Codenamed Operation Epic Fury by the US and Roaring Lion by Israel, the “preemptive war” on Iran interrupted active diplomacy, purportedly to “remove existential threats”. Analysing the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 (which US President Donald Trump’s administration has operationalised substantially), this war was a calculated bid to redraw the balance of power in West Asia, free up geostrategic bandwidth for the Indo-Pacific, disrupt China’s oil lifelines from Venezuela and Iran (although with almost 1 billion barrels stockpiled, China is insulated), reassert the petro-dollar’s hegemony (both Venezuela and Iran were trading in non-dollar currencies) and curb Iran’s drone supplies to Russia for deployment in Ukraine. India must urgently recalibrate to counter these tectonic global shifts, for which External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s vapid parliamentary statement offers no blueprint.

US-Israeli forces assassinated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to paralyse Iran’s command structure and trigger internal upheaval. They also dropped 2,500 bombs across 131 Iranian cities in the first 30 hours, targeting missile launchers, drone manufacturing units and economic infrastructure. Meanwhile, the Western alliance enhanced naval deployments across West Asia. Despite this, victory eludes the US-Israel axis because Iran has chosen the Samson option. Epic Fury/Roaring Lion has hardened public opinion within Iran, which was inevitable given the killing of the Ayatollah and over 1,200 Iranians, including schoolchildren, during Ramzan. Tehran’s Operation True Promise 4 has become an attrition war.

Lacking conventional parity, Iran is retaliating asymmetrically — redefining escalation thresholds to exhaust US-Israeli defensive systems. To deter deeper allied engagement, it is also widening the battlefield by striking military bases, data centres,........

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