# Iran, US-Israel, Gulf: Is Delhi Playing This Crisis Right? |S3 | 44

An episode of [In Our Defence](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1617244439), 20 Mar 2026, 55 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/70777599/20_mar_26_defence_20_march_128.mp3

The Gulf war has widened, energy infrastructure is under threat, and the Strait of Hormuz is once again at the centre of global anxiety. For India, this is not some faraway crisis. It is about oil, LPG, shipping, diaspora safety, relations with Iran, growing ties with Israel, and the limits of diplomacy when all your important partners are in the same conflict. In this episode of In Our Defence, host Dev Goswami and national security expert Sandeep Unnithan unpack India's response to the Iran-Israel war so far. Did Delhi go too quiet too early? Or was that caution part of a deliberate strategy to preserve leverage, protect shipping, and keep channels open with all sides? They discuss: - How India-Iran ties evolved after 1979 - Why Tehran still seems willing to engage Delhi - Whether and why India's initial response was too muted - Whether India really has tilted toward Israel - How different India's stand in this conflict from its historic positions Tune in! Produced by Taniya Dutta Sound mixed by Rohan Bharti

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is India Today Podcasts.
[0:05] Speaker 2: Welcome to season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
[0:08] Speaker 2: takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
[0:12] Speaker 2: Dave Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
[0:15] Speaker 2: and retired officers from the Army, Navy, and Air Force
[0:19] Speaker 2: to decode all things to do with India security and
[0:23] Speaker 2: explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
[0:27] Speaker 2: stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength.
[0:32] Speaker 3: This is in Our Defense. Hello, and welcome to Our Defense.
[0:37] Speaker 2: We are nearing the three week mark actually when this
[0:39] Speaker 2: episode will be out. By the time this episode will
[0:41] Speaker 2: be out will be three weeks of the war in
[0:43] Speaker 2: the Gulf that was started on twenty eight after the
[0:47] Speaker 2: US and Israel launched military strikes on Iran. We've spent
[0:52] Speaker 2: We've done an episode last week on our initial thoughts
[0:56] Speaker 2: and takeaways from the conflict.
[0:59] Speaker 1: And it's take a turn for the worse. By the way,
[1:01] Speaker 1: this spawning you know where.
[1:02] Speaker 2: According this on a Thursday, a day before it comes
[1:04] Speaker 2: out on YouTube and other platforms, It's turn for the
[1:07] Speaker 2: worse with Iran, Sorry, with Israel launching strikes on some
[1:10] Speaker 2: oil infrastuctor in our Iran countering that by launching attacks
[1:16] Speaker 2: on oil sites in Qatar, in Saudi and a.
[1:19] Speaker 3: Bit in Kuwait.
[1:21] Speaker 2: The US putting it all down to a giant misunderstanding,
[1:25] Speaker 2: saying it had no knowledge about this israeld on its own.
[1:28] Speaker 2: Iran also had no knowledge about the fact that not
[1:31] Speaker 2: involved so Iran went Instrucatar. It's a mess the situation
[1:35] Speaker 2: that is right now. But we'll wait for a few
[1:37] Speaker 2: days to see how the fresh round of fighting and foals.
[1:40] Speaker 2: And instead this episode we'll talk about something we promised
[1:43] Speaker 2: last time is how India is involved in this conflict,
[1:47] Speaker 2: how India sees this conflict, how India's response has been
[1:50] Speaker 2: to this conflict, especially the criticism UH and the appreciation
[1:54] Speaker 2: also that the Indian diplomats have cotton in terms of
[1:58] Speaker 2: the response to towards what's happened. For that, as always
[2:02] Speaker 2: I have with me my guest.
[2:04] Speaker 4: Hey, they've got to be back. Yeah, you wouldn't want
[2:07] Speaker 4: to gas station gas station. Now it's a firefight in
[2:09] Speaker 4: a refineryfect.
[2:12] Speaker 2: You wouldn't want to be an i f S officer
[2:14] Speaker 2: Sandeep in South Dook right now. This is like you know,
[2:16] Speaker 2: because you know the way I see it, India probably
[2:19] Speaker 2: has skin in the game in this conflict in a
[2:21] Speaker 2: way most countries don't. You have your energy supplies, you
[2:25] Speaker 2: have your cargo, you have your diaspora, you have your
[2:27] Speaker 2: relations with Iran, with Israel, with all the other capitals
[2:31] Speaker 2: in the Gulf, and very importantly relationship ship with Washington
[2:35] Speaker 2: as well. So it's quite the conflict quiet situation for
[2:39] Speaker 2: India to be in, right, don't you agree?
