Scar on Trump's legacy as the US enters Iran's war
If Munir massaged his elephantine ego with a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took apple polishing to another level, saying the forces of civilisation thanked him for his intervention. While Modi called Trump out for taking credit for ending the Indo-Pak conflict, Netanyahu had no compunction in giving him bragging rights for defanging Iran. Be that as it may, history may well record Trump as a scar on democracy who fell into a warmonger's trap and jettisoned peace for self-aggrandisement. By bombing Iran, he violated the rulebook on respecting sovereignty, exposed American nationals and their freight to asymmetric warfare in the Strait of Hormuz and increased human hardship as oil prices are set to go further north. There is no easy exit.
Much like the phoney claims of Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction led to the disastrous Iraq invasion, Netanyahu and Trump asserted that Iran was days away from building a nuclear bomb despite the American intelligence department and the IAEA determining otherwise. Though the ongoing attacks further weakened Iran as a regional hegemon as Israel took out Hezbollah, crushed Hamas, choked supply lines from Syria and degraded the Houthis in Yemen, it may have solidified Tehran's intention to pursue nuclear deterrence, irrespective of the war delaying its ability for now. Assassinations of scientists cannot smoke out institutional knowledge assimilated over decades. As for India, it must carefully navigate the new geopolitical reality and adopt a position that serves the supreme national interest.
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Hindustan Times
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Time of India
an hour ago
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