The Iran Gambit: A New Middle East Conflict Without Precedent
America’s grand strategy, littered with miscalculations in its Iran approach, now faces a fork-in-the-road moment.
By Vivek Mishra
Published : March 17, 2026 at 7:45 PM IST
The US-Israel military campaign against Iran is starting to bear an eerie familiarity with wars in the past. Yet, there are differences that position the current war on an entirely different plank. On the similarity front, the Iran-Iraq war and America’s interventions in the Gulf wars have strong parallels. But this time, the scale of the military campaign against Iran is unprecedented.
Last year, when the Donald Trump administration decided to use bunker-buster bombs, the intention was to go in and come out swiftly, attacking critical nodes, based on the impression that the nation did not want to be caught in a cleft stick with Iran or, for that matter, in a long regional war.
After all, the administration came to office on the promise that no new war would be started under its aegis. The proposition has now fallen like a pack of cards, with the Trump administration deciding to militarily attack Iran and target its military facilities and nodal centres.
The current war is definitely a moment that is likely to change the Middle East forever, as many Rubicons have now been crossed. First, the intensity of attacks on Iran is substantively different from the past, and the fact that this war is mostly seen as a war of choice would not allow either party to descend from their respective positions.
Add to that Israel’s somewhat differing goals in the region from the US, which makes convergence on the idea of stopping the war that much more difficult. The other factor is that using military force against state proxies of Iran was one thing, but using it against Iran—one of the largest states in the region—is completely another.
The Trump administration may have been lured by the idea that Iran was at its weakest and that there wouldn’t be another time so opportune to strike, as it appeared with all its proxies on their knees and their capabilities decimated.
But attacking Iran has unravelled the existential moorings of a civilizational state, bringing with it a desire for revenge not just for violation of sovereignty but for humiliation. Internally, such sentiments are essential to create a rally-around-the-flag effect that the state needs to scaffold against external threats, especially in the absence of the state’s religious leader, who has been killed.
Both Iran and the US may have boxed themselves into positions that would be extremely difficult to alter. The three preconditions set by Iran for ending the war may offer a glimpse into why this war is likely to continue longer than expected. Neither the US nor Israel is likely to agree to Iran’s conditions of recognition of rights, reparation, or guarantees against future attacks. For Iran, these conditions are the bottom line and a safety valve against a future spiral.
The Iranian ability to penetrate air defences and strike other countries and partners of the US in the region, including economic nerve centres like the UAE, poses a hitherto unseen challenge that countries of the region and the world must navigate, especially with the looming threat of a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.
America’s grand strategy, littered with miscalculations in its Iran approach, now faces a fork-in-the-road moment. On one hand, it is strategically deep enough to come out of the Iran quagmire, and on the other hand, Iran faces a historical moment to emerge from this confrontation with dignity.
These circumstances have created the conditions for an intractable situation where both sides find it difficult to exit while saving face. On top of this, Iran’s strategy of relentless attacks on America’s allies across the region, regardless of GCC solidarity and broader Muslim world alignments, has created new difficulties in managing regional relations as well as America’s own strategic posture.
Donald Trump himself acknowledged that it was beyond US estimations that Iran would begin targeting regional and GCC countries when pushed to the wall. The other unforeseen situation is, of course, the shutting down of the Strait of Hormuz.
From India’s perspective, this is an unprecedented situation, not only from an energy security standpoint but also in balancing its relations with regional countries in the Middle East. If its reliance on Russia for energy was a test of balancing difficult relationships and strategic autonomy, the current phase—marked by the US war on Iran—has brought that balancing act into even sharper focus.
The fact that India has been able to maintain effective communication with Iran in its effort to secure the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz is important, both from an international relations perspective and, more critically, from an energy security standpoint at home, where a potential LPG crisis may be looming should the war continue for longer.
India’s ability to sustain a balanced engagement with Iran, even as the country faces an existential crisis, without taking explicit positions either way, may represent a form of strategic balancing that has rarely been tested before.
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of ETV Bharat)
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