The purge in Washington does not pause the war.
Strikes continue, Hormuz remains closed, and Brent crude is still dancing around $109 a barrel.
For India, the command chaos in the Pentagon is another layer of uncertainty piled on five weeks of conflict that was already straining every buffer Delhi has.
On the 33rd day of America's war with Iran, Secretary of Defence (Yeah, he is actually the self-designated Secretary of War, but I'm damned if I'll use that ridiculous formulation) Pete Hegseth fired the army chief ofsStaff.
General Randy George had led the army out of one of its worst recruiting crises in history, had pushed hard to modernise for the drone-dominated battlefield he'd seen in Ukraine, and had served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan where he'd earned a reputation as an innovative combat leader.
None of that saved him. He learned he was fired in a 4 pm phone call from Hegseth, around the same time CBS News reported the fact. Along with General George, Hegseth also fired General David Hodne, who led the army's Transformation and Training Command, and Major General William Green Jr, the army's top chaplain.
No official reason has been offered for any of these dismissals.
Key Points
- Iran's retaliation has widened conflict across the region, with missile, drone, and naval capabilities still largely intact despite US strikes.
- Global oil disruption and Hormuz tensions have pushed crude prices higher, directly impacting India's fuel costs and inflation outlook.
- India faces immediate economic pressure, including rising LPG prices, rupee depreciation, and strain on household budgets and businesses.
- Longer-term risks include weakened remittances, Gulf job uncertainty, and accelerated push toward strategic autonomy in energy and geopolitics.
Pentagon Purge Shocks US Military
The New York Times reported that the tension with General George was not rooted in any substantive disagreement over army direction.
It was, officials said, the product of Hegseth's 'long-running grievances with the Army, battles over personnel, and his troubled relationship' with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.
Hegseth had been pressing General George and Driscoll for months to remove four colonels from a brigadier general promotion list -- two of them Black, two of them women.
General George and Driscoll refused, citing the officers' 'long records of exemplary service'.
Hegseth refused to even meet with General George to discuss the matter.
Last week, far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who is close to both Hegseth and Trump, had posted on social media that Hegseth was 'seriously considering' removing General George.
Days later, it was done.
Hegseth has now fired or pushed out the chairman of the joint chiefs, the chief of naval operations, the No 2 general at the air force, and dozens of senior officers and military lawyers across the services.
As The Atlantic noted, the pace of these firings is greater than that of any Pentagon chief in the modern era, including across two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. [The Atlantic (external link)]
At least 50,000 troops are now deployed in the Gulf region. Members of the 82nd Airborne have been arriving in theatre over the past week.
A former official, surveying the wreckage, offered the most damning assessment possible: 'You could argue it's a big deal he (General George) lasted this long.'
Tom Nichols, writing in The Atlantic, reached for a comparison that will sting: Hegseth is now being called 'Dumb McNamara' by some Pentagon staff.
Robert McNamara, whatever his catastrophic failings in Vietnam, was a formidably intelligent man who at least had theories about war.
Nichols's conclusion: 'These officers are all people with long and distinguished records of service; none of them has been charged with any wrongdoing, and none of them have been accused of any kind of incompetence or disloyalty.
'They all seem to have committed only the offense of being part of a military institution that Hegseth, who still harbors obvious bitterness about his undistinguished and ultimately shortened military career, wants to restock with MAGA loyalists.' [Nichols/Atlantic (external link)]
On the same day all of this was unfolding, Donald Trump posted this (external link) on Truth Social:
'Our Military, the greatest and most powerful (by far!) anywhere in the World, hasn't even started destroying what's left in Iran.
'Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants! New Regime leadership knows what has to be done, and has to be done, FAST!'
The bluster is trademark Trump. (It is also a bit bewildering: How is Iran supposed to know what needs to be done, fast or slow, when Trump himself is not clear about his objectives?) But behind it, a very different picture is emerging.
Time magazine has published a detailed reconstruction of the administration's internal deliberations, and it is a portrait of an operation that has not gone to plan. [Time (external link)]
Hegseth, the piece reports, was caught off guard by the breadth of Iran's retaliation: The attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria, the barrages on Israeli cities, the strikes on Gulf states long assumed to be off-limits.
Before the war, Hegseth had pointed to Iran's muted responses to previous US strikes as evidence that calibrated force could impose costs without triggering a broader conflict. Iran did not oblige.
"He was expecting the Iranians to fight back in some form," a person familiar with his thinking told Time.
