For the second time in eight months, Israel and the United States of America bombed Iran even as diplomatic negotiations were going on, triggering a fierce response from Tehran that threatens to set all of the Middle East on fire. The missiles fired by Israel and the US hit multiple Iranian cities, including several leadership sites in Tehran. The US president, Donald Trump, said his aim was to eliminate the alleged threat posed by Iran to America, its troops, and its allies. But he did not stop there and went on to indicate that the campaign was also targeted at decapitating the leadership of the Islamic republic. When the bombs stop, the people of Iran, Mr Trump said, would be able to reclaim their government from the current leaders. Iran appears to have interpreted Mr Trump’s words as a call for regime change and unleashed its own fury on a scale never seen before. Within minutes, Iranian missiles had hit Israel and a series of countries that host US bases — Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — killing at least one person in Abu Dhabi.
While robust missile defence systems have so far limited the damage caused by Iranian missiles in the broader region, the extent of damage and death in Iran itself from the American and Israeli bombardment is unclear. What is evident is that this is not a repetition of the June conflict that involved these three countries. Unsurprisingly, if Iran believes that the very existence of the Islamic republic is at stake, it will not hold back. With multiple countries now pulled into the conflict, it is unclear who can mediate between them — and how. If Iran decides to mine or block the Strait of Hormuz, that could send global oil prices soaring. This will be of particular concern for oil-importing nations such as India. Meanwhile, hundreds of flights have been cancelled as the Middle East’s airspace was shut entirely on Saturday, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
Mr Trump claimed that his bombing campaign against Iran in June 2025 had decimated the country’s nuclear capabilities. Yet on Saturday, he claimed his new war was aimed at stopping Iran from building a nuclear bomb. Both of the claims cannot be true. Oman, the principal mediator between the US and Iran, has said that Tehran had agreed to dilute its enriched uranium to levels comparable with natural uranium and that it would not again build a stockpile of uranium. These are major concessions that go well beyond anything Iran has previously accepted. That the US still attacked will raise questions about whether the negotiations were just an act of deceit. The attacks coming less than 48 hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi left Israel will raise questions about whether Israel’s leadership had forewarned him about the impending attack. What is not in doubt is that an already volatile region has been pushed off the edge because the US wanted to do so. That is power. It is also a crime.