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'Time for India to be more vigilant,' says defence expert as US joins Israel-Iran conflict

'Time for India to be more vigilant,' says defence expert as US joins Israel-Iran conflict

Time of India10 hours ago

As the United States has escalated its involvement in the
Israel-Iran conflict
by striking three key
nuclear facilities in Iran
,
defence expert Praful Bakshi
on Sunday emphasised the critical role India could play in helping deescalate the ongoing conflict, highlighting how Prime Minister Narendra Modi could
leverage the friendly relations between the two nations and push for a peaceful resolution.
"For India, it's a time to be more vigilant. Both Iran and Israel areour friends. With Israel, we have an emotional connection...a personality like PM Modi, I think, will raise this issue with both sides to end this war," Bakshi told ANI.
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Bakshi also highlighted how the strikes on nuclear facilities Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan have signalled to Iran that the US is "serious now," comparing it to a predator who hunts their prey no matter what, and suggested that President Donald Trump will keep doing similar acts.
"Iran now understands that America is serious. Once America finds its prey, the way it does in Iraq, even if the prey is not at fault, the hunter will do what it does; President Trump will keep doing this," he said.
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The defence expert also indicated that the strikes served as a warning to China and Russia, who have been supportive of Iran. Earlier today, in his first public address since carrying out 'precision' strikes in Iran, US President Donald Trump warned that he could order further action if Tehran does not agree to a satisfactory peace agreement.
"There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we've witnessed over the last eight days," Trump said.
While talking about the strikes in a post on Truth Social, Trump said, "This cannot continue. There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days."
Trump also thanked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said, "I want to thank Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel."
Top brass of the American political leadership stood beside Trump as he delivered the remarks-- Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth.
Trump's announcement came just two days after he said he had opened a two-week window for diplomacy.

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Iran-Israel War: US strikes against Iran not aimed at regime change: Pentagon chief
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Iran-Israel War: US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday that the country's military strikes on Iran's nuclear sites were not meant for regime change plans. The US has sent private messages to Tehran before the strikes, encouraging them to negotiate, Hegseth said. Hegseth also warned Iran against retaliation against the United States, and said US forces were postured to defend themselves, and take action if needed. "This mission was not and has not been about regime change," Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon. The president authorised a precision operation to neutralise the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program, he said. The United States military struck three sites in Iran on Sunday, marking its official entry into the Israel-Iran war that started about a week ago. President Donald Trump was the first to disclose the strikes. Speaking from the White House after the strikes, President Trump dubbed Iran "the bully of the Middle East" and warned that the Islamic Republic 'must now make peace.' In what has now been called Operation 'Midnight Hammer', the US strikes included 14 bunker-buster bombs, more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles and over 125 military aircraft. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff US General Dan Cane said at the briefing that initial battle damage assessments indicated that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction, but he declined to speculate whether any Iranian nuclear capabilities might still be intact. The operation pushes the Middle East to the brink of a major new conflagration in a region already aflame for more than 20 months with wars in Gaza and Lebanon and a toppled regime under President Bashar al-Asad in Syria. Soon after the US strikes, Tehran responded with a volley of missiles at Israel that wounded scores of people and destroyed buildings in its commercial hub Tel Aviv. Iran's Supreme National Security Council is weighing a decision to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global energy chokepoint, in response to US military strikes. The move, if approved, would escalate tensions in the region and risk disrupting nearly 20 per cent of the world's oil and gas shipments. The Strait of Hormuz is a strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. It provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world's most strategically important choke points. The Strait serves as the primary export route for Gulf producers such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, and Kuwait. Caine said at the Pentagon briefing that the US military had increased protection of troops in the region, including in Iraq and Syria. This mission was not and has not been about regime change.

