.
It does not care if the reverberations of Iranian collapse spread across the region and destabilise other countries.
A region in chaos and in economic distress would only enhance its dominance. Iran understands this playbook only too well and is responding with a well-crafted strategy of its own.
The one country that has no strategy at all and no endgame to pursue is the US.
Iran is engaged in an asymmetrical war. It knows it cannot defeat Israel and the US militarily. It has, therefore, activated the pain points of the US, its Gulf allies and partners, and the global economy.
It does not have to do much to undermine the fragile economies of the Gulf, which owe their prosperity to oil & gas exports and to their successful branding as safe and secure financial centres and tourist destinations, and to their ability to offer hospitable living to professional and business elites from across the world.
It has taken only a few drone attacks against targets in these countries to shatter their hitherto successful model.
The dominance of the narrow Hormuz Strait by Iran should have been foreseen, but it was not.
The global energy supply chains and important general trade channels are impacting economies across the globe.
US Inflation
Inflation is returning to the US. Its fiscal deficit will soar after the cost of war is finally counted.
The US has had to remove sanctions on the sale of Russian oil after making that a touchstone of American policy.
And the US power equation with its key rivals, China and Russia, is now being seriously undermined.
The refusal of its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies to support the US in this war is further exposing its vulnerability.
It is China and Russia that will emerge stronger and emboldened from this.
Israel is not concerned about these second- and third-order effects so long as it continues to reduce Iran to rubble and decimate its leadership.
It is now a contest between Iranian resilience under fire and Israeli success in keeping a bewildered US yoked to its dystopian blueprint.
India has a strategic partnership with Israel, which has emerged as a source of high technology and a security and defence partner.
But it may now be time to question the price India is paying for Israel's disregard of the serious undermining of India's energy security, the risks to the safety of its nine million-strong diaspora in the Gulf, and the security challenges that are likely to follow from the long-term destabilisation of its western neighbourhood.
One is unable to offer a coping strategy in the midst of a fast changing course of events, but distancing oneself from Israel must be part of this endeavour.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
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