[2:41] Speaker 4: Absolutely? I completely agree with you. And you know, this
[2:43] Speaker 4: is the thing that you can talk till the cows
[2:46] Speaker 4: come home about the lack of under investment in capacities
[2:50] Speaker 4: that we've never really invested in experts in i f
[2:54] Speaker 4: S officers, particularly you know, we have one of the
[2:56] Speaker 4: lowest number of i f S officers to popular in
[3:00] Speaker 4: the world. We have a smaller IFS Foreign Service officer
[3:05] Speaker 4: contingent that probably even New Zealand and Singapore, and those
[3:08] Speaker 4: numbers are I mean, it's shocking. And I asked this
[3:11] Speaker 4: to an IFS a friend of mine once, why do
[3:15] Speaker 4: you have such a small number of IFS officers And
[3:17] Speaker 4: his answer kind of surprised me, and he said that
[3:20] Speaker 4: we never thought we'd be a great part so quickly,
[3:24] Speaker 4: so we would have probably invested in that a lot more.
[3:26] Speaker 4: But you know, coming back to the present time, You're right,
[3:29] Speaker 4: it would be a tough situation for any IFS officer
[3:32] Speaker 4: for South Block diplomacy right now, given the this poly
[3:38] Speaker 4: crisis again invest Asia. It is an economic crisis, it
[3:42] Speaker 4: is a political crisis, it's a diplomatic crisis. It could
[3:45] Speaker 4: soon be in a security crisis as well, you know,
[3:48] Speaker 4: given the fact that your energy security is being threatened.
[3:51] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[3:52] Speaker 2: Right, So we'll talk about India's response, the debate that's
[3:57] Speaker 2: there over it. There's a political libit which perhaps we
[4:00] Speaker 2: might not get into as much, but there is some
[4:03] Speaker 2: criticism even among amongst experts of India's lack of so
[4:07] Speaker 2: called response in the initial part of the conflict and
[4:10] Speaker 2: what happened after. But to sort of, you know, put
[4:12] Speaker 2: this all into context, because this line keeps coming up
[4:15] Speaker 2: very often, that Iran has always been a friend of India's. Right,
[4:19] Speaker 2: India and Iran share relationship that goes best goes back millennia.
[4:23] Speaker 2: And in fact, this is from the official MEA by
[4:26] Speaker 2: Lattle Brief that THEA puts it for every country. This is,
[4:29] Speaker 2: if I'm not wrong, from jan too zero two fives
[4:31] Speaker 2: later on their website. They updated almost I think once
[4:33] Speaker 2: a year or once every couple of years. But this
[4:36] Speaker 2: is what it is right now on the website. The
[4:38] Speaker 2: first part, the summary of the of the brief says
[4:40] Speaker 2: India and Iran share a millennial long history of interactions.
[4:43] Speaker 2: The contemporary relationship draws upon the strength of these historical
[4:47] Speaker 2: civilizational ties and continues to grow further, marked by high
[4:50] Speaker 2: level exchanges, commercial and connectivity, cooperation, cultural and robust.
[4:54] Speaker 3: People to people ties.
[4:56] Speaker 1: Yeah uh, you know, while I was researching for this episode.
[4:59] Speaker 2: As an aside for a recommendation for our listeners and yours,
[5:02] Speaker 2: I have two articles that I came across, both in
[5:04] Speaker 2: house actually from our own group. One is from the
[5:08] Speaker 2: online team of which I'm a part of, from my
[5:10] Speaker 2: colleague ud Je who wrote about how India and Iran
[5:14] Speaker 2: can trace their ties back to shared gods, shared origin
[5:17] Speaker 2: of languages, and shared worship of fire also interested me.
