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India must take advantage of Iran crisis, shift gears from fuel to organic waste management

Operation Epic Fury has disrupted and broken down global supply chains, and the tremors are being felt all over the world due to a systemic breakdown of trade, logistics & input flows.

The United States and Israel’s war on Iran in the Middle East is now on its 24th day. Operation Epic Fury, which began as a “surgical strike” against Iran by US military forces, has now escalated into a full-blown crisis that has affected the entire world, directly impacting the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon.

US President Donald Trump, in an eight-minute video posted on his Truth Social account, said, “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime. A vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.“

The alleged “menacing activities” being Iran’s supposed nuclear armament cache, and intercontinental long-range missiles which, for some reason, Trump perceived as a threat to the US. “The goal of the strikes is to eliminate the Iranian nuclear programme once and for all,” Trump said, whilst unleashing the first salvo on the last day of February.

काम एष क्रोध एष रजोगुणसमुद्भव: || महाशनो महापाप्मा विद्ध्येनमिह वैरिणम् ||

kama esha krodha esha rajo-guna-samudbhavah mahashano maha-papma viddhyenam iha vairinam

Verse 3:37 of the Bhagavad Gita is loosely translated to mean, “It is desire — born of passion — which later transforms into anger. It is insatiable, deeply destructive — recognise this as the true enemy within.”

In the context of the current conflict, we can interpret the above verse as meaning that insatiable greed and lust for power, or oil, or world dominance, when obstructed, lead to rage. This, Krishna says, needs to be contained and controlled. The strikes on Iran are yet to receive sanction from the US Congress. Prior to the US strikes, negotiations between the US and Iran, refereed by Qatar were reported going positively. War is always a painful, difficult and expensive affair. Cost to human life and well-being along with damages to culture is immeasurable but what can be measured are the material and economic costs, which is precisely what this piece attempts to do. Apart from the most obvious fallout, the skyrocketing oil prices, let us discuss the other economic costs of the Iran-US conflict.

Direct military costs

According to a Bloomberg report, a five-week war could cost US taxpayers upwards of $175 billion. If the war extends to eight-weeks, the economic ramifications would be over $250 billion.

“War costs........

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