India Fails Strategic Autonomy Test as US-Israel War on Iran Expands; Canada Claims Intel Links Indian Consulate to Nijjar Killing; Judge Faults Trumped Up Police Case Against Shirtless Protestors
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March 2, 2026
Siddharth Varadarajan
The conflict triggered by the unprovoked US-Israeli strikes on Iran continues to intensify and spread across West Asia. After almost two days of dithering, we know where the Indian government under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi stands too. In phone calls to the rulers of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, he said “India condemns the attacks” on them – a reference to Iran’s retaliatory strikes on targets linked to the US on their territory – and “expresses its solidarity with their people during these difficult circumstances.” Unexceptionable sentiments, except that so far, India has not said a word in condemnation of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, and the targeted assassination of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Even condolences on his death have not been expressed.
“The missiles striking the heart of Iran have finally shattered the glass house of Indian strategic autonomy,” notes Sushant Singh bluntly. Going by its response to the American-Israeli action, India is also an outlier in BRICS.
Pakistan, which has close ties with the US under Donald Trump and of course with the Arabian sheikhdoms, has officially condoled the killing of Khamenei. “Pakistan also expresses concern over violation of the norms of international law. It is an age old convention that the Heads of State/Government should not be targeted,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif tweeted.
Modi also called up Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ‘urged an early end to hostilities’. Translation: We don’t have a problem with what you are doing. Just do it quickly.
Modi’s controversial and outcome-less visit to Israel, followed by his condemnation of Iran places India firmly on the US-Israeli side of the ledger. The fact that Trump and Netanyahu’s recklessness has brought a destructive war to a region where India has vital interests only underscores Modi’s terrible judgment. Trump’s stated goal is regime change in Iran, as was George W Bush’s in Iraq in 2003. But the method Trump has chosen – airpower and bombing rather than committing ground troops – is unlikely to work, says Prof Robert A. Pape, author of the landmark study, Bombing to Win: Airpower and Coercion in War. What this means is a prolonged period of instability across the entire West Asian region, affecting India’s energy security, the physical security of the millions of Indians who work in the Arabian peninsula and of course the Indian economy as a whole.
Trump has said today that he expects the war on Iran to last several weeks. “Whatever the time is, it’s OK, whatever it takes,” he said. Already, more than 550 people in Iran have been killed by US and Israeli bombs in Iran, including over 100 schoolchildren in Minab. There are reports of hospitals having been struck.
The fact that Modi chose to visit Israel on the eve of US-Israeli attack on Iran has led to widespread political criticism at home. More pertinently, his Israeli host was aware of the time set for the bombing campaign and was happy to use the Indian leader’s presence as a prop – for his own domestic audiences and to send a message to the wider region.
Thousands of flights are affected as many countries in the region closed their airspace amid the conflict, stranding passengers in the Gulf’s major transit airports. Indian carriers halted services to West Asian countries on Saturday