[5:21] Speaker 2: And another is by someone from the magazine team, Mishra,
[5:26] Speaker 2: who talks about the link that Roala Komini had to
[5:31] Speaker 2: a village in up to his grandfather sayath MOSAVII. He
[5:35] Speaker 2: left Cantur somewhere sometime in the eighteen hundreds earl on
[5:40] Speaker 2: This ended up settling in a village called Komaine in Iran,
[5:44] Speaker 2: and that's how the family got the name Komeni. And
[5:47] Speaker 2: then that was the person who was the first Supreme
[5:49] Speaker 2: Leader of Iran. So those are two articles. We'll have
[5:51] Speaker 2: the description for people to read. We don't obviously want
[5:53] Speaker 2: to talk about history that cold. I want to send
[5:56] Speaker 2: the ask you to give us context of India iranships
[6:01] Speaker 2: religions in the last let's say fifty years, especially since
[6:04] Speaker 2: the revolution nineteen seventy nine, the fall of the Shah
[6:08] Speaker 2: and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. How
[6:11] Speaker 2: have India and Iran's relationship reliship has.
[6:15] Speaker 1: It evolved over the over the decades?
[6:17] Speaker 2: And why does this sentence keep coming up very often
[6:20] Speaker 2: that Iran has always been a friend of Indians?
[6:21] Speaker 3: Right?
[6:22] Speaker 4: Well, you know, the fact is that, like you pointed out,
[6:25] Speaker 4: India and Iran are both ancient civilizations, right, they have
[6:28] Speaker 4: a shared common heritage as well, going back to thousands
[6:31] Speaker 4: of years. We've been around for a very long time,
[6:34] Speaker 4: longer than any of the other belligerents in this content. Right. So, now,
[6:39] Speaker 4: the thing is that what has happened is when the
[6:43] Speaker 4: shark took over. For instance, the Shah of Iran was
[6:46] Speaker 4: they were friendly to Pakistan. They picked a side in
[6:49] Speaker 4: the conflict, the unending series of conflicts that we had
[6:52] Speaker 4: with Pakistan from nineteen forty seven on, Iran was more
[6:56] Speaker 4: on the side of Pakistan. But if you come back
[7:00] Speaker 4: immediately to nineteen seventy nine and post nineteen seventy nine,
[7:04] Speaker 4: there also you see a bit of a divergence because Iran,
[7:09] Speaker 4: because it actually takes up a lot of causes. It
[7:12] Speaker 4: takes up the cause of the leadership of the Islamic
[7:15] Speaker 4: world right right from day one. They've been pushing the
[7:19] Speaker 4: cause of Palestine, for instance. Now the thing is that,
[7:23] Speaker 4: like I always say that the cause of Palestine is
[7:26] Speaker 4: a Sunni Arab cause, and you have Iran, which is
[7:29] Speaker 4: a country that is neither Sunni nor Arab, taking up
[7:32] Speaker 4: this cause and willing to fight for it. And literally,
[7:35] Speaker 4: if you look at it post October seventh, twenty twenty three,
[7:39] Speaker 4: they've lost everything. They've lost heavily, they've lost their you know,
[7:42] Speaker 4: so called acxis of resistance, they've depleted, They've fought multiple
[7:46] Speaker 4: wars with Israel and now with Israel and the United States,
[7:49] Speaker 4: they're literally fighting their back to the wall because they
[7:51] Speaker 4: believe in what they actually said in nineteen seventy nine.
[7:55] Speaker 4: Like this is a struggle for the leadership of the
[7:58] Speaker 4: Islamic world. Like we discussed the last time, it's like
[8:00] Speaker 4: a triangle. You have Turkey in the north, you have
[8:04] Speaker 4: Iran in the southeast, and you have Saudi Arabia in
[8:07] Speaker 4: the south. So it is this battle for the leadership
[8:10] Speaker 4: of the Islamic world. And Iran has taken a very
[8:12] Speaker 4: strident position over there, which was always not two our liking,
[8:19] Speaker 4: especially at the OIC. The many of the resolutions that
[8:23] Speaker 4: they've passed have not been very favorable to India, particularly
[8:28] Speaker 4: over Kashmir. And as late as twenty twenty, you know,
[8:32] Speaker 4: Supreme Leadia Aetol Kamini, he issued that thing of after
[8:36] Speaker 4: the riots in Delhi. You know, that was a sore point.