"When they started attacking virtually the entire region, it sort of hit him like, 'Whoa, we're really in this now.'"
Iran Retaliation Expands War Theatre
The intelligence picture reported by CNN sharpens this further. [CNN (external link)]
Despite weeks of daily bombardment, roughly half of Iran's missile launchers remain intact, and thousands of one-way attack drones are still in its arsenal.
Contrary to US claims that its navy has been obliterated, the IRGC navy still retains roughly half its capabilities, with hundreds if not thousands of small boats and unmanned vessels.
Iran's coastal cruise missiles, the ones that threaten Hormuz shipping, are largely untouched, having retreated underground.
Trump told the nation on Wednesday that Iran's 'ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed.'
A source familiar with the US intelligence assessment said, of Trump's two-to-three week timeline for finishing operations: 'You're out of your mind if you think this will be done in two weeks.'
Into all of this steps Susie Wiles.
The Time piece reports that the White House chief of staff had grown concerned that aides were giving the president a rose-coloured view of how the war was being perceived domestically: Telling Trump what he wanted to hear instead of what he needed to hear.
She urged colleagues, the magazine says, to be 'more forthright with the boss' about the political and economic risks.
Read that again. In the 34th day of the largest American military operation in decades, the chief of staff felt it necessary to remind her colleagues not to sugarcoat the war news they fed to the president.
What the Pentagon purge means for India
The purge in Washington does not pause the war.
Strikes continue, Hormuz remains closed, and Brent crude is still dancing around $109 a barrel.
For India, the command chaos in the Pentagon is another layer of uncertainty piled on five weeks of conflict that was already straining every buffer Delhi has.
Oil Prices Surge Amid Hormuz Crisis
First-order effects: The immediate hit: Oil prices stay twitchy.
Every sign of command instability or delayed decision-making in the US keeps the market nervous about prolonged disruption in the Gulf.
India imports 85 to 90 per cent of its crude, a big slice of it still routed through waters Iran has repeatedly threatened.
Rupee Slides, Inflation Pressures Rise
That feeds straight into higher costs at home. Commercial LPG cylinders jumped by Rs 195.50 this week, pushing the 19-kg rate to Rs 2,078.50 in Delhi (even steeper in Kolkata at Rs 2,246).
Hotels and restaurants are already feeling it, some weighing shorter hours or menu price hikes, with owners in Mumbai and Guwahati reporting supply worries and switching to alternatives like induction or firewood.
In places like Srinagar, people have queued with empty cylinders.
Petrol and diesel prices have been held steady for now, but premium variants and jet fuel have spiked sharply.
The rupee has tested 94+ levels, and every extra rupee at the pump or on cooking gas hits household budgets hard.
India Policy Scramble Intensifies
Second-order: The policy scramble: Delhi is hedging hard.
More Russian and Iranian crude is being lined up through workarounds, while Chabahar and the INSTC corridor stay in play despite the sanctions noise and operational risks.
The government has tweaked fuel taxes, released strategic reserves where needed, and prioritised domestic LPG to shield households.
But the human side is visible. Roughly nine million Indians work in the Gulf, sending home around $50 billion a year.
Construction sites, hospitality, and oil services are slowing in places like the UAE, from where we are getting early reports of salary cuts, unpaid leave, and layoffs.
Workers are anxious: Many are choosing to stay put despite the risks, fearing that returning home means losing the income gap that supports entire families back in Kerala, Tamil Nadu or elsewhere.
Remittance flows, which prop up millions of households, face real pressure if the slowdown deepens.
Flight disruptions and safety concerns add to the unease.
Third-order: The longer strategic shift: This is where the purge matters most.
A US military leadership that looks increasingly politicised and unpredictable only reinforces the multipolar world India has been navigating for years.
It strengthens the quiet case for strategic autonomy: faster diversification of energy sources, a harder push on renewables and domestic manufacturing buffers, and careful balancing between deepening defence-tech ties with Israel, energy-remittance lifelines in the Gulf, and historical corridors with Iran.
In a conflict where even the superpower's own house is in disorder, India's calibrated, interest-driven approach starts to look less like caution and more like a structural advantage.
The war is testing that balance daily. If command churn in Washington prolongs the fog, the test only gets harder.
