The assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a joint strike by Israel and the US, underlined that the war aims have expanded beyond the issue of Iran acquiring nuclear capability to regime change. Iran has announced the formation of a three-member Guidance Council, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, head of the judiciary Mohsen Ejahi, and one jurist from the Guardian Council. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has launched fresh missile attacks on Israel and the US bases in the region. US forces have suffered casualties; Abu Dhabi and Dubai airports have been hit. Iran has shown a continued capacity to prosecute the war.

The joint attack came a day after Oman’s foreign minister Badr Al Busaidi told CBS that a “peace deal is within our reach”. Military action has pre-empted a diplomatic solution. This was a repeat of the events of last June, when Israel attacked Iran in the middle of US-Iran negotiations.

The US-Iran indirect negotiations were taking place against the background of a major US military build-up in the region, which included two aircraft carriers — USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald Ford. In his State of the Union address, he stressed that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. The Iranian foreign minister had already given this assurance. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israeli actions as removing an “existential threat”. Trump justified US actions in terms of defending the........

© hindustantimes