[8:39] Speaker 4: So that's not very long ago, six years back. So
[8:42] Speaker 4: and when the Supreme Leader says it, it carries a
[8:46] Speaker 4: lot of weight, right because Iran is just one of
[8:49] Speaker 4: two theocracies in the world. It is Afghanistan next door
[8:53] Speaker 4: and there's Iran. There are no other countries like Iran
[8:56] Speaker 4: and Afghanistan. But Iran, particularly because it picked up this
[9:00] Speaker 4: cause of Pan Islamism. That became a great concern for India,
[9:06] Speaker 4: you know, because when you're looking at Pani Islamism is
[9:10] Speaker 4: basically you're talking of a global Islamic struggle exporting the revolution.
[9:15] Speaker 4: They want the Iranian model to happen in other countries
[9:18] Speaker 4: as well, which is why after seventy nine you see
[9:21] Speaker 4: a backlash in all of the other countries nearby. Saudi
[9:24] Speaker 4: Arabia became hardline, more hardline. And to think that pre
[9:28] Speaker 4: nineteen seventy nine, all of these countries had excellent relations
[9:31] Speaker 4: with each other, Saudi Arabia, Iran and even Israel, right,
[9:35] Speaker 4: they were not so enemical to each other. It's only
[9:38] Speaker 4: when the Shah leaves the scene and you have iola
[9:42] Speaker 4: homony coming in that is when things kind of, if
[9:46] Speaker 4: you would say that, start to go south. And Iran actually,
[9:52] Speaker 4: on on numerous occasions they've been very critical of India,
[9:55] Speaker 4: particularly over Kashmir, and Kashmir has been a sole issue
[9:59] Speaker 4: between India and ira and.
[10:03] Speaker 3: The Supreme Leader.
[10:04] Speaker 4: Has mentioned Kashmir in the same breadth as Gaza and
[10:09] Speaker 4: other things, so that that is completely anathema to us,
[10:14] Speaker 4: you know, to club this club or dispute between two countries.
[10:18] Speaker 4: There is no dispute actually Kashmi with Gaza and other
[10:22] Speaker 4: you know, such areas as saying to say that, you know,
[10:25] Speaker 4: Muslims are being persecuted and therefore, you know India is responsible.
[10:29] Speaker 4: That has not gone down well with the Indian establishment.
[10:32] Speaker 4: But there's been a lot of balancing in the last
[10:35] Speaker 4: couple of years because if you look at it, there
[10:39] Speaker 4: is a pragmatic side of our foreign policy which understands
[10:42] Speaker 4: that regardless of what the Supreme Leader says, we need
[10:47] Speaker 4: it on right. Apart from the people to people connect
[10:51] Speaker 4: we have excellent people to people ties. I mean the
[10:54] Speaker 4: kind of you know, because of the common origin of
[10:58] Speaker 4: many of our people, you know, the the shared heritage.
[11:03] Speaker 4: And I'm not just talking about only the Parsis now,
[11:06] Speaker 4: this is there and Yudhijits.
[11:09] Speaker 3: Now.
[11:10] Speaker 4: The thing is that we need Indian needs Iran for
[11:13] Speaker 4: access into Afghanistan and Central Asia bypassing Pakistan and China,
[11:19] Speaker 4: because otherwise, yeah, otherwise we have no access to Central
[11:22] Speaker 4: We're completely locked out right because we lost what is
[11:27] Speaker 4: Pakistan Okyoid Kushmi today g Baltistan. We had no access
[11:31] Speaker 4: to Central Asia. And because we lost Gilgate Baltistan again
[11:37] Speaker 4: we have no access to Afghanistan either. So Afghan Iran
[11:41] Speaker 4: is our only route to Central Asia, to Afghanistan, and
[11:46] Speaker 4: most importantly to the iron STC, the North South Transport Corridor,
[11:52] Speaker 4: which is a plan B to the IMIC, the Indian
[11:57] Speaker 4: Middle East Economic Corridor, and you have India pursuing both corridors.
[12:02] Speaker 4: Though IRONSTC fell on the back burner because of the
[12:07] Speaker 4: fact that Iran and then Russia when under sanctions, global
[12:13] Speaker 4: sanctions imposed by the United States, so there was an
[12:16] Speaker 4: issue over there. I make has also been installed because
[12:19] Speaker 4: of what happened on the seventh of October twenty twenty three.
