Another war has broken out. Israel is the provocateur. The United States is the executioner.
Israel has convinced President Donald Trump that Iran has, or has nearly completed developing, nuclear weapons and has laid out plans to threaten the United States. However, The Wall Street Journal has reported that U.S. officials with access to classified information have flat-out denied the alleged threats as unsubstantiated. Yet, Mr Trump has launched a full-scale war against Iran in partnership with Israel.
Past canards
The alleged threat of Iran’s nuclear weapons is of the piece with the canard that Iraq had ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that President Bush used to invade Iraq (2003). It is also like the canard that Muammar al-Gaddafi had planned a massacre of civilians in Libya that President Obama propagated to justify the U.S. intervention to ‘prevent a humanitarian crisis’ (2011). Mr Trump re-invented the Monroe Doctrine to bring about a ‘regime change’ in Venezuela (2026) and has expanded the doctrine to launch a war against Iran.
These military interventions were — and are — illegal. The President of the United States cannot declare war against another country without the authorization of the U.S. Congress. Such interventions are also against the Charter of the United Nations. Apart from being illegal, it is illegitimate for any country to change the regime of another sovereign nation. Just as it is an illegitimate war that Russia is waging against Ukraine, it was illegitimate for the U.S. to abduct President Maduro of Venezuela and it is illegitimate for the U.S. and Israel to eliminate Ayatollah Khamenei and his fellow leaders of Iran. India condoled the deaths only after six days.
Addressing the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament), Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered India’s condolences to Israeli families “whose world was shattered in the barbaric attack by Hamas on October 7.” He added, startlingly, “India stands with Israel, firmly, with full conviction, in this moment, and beyond.” But he uttered not one word of condemnation about the virtual obliteration of the Palestinian settlements in Gaza. While it is true that 1,219 Israelis were killed in the Hamas’ unprovoked attack, it is also true that over 70,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza by Israel.
Mr Modi’s speech was made on February 25, 2026. The war was started by the U.S. and Israel on February 28. Iran retaliated and attacked U.S. military bases in several Arab countries. Mr Trump said that the war may continue for four to five weeks or more. His support to Israel has shut the door against any role that India could have played to bring the war to an end or prevent its spread to other Arab countries. Losing its moral authority, India is an inept spectator while the war rages across the region and beyond, including international waters near Sri Lanka.
Regime change
The central issue is ‘regime change’. However bad a regime may be in a country, it is no business of any other country to change the regime by force. By that standard, there are over 50 countries where the current government deserves to be changed. Many such dictators are, in fact, friends and clients of the United States.
In June 2025, the U.S., at the instigation of Israel, carried out ‘Midnight Hammer’ and, after 12 days, claimed that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been totally obliterated.” If that claim was true, how could Iran have stockpiled nuclear weapons or enriched uranium that posed a threat to the United States? Besides, Oman, which was mediating between Iran and the U.S., had categorically said that Iran had ‘agreed to zero stockpiling of enriched uranium and to never, ever possess nuclear bombs’. Mr Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, asked a pertinent question, “Where is the evidence of nuclear weapons in Iran?” Like some other wars that the U.S. had launched in the past, the war against Iran is based on an untruth.
Israel is a sworn enemy of Iran and vice versa. The U.S. has virtually eliminated threats to Israel from Iraq and Libya. Israel has made peace, at least for the time being, with Saudi Arabia. Iran alone stood in Israel’s way of being the sole and dominant power in the Middle East. Israel has inveigled the U.S. to bring about a regime change in Iran and reduce Iran to a subservient state. That is an abhorrent doctrine. However bad a regime may be, it is the sole right of the people of that country to change the regime.
There are exaggerated claims of success by the U.S. and Israel. Mr Alon Mizrahi, a respected Israeli correspondent, has a different narrative. This is a war without soldiers. Machines are fighting machines. The machines that are most lethal and are in endless supply will win.
India stands diminished
Amidst the growing violence and destruction throughout the region, India, which has vital interests — human, economic and political — in the region is isolated. Iran has targeted U.S. military bases in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iraq. There are 1 crore Indians in the region. India has oil, export and other economic interests. It has committed to invest $370 million in Chabahar Port in Iran. Despite these interests, India is without a voice or influence — all because of India’s unprincipled endorsement of Israel’s objectives.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect the official policy or position of Financial Express.