India has reserves and some buffers, but the longer this drags, the more the third-order risks to growth, inflation, inequality and geopolitical positioning will start to bite. [Reuters (external link); Hindustan Times (external link); Al Jazeera (external link); India Today (external link)]
The war behind the war: While the world watches oil prices and missile counts, Iran is executing its own people in the dark.
The Guardian reports that at least 145 executions have been confirmed in 2026 so far, with over 400 more reported but unverified -- protesters, dissidents, a 19-year-old wrestler, an 18 year old who didn't know what moharebeh meant until a interrogator told him it meant death.
The director of Iran Human Rights says it plainly: 'Right now, everyone is thinking about oil prices, and because of that the political cost of these executions is very low.'
Speaking for myself, I am entirely opposed to what the US and Israel are doing to Iran.
I am no admirer of the regime doing this to its own people. And it is perfectly possible to hold both these positions at the same time. [The Guardian (external link)]
Wounded, not broken: Ted Snider makes the case that the US risks leaving Iran 'wounded but intact' -- capable of restocking missiles, rebuilding its nuclear programme, and hardening its ideology.
The killing of Ali Larijani is the detail that stays with you: A pragmatist who helped make the 2015 nuclear deal passable inside Iran, replaced by an IRGC hardliner close to the new supreme leader.
The US has not changed the Iranian regime. It has altered it, tilting its composition toward something more radical.
From an outlet not known for dovish foreign policy, this carries weight. [The American Conservative (external link)]
The strait the world can't agree on: Russia, China and France blocked a UN Security Council resolution authoriwing force to reopen Hormuz -- the fourth draft revision in weeks of closed-door negotiation.
The ICG's Ali Vaez offers the sharpest summary of why: 'It treats a political crisis as if it can be solved at gunpoint.'
Macron said Trump's suggestion that allies simply 'go to the Strait and take it' was unrealistic.
The resolution will likely fail. The Strait remains closed. Qatar has declared force majeure and expects $20 billion in lost annual revenue. [NYT (external link)]
Plan B, without America: More than 40 US allies met Thursday, convened by Britain, to begin planning for a post-war Hormuz reopening with or without Washington.
Military planners will meet next week to discuss naval deployment options.
The subtext is unmistakable: Attendees fear Trump will wind up operations without a plan for the waterway and leave allies to manage the fallout.
Japan called for safe maritime corridors. Everyone called for free passage. No one called it easy. [Bloomberg (external link)]
Nineteen minutes, no plan: Susan Glasser's dissection of Trump's Wednesday night address is the essential read on what the administration's public posture actually amounts to.
The speech promised to bomb Iran 'back to the Stone Ages'.
It did not mention that Iran still has the same president -- Masoud Pezeshkian -- that it had at the start of the war, despite Trump claiming a new, less radicalised leadership was in place.
Glasser's question: 'Can everything be going according to the plan if there is no plan?' [New Yorker (external link)]
The Napoleon play: Two Economist pieces worth reading together.
The first reconstructs Beijing's strategic calculus.
China is standing aside, one adviser says, because its leaders understand the maxim attributed to Napoleon at Austerlitz: never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
The second is the economic ground truth: China gets roughly a third of its crude through Hormuz, compared to over 70 per cent for South Korea and Japan, giving it more cushioning than most.
The more interesting detail is the opportunity angle: High oil prices make China's EVs, batteries and solar panels more attractive globally, just as Europe's attention has been pulled away from managing Chinese import competition.
Beijing is not winning this war. But it is watching carefully for what comes after. [Economist, how China hopes to win (external link); Economist, why the war hurts China less (external link)]
Who's cashing in: The Financial Times asks the classic question: Cui bono? Who benefits?
In the first 16 days, the US and coalition forces burned through more than 11,200 munitions at an estimated cost of $26 billion.
More than 1,200 Patriot missile systems gone, as also over 300 Thaad interceptors.
Hundreds of Tomahawks -- one estimate says more Tomahawks have been used in the past one month than in the entire Iraq war.
The Pentagon is now seeking an extra $200 billion from Congress to fund the war, on top of a $1.5 trillion defence budget request.
RTX, Lockheed, Northrop are the headline beneficiaries.
But the piece's sharpest observation belongs to a CSIS analyst: the depletion of these systems is 'scary' because they are needed to deter China in the Pacific.
The Iran war is, in this reading, quietly hollowing out the deterrence architecture that was supposed to keep the next war from happening. [Financial Times (external link)]
In passing...
The blog will be back Monday. To all those celebrating, a peaceful, happy Easter.
Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff
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