[12:22] Speaker 4: Though I believe that given the way things are playing
[12:25] Speaker 4: out now in West Asia, there would be an incentive
[12:28] Speaker 4: to pursue the land word connect to Israel via the
[12:35] Speaker 4: Arabian Peninsula by passing the Straits of Foremost. So in
[12:41] Speaker 4: recent years, as the Indian economy grew, there was an
[12:43] Speaker 4: understanding that, look, you cannot isolate Iran. You need Iran,
[12:47] Speaker 4: as you know, as aenemical. As they may have been
[12:52] Speaker 4: on certain occasions in the past, there's they have been.
[12:57] Speaker 4: There have been a lot of you know, mutual gender
[13:00] Speaker 4: points between India and Iran off late and the biggest
[13:04] Speaker 4: example of that was the ship based terminal in Chabahar.
[13:08] Speaker 4: We've put in something like half a billion dollars. That's
[13:11] Speaker 4: our one of our largest overseas investments. You know, the
[13:15] Speaker 4: Indian state is very slow to move on these things.
[13:19] Speaker 4: I mean, we're very inward looking. But when we move
[13:22] Speaker 4: as we have with Chabahar, I mean, it's an ut
[13:25] Speaker 4: a tragedy. What happened to that half a billion dollars
[13:29] Speaker 4: gone there? And that is stuck because the US has
[13:33] Speaker 4: been imposing sanctions on Iran right in two waves. It
[13:36] Speaker 4: first happened under the Obama administration. Then that those sanctions
[13:41] Speaker 4: were removed, then Iran could trade freely, so then we
[13:45] Speaker 4: got an exemption for Chabar. But then again as of
[13:48] Speaker 4: twenty twenty five September twenty twenty five, sanctions are back,
[13:51] Speaker 4: So Chabar is dead. So as far as we are concerned,
[13:55] Speaker 4: Chabar isn't taking off at least as long as this
[13:58] Speaker 4: conflict is that. But that's just one infrastructure thing. The
[14:01] Speaker 4: larger thing is that they have the other big issue
[14:05] Speaker 4: of divergence, and this is where we have voted against
[14:09] Speaker 4: Iran on various internationals. For Ia, for instance, is the
[14:13] Speaker 4: nuclear issue if you ask Indian strategic thinkers, and I've
[14:17] Speaker 4: heard this from none other than Case of Brahmania who
[14:21] Speaker 4: said that a nuclear Iran is not in India's interests.
[14:25] Speaker 4: And now there is evidence to suggest that the centrifugues
[14:30] Speaker 4: that Iran operates, for instance, came from Pakistan. So there
[14:34] Speaker 4: was an element of collusivity between Iran and Pakistan over
[14:37] Speaker 4: the nuclear program. And in the past, the show of
[14:41] Speaker 4: Iran has supplied military hardware to Pakistan. So Iran did
[14:46] Speaker 4: choose a site then, but that is history. Currently. If
[14:50] Speaker 4: you look at our relations with Iran, we've tried to
[14:54] Speaker 4: balance it out. Even though we're very close to Saudi Arabia,
[14:58] Speaker 4: UA and of course Israel the United States, we've tried
[15:01] Speaker 4: to balance this out with Iran. If you saw when
[15:05] Speaker 4: the Prime Minister went to Israel. Before that you had
[15:08] Speaker 4: their deputy in Essay going and meeting their NSA, Larry Journey,
[15:12] Speaker 4: who's now dead. So there has been an attempt to
[15:16] Speaker 4: balance this relation. That's it's not in either or. It's
[15:18] Speaker 4: not a zero sum game as far as we are concerned.
[15:21] Speaker 4: Because for us, it's not about We're not part of
[15:23] Speaker 4: any power block. So in that sense that leaves us
[15:26] Speaker 4: gives us greater agency to deal with you know, countries
[15:29] Speaker 4: they mean that that are at war right now, like
[15:32] Speaker 4: Iran and Israel. They're both good friends with us, Israel
[15:37] Speaker 4: Iran as well, and that's one of the reasons that
[15:42] Speaker 4: our phone calls are getting picked up in terran Yes, right,
[15:45] Speaker 4: so we are able to get those gas shipments through.
[15:48] Speaker 4: So there is one there is that the pessimistic viewpoint
[15:52] Speaker 4: that says that oh everything is over and India is
[15:55] Speaker 4: lost and you know, uh, Iran is now you know, uh,
[16:00] Speaker 4: we've discovered the reach of the limits of our diplomacy.
