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Iran
Mar 22, 2026 12:48 IST Can Iran make a dirty bomb? The short answer is yes. (Source: India Today)
Mar 21, 2026 16:55 IST Today Tehran attempted to strike the US-UK base Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean with two intermediate-range ballistic missiles, 4,000 km away, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency. One failed and the other may have been intercepted. By targeting Diego Garcia, Iran has expanded the theatre of conflict from the Middle East into the Indian Ocean. This attempt reshapes the risk map. Iran achieves a strategic impact simply by forcing the US to engage defensive measures. Diego Garcia is a pivotal platform for US power projection, hosting heavy bombers, surveillance aircraft, and critical logistics infrastructure. US officials, speaking to the Wall Street Journal, reported that one missile failed mid-flight while a US warship fired an SM-3 interceptor at the second. It remains unclear if the interception was successful. Iranian Foreign Minister Araqchi had previously said the country’s missiles could reach 2,000 kilometres. This is a strategic demonstration as much as a technical test. Experts suggest Tehran may be testing systems approaching true intermediate-range ballistic missile capabilities, with potential reach into southern Europe or deeper into the Indian Ocean. (Source: India Today)
21.03.2026 Iran says Natanz nuclear enrichment complex hit again in US-Israeli attack. The attack targeted the Shahid Ahmadi Roshan enrichment facility in Natanz, no radiation leak detected, says Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)
Mar 20, 2026 14:48 IST The story of how this war began is, at its core, the story of a phone call. On February 23rd, Netanyahu rang Trump with a piece of intelligence: Iran's supreme leader and his top advisers were all convening at a single location in Tehran that Saturday morning. They could all be killed in one strike. It was, Netanyahu told the President of the United States, a now-or-never moment. Trump took the deal. Netanyahu had visited the White House a record-breaking six times in the prior year. In call after call, he had been methodically shifting Trump's gaze toward Iran's nuclear ambitions. When Omani mediators were reportedly on the verge of announcing a potential diplomatic breakthrough in Geneva, Netanyahu worked to derail those talks. Then came the Saturday morning airstrike. Israel's elections are scheduled for October 2026. Polls before the war showed his coalition projected to win just 49 to 52 seats in the 120-member Knesset, against 57 or 58 for the opposition. His corruption trial grinds on. Conviction could mean prison. Political analysts say the war is one of the cornerstones of his reelection strategy. The plan: battlefield achievements would allow him to reframe October 7th not as a catastrophic failure of his leadership but as the opening chapter of a broader, triumphal transformation of the Middle East. Despite 81 percent of Israeli Jews supporting the strikes, the latest Channel 12 survey shows Likud receiving exactly the same number of Knesset seats as before the war began. The pro- and anti-Netanyahu blocs remain deadlocked at 53 seats each, well short of the 61 needed for a majority. He needed a game changer. The war alone may not be enough. He is now reportedly counting on regime change in Tehran. Now turn the lens to Washington. Trump ran for president in 2024 promising to end wars, not start them. MAGA's core instinct is isolationist. And yet here he stands, the man who once mocked endless Middle Eastern entanglements, presiding over America's largest military operation in the region in two decades, without a congressional vote. The American public has noticed. According to NPR/PBS/Marist, 56 percent of Americans oppose the military action, and just 36 percent approve of Trump's handling of Iran. He is now being guided by neo-conservatists like Rubio in the government. These hawks want him to put boots on the ground to either capture Kharg, or Iran’s stock of Uranium. The war is being fought on the go. Senator Van Hollen put it pungently: Netanyahu 'finally found a president stupid enough to attack Iran.' Gulf allies who trusted American security cooperation now experience that cooperation as a direct threat to their own stability. There is a scene that captures this entire relationship. Netanyahu, meeting with US Ambassador Huckabee, reportedly showed him a literal 'punch card' of Iranian leaders Israel had already assassinated or intended to assassinate. A punch card. As though the lives of leaders, the fate of a 90-million-person nation, the disruption of global energy markets, and the risk of American soldiers dying were items to be tallied toward some reward. On the morning of March 18, 2026, Israel struck the South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf, the world's largest, without telling the United States it was going to do so. Trump, the man whose military is also fighting the war, found out when everyone else did. There is no scenario in which both men get what they want. Netanyahu needed this war to survive an election. Trump may lose one because of it. Israel has a clear endgame. America, watching its midterms approach and its approval ratings crater, does not. The tail has wagged the superpower. (Source: India Today)
20 March 2026 2:30 pm Dylan’s song has never felt more alive than today. He wrote: '...you don’t count the dead when God’s on your side.' Iran and its allies are speaking of jihad, the holy war, and the return of Imam Mahdi, the supposed redeemer of Islam. Jerusalem, a site historically important for all three Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - has become the bull’s-eye of three major state powers to bomb, and bomb enemy territories indiscriminately, targeting even schools and hospitals. All for geopolitical dominance, but in the name of God. Today’s Iran cannot be compared with ancient Persia. Nevertheless, Israel is using this story to paint their war efforts as the fulfilment of a religious quest of the Jewish people against a supposedly ancient enemy. When secular strategic interests get baptised in sacred language, wars become harder to end. Atrocities become divine will. Everybody can claim to have God by their side. But it’s we who have to figure out - whose side God, the merciful, is really on. Israel and the US continue to use Biblical references. Trump would not and does not hesitate to express his real intentions. Iran’s nuclear programme is a lame excuse the US-Israel alliance is citing, much like how the US invaded Iraq, alleging the presence of weapons of mass destruction, but could not provide any evidence of Iraq building such things. Netanyahu wants to weaken Iran as much as possible. He even wishes for a collapse of the state. A fragmentation of Iran along ethnic lines would be his most favoured outcome. Trump does not want that. He feels that a collapse of Iran, or even of its current regime, would destabilise western and central Asia; it would also hurt US interests there. Trump wants Iran’s regime itself to shift and collaborate with the US, like what happened in Venezuela. As Dylan’s song pointed out, 'And you never ask questions when God’s on your side.' The current war efforts have both religious and material motivations because these efforts are being driven by religious nationalism, not religion or nationalism alone. Since nationalism is even more powerful than religious sentiments, even religious fundamentalists have to frame the ideology as religious nationalism. There is also a growing Islamophobic dimension in the ideological beliefs held by proponents of Hindutva, Zionism and right-wing conservative Christian evangelism claim terror as an inherent characteristic of Islam. However, the fact remains that terrorism can be and is justified in the name of all kinds of ideologies - religious and secular. Can believers who do not want the war go on to reclaim God to end it? “If God’s on our side, He’ll stop the next war,” Dylan concluded. (Source: Outlook - India)
by Bhattacharya
12:12, 20/03/2026, Friday The Israeli military announced today that its air force struck Iranian naval infrastructure in the Caspian Sea, marking the first such attack in that theater since the conflict began. The army alleged the strikes targeted a military port housing dozens of vessels, including missile boats, along with a central command headquarters. The Caspian Sea, the world's largest inland body of water, borders northern Iran and lies far from Israel's traditional operational reach. (Source: Yeni Şafak - Turkey)
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