Iranians Must Reverse Their History For Redemption
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Iranians have never been themselves since they ceased to be Persians, but it's never too late to reverse history. Now is the time On June 18, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a stark warning to the United States, declaring, 'Iran will never surrender". He said any American intervention in the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict would result in 'irreparable damage". He further vowed that Israel would face punishment, marking the sixth day of an unprecedented aerial war that has claimed hundreds of lives and targeted critical infrastructure across Iran. Indeed, Iran is proving no mean force in the conflict, as Tel Aviv, ravaged by Iranian missiles, bears witness to. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), forged in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), may be weakened but not eradicated. The defiant Iranian stance comes amid escalating tensions in West Asia, fuelled by inflammatory remarks from US President Donald Trump and Israel's initiation of a relentless bombing campaign, including strikes on Tehran's nuclear and military facilities. As Israel targets a generation tied to the 1979 revolution, it needs to be seen whether resident Iranians would turn pro-US, as the Iranian diaspora has. Does Khamenei's tough talk echo a broader narrative about the resilience of his nation and its people? Nations are fundamentally defined by their natives, some of whom possess an indomitable spirit that defies defeat, even if they cannot always be ruled. Do Iranians have it in them? Certain peoples of certain lands cannot be defeated, only ruled with difficulty, as evident in Iran's current defiance amid extreme adversity. Russians, for example, fight like they play football — no great technique but brute force and sheer tenacity. The more they get killed, the more soldiers they send to the battlefield, as Stalingrad witnessed towards the end of WWII! Afghans and some Africans can be defeated but not ruled over. They will stay as anarchic as they have always been, whether under democracy, communism, monarchy or dictatorship. It's the essential culture that cannot be defeated in India. Even under some foreign influence, its basic Hindu nature cannot be obliterated. Is the Iranian mind similarly shaped? One is not sure. On the one hand, the Iranian diaspora is longing for assimilation with American society, their four-decade-old home. On the other, the world hardly gets to hear voices from resident Iranians, but have they been any better? IRANIANS HAVE HISTORICALLY BEEN GULLIBLE Iran's history offers a complex backdrop to the question. Once the heart of the Persian Empire and a bastion of Zoroastrianism under the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), Iran underwent a profound transformation following the Arab Muslim invasion in 651 CE. The rise of Islam led to a steep decline in Zoroastrian followers, with their numbers dwindling to between 15,000 and 25,000 by 2012 in a population exceeding 82 million. The imposition of the jizyah tax and restrictive dhimmī laws under the Abbasids forced many Zoroastrians to convert or flee and seek refuge in India. This historical shift marked the beginning of Iran's transition from Persia to an Islamic identity, a change that was accelerated by foreign influences rather than an organic evolution. The 20th century brought further upheaval. The Pahlavi dynasty, particularly under Mohammad Reza Shah, sought to revive Iran's pre-Islamic heritage, valuing Zoroastrian contributions and enacting reforms to elevate minority status. However, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, led by Khomeini — backed by the CIA that went to the extent of hiring Saddam Hussein to assassinate the Shah, an attempt that failed — reversed these efforts, establishing a theocratic regime that suppressed secular and pre-Islamic traditions. This 'revolution' saw many Iranians — much like Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir valley since the reign of Sikandar Shah Miri (alias Butshikan) — flee abroad, diluting their cultural practices in diaspora. A contemporary dimension of this identity struggle must be highlighted: The role of US intervention. Recent protests, such as those sparked by Mahsa Amini's death in 2022 over the mandatory hijab law, were amplified by Western media and the Pentagon's propaganda machine as a ploy to undermine Iran's theocracy. While these protests symbolised resistance — women burning hijabs and cutting their hair in public — they subsided perhaps when the US deemed the ploy insufficient to topple the regime. Washington must be asked why it stopped echoing the voices of 'suppressed' Iranian women? Has the mission to free them been accomplished? Contrary to the media narrative, Iranian women are among the 'free-est" in the Islamic world, with minimal police action against hijab violations in rural areas, challenging the narrative pushed by some US-based Iranians who celebrate Israeli attacks. IRAN MUST TURN AROUND Drawing parallels with the tenacity of Russians, the anarchic resilience of Afghans and the enduring Hindu essence of Indian culture, a critical question must be raised about Iranians: Are they as resolute? Why did the people of Iran lose their pre-Islamic Persian identity, for example, not resisting the Abbasid invaders? If, today, some Iranian-Americans are praying for an end to the Islamic regime, have they forgotten that the country they are domiciled in now is the country that had orchestrated the fall of the Shah and replaced the secular leader with Ayatollah Khomeini in 1977-79? Are the Iranians destined to remain pawns in a geopolitical chess game forever? Will this pattern of foreign exploitation, where Iran's internal dissent is co-opted for geopolitical gain, reverse now, even after the dismantling of Iran's proxies, such as Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria, which has left Tehran vulnerable? Will the historically non-existent resilience of Iranians prove a wildcard? Iran's future hinges on its people's ability to reconcile their Persian and Islamic identities. To whatever extent the Mahsa Amini protests were true, external manipulation notwithstanding, it reflected a genuine yearning for freedom, aligning with a broader rejection of theocratic rule. The caveat that must be issued here is that US-backed regime changes warn against external solutions. Look at the pattern of American interventions wherever they succeeded: The US 'lost' Vietnam which was, thus, spared the horror. One of the worst students of the respective sociologies of other nations, the Americans have always left a nation-state they interfered in worse off when they left. Iran's liberation, if it comes, must depend on an internal awakening, drawing on its Zoroastrian and Persian roots, much like India's enduring Hindu culture. Speaking from an Indian perspective, neither the continuation of the pro-Pakistan, Islamist Iran that conventionally voted against New Delhi in UN forums on the question of Kashmir, nor a US-backed government that would never let India into the Chabahar port to counterbalance the Sino-Pakistani Gwadar port, is good. A CALL FOR SELF-DETERMINATION top videos View all As the aerial war rages and Khamenei's words resonate, Iran stands at a crossroads. If its people find resilience that they never did in the past, the world may get back glorious Persia, the people of which were essentially farmers but whose king build roads and ports, the language of which was influenced by fellow Indo-European Sanskrit, the science of which made one wonder how it could turn into an Islamic fundamentalist regime, and the economy of which, supported by King Darius' standardised currency, traded goods with India, China and the Roman Empire. (The author is a senior journalist and writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views) tags : Israel Iran tension Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: June 22, 2025, 20:39 IST News opinion Opinion | Iranians Must Reverse Their History For Redemption

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