[16:07] Speaker 4: We don't have any cloud and all that, of course
[16:09] Speaker 4: not we have a lot of cloud, particularly because the
[16:11] Speaker 4: Iranians see us as not being aligned to any such
[16:14] Speaker 4: particular set of things. And we have these bilateral relationships
[16:18] Speaker 4: with all of these countries, including the ones that Iran
[16:21] Speaker 4: is attacking now, Ue and Saudi Arabia for various reasons.
[16:24] Speaker 4: I mean, it is the Gulf West Asia is so
[16:27] Speaker 4: important to us from the perspective of energy security. From
[16:31] Speaker 4: the diaspora, You've got like you know, ten million Indians
[16:35] Speaker 4: over there. You've got a huge forex in flows. You
[16:39] Speaker 4: have our fifty sixty percent of our energy coming from
[16:41] Speaker 4: almost half our energy comes from the eighty percent of
[16:44] Speaker 4: our gas comes from the West. Asia is too important
[16:47] Speaker 4: for us to ignore, and we certainly can't jump into one,
[16:51] Speaker 4: you know, camp. We can't side either with the Iranians,
[16:54] Speaker 4: nor can we side with just the UE and SOUTHI
[16:56] Speaker 4: areba so, I mean that has been the evolution speak
[17:00] Speaker 4: of our ties with Iran over the last couple of years.
[17:02] Speaker 4: It was more ideological when there wasn't such a big
[17:06] Speaker 4: economic skin in the game. But now as our dependence
[17:09] Speaker 4: on economic corridors and energy supply goes up, we have
[17:14] Speaker 4: to deal with the Iranians. And I'm sure South Block
[17:17] Speaker 4: the MEA would want sanctions on Iran to be lifted
[17:21] Speaker 4: so we can trade with them again.
[17:22] Speaker 3: Yeah, do forget that.
[17:24] Speaker 2: You know what you mentioned about your marport, It actually
[17:26] Speaker 2: was dropped from this year's budget.
[17:30] Speaker 3: Allocation was given.
[17:31] Speaker 1: To something because of expressing the reasons you said, because
[17:33] Speaker 1: of the year.
[17:34] Speaker 3: You don't shut any money.
[17:35] Speaker 4: Because my friends in the shipping sector were telling me,
[17:37] Speaker 4: I mean even without any investments and all that, that were.
[17:41] Speaker 4: You know, even if the US had given as exemptions,
[17:44] Speaker 4: they couldn't find shipping lines would go there and trade.
[17:48] Speaker 4: There's nothing that port is desolate and it's very sad
[17:52] Speaker 4: the situation that's there. I mean, of course, the Iranian
[17:55] Speaker 4: people are going through far worse right now.
[17:58] Speaker 2: So I I want you to read it of India's
[18:01] Speaker 2: response over the last three weeks.
[18:04] Speaker 3: This is something that a.
[18:05] Speaker 2: Producer, Danya has really invested in by the way, you know,
[18:07] Speaker 2: he had a very healthy debate at the end of
[18:09] Speaker 2: last two week's episode where she kept insisting that you know,
[18:12] Speaker 2: we should discuss this, So we will discuss Thisanya.
[18:15] Speaker 1: So there are there are two sides.
[18:17] Speaker 2: There are two sides, and they both look at how
[18:20] Speaker 2: Indias responded to the current situation very differently. There's one
[18:23] Speaker 2: side that argues that India not really sort of start
[18:28] Speaker 2: commenting right off the bat was not very good. People
[18:32] Speaker 2: have raised questions of morality that okay, you can leave
[18:37] Speaker 2: out the part that did not comment on the killing
[18:39] Speaker 2: of Kameni because of the points that you raise. She
[18:43] Speaker 2: personally made some comments that you are not very you
[18:45] Speaker 2: don't like. However, the factory means that India has also
[18:48] Speaker 2: not explicitly talked about the bombing of their on in
[18:51] Speaker 2: school where one seventy five I think girls between the
[18:55] Speaker 2: ages of eight to twelve have died. The spokesperson has
[18:59] Speaker 2: been as the questions specifically, but he's responded to it
[19:02] Speaker 2: in the largest sense of you know, we condemned all
[19:04] Speaker 2: that's in the current conflict.
[19:06] Speaker 3: Talking about the one particular.
[19:08] Speaker 2: Instance where some people also have said that, you know,
[19:10] Speaker 2: even some people in Europe have commented, but it has
[19:13] Speaker 2: not so people have putted that out. They the same
[19:18] Speaker 2: that also says that what you saw later Jay Shankar
[19:22] Speaker 2: and Rachi having I think as of last count for
[19:26] Speaker 2: four hors at least you had the PMO D speaking
[19:30] Speaker 2: to the President of Iran or March twelve.
[19:32] Speaker 3: If I'm not wrong, the date could be wrong.
[19:34] Speaker 1: Yeah, it is marked. Well, yes, I'm right, Maske twelve.
[19:37] Speaker 1: All this was sort of you know.
[19:38] Speaker 2: Damaged control because in the realized that it did not
[19:41] Speaker 2: really sort of you know, get of the of the
[19:44] Speaker 2: right base at the beginning. There's the other side that
[19:47] Speaker 2: says that India was waiting and watching. It was a
[19:50] Speaker 2: war not launched by India, obviously, it was a war
[19:53] Speaker 2: launched by US and Israel, Israel and US. Like you've
[19:55] Speaker 2: discussed in the last week, India's waiting and watching. It
[19:59] Speaker 2: was seeing how things pan out. It got a sense
[20:00] Speaker 2: of what things were looking like in the next few days.
[20:02] Speaker 2: And it's part accordingly.
[20:04] Speaker 3: Uh.
[20:04] Speaker 2: The fact remains, like you said, that Indian oil is
[20:07] Speaker 2: going through Indian.
[20:09] Speaker 1: Oil and gases.
[20:12] Speaker 2: It's one of the few countries in the world whose
[20:15] Speaker 2: oil supply gas supplies going through. China is the other
[20:17] Speaker 2: one India, but interestingly is the one that has officially
[20:20] Speaker 2: accepted which it's at we are letting Indian oil pass.
[20:25] Speaker 2: That's something the ambassador spoke about when he came to
[20:28] Speaker 2: our conclave over the weekend last Freddy Saturday. So, Sande,
[20:34] Speaker 2: this is the time and I've drawn for you that
[20:36] Speaker 2: I've given you the debate, the two sides. How do
[20:38] Speaker 2: you see what's happened and where do you come in
[20:40] Speaker 2: on this?
[20:41] Speaker 4: Well, you know, I think that about the school, I
[20:44] Speaker 4: think we should have been a little more you know,
[20:47] Speaker 4: vocal about it. The fact is that irrespective of how
[20:51] Speaker 4: the that incident happened, whether who through that, who fired
[20:54] Speaker 4: that missile, the fact is that children did die and
[20:57] Speaker 4: it's one of the most horrific such instances of the
[21:00] Speaker 4: twenty first century where a school one hundred and seventy
[21:02] Speaker 4: five school children killed. I mean, I think we should
[21:06] Speaker 4: have been a little more vehiment about our condemnation of that.
[21:11] Speaker 4: But that said, I think the larger war, you know,
[21:15] Speaker 4: I think we got taken by surprise, and this war
[21:20] Speaker 4: is if you look at it right now, the way
[21:22] Speaker 4: it's playing out, it's an enormous miscalculation. Yes, by all sides.
[21:29] Speaker 4: I don't think the Iranians were as surprised as the
[21:33] Speaker 4: US and Israel have been in this now. I think
[21:36] Speaker 4: what they went to do was they thought they would
[21:40] Speaker 4: achieve a lightning shock and off campaign which would be
[21:43] Speaker 4: over in twenty four hours, forty eight hours, or seventy
[21:45] Speaker 4: two hours, that Iran would collapse because if you destroyed
[21:50] Speaker 4: the leadership, decapitated them, with forty leaders dead, the supreme
[21:54] Speaker 4: leader dead, there would be a revolution in the streets
[21:58] Speaker 4: and people would take over. And now you know, when
[22:01] Speaker 4: you make a military strategy premised on such flawed assumptions.
[22:07] Speaker 3: Then you're going to see what happened.
[22:08] Speaker 4: Now, So you know, at the risk of sounding gallous
[22:12] Speaker 4: and to talk about this like a surgery, when a
[22:16] Speaker 4: surgeon goes into an operation theater for a surgery. They
[22:19] Speaker 4: have a variety of tools, right, they have you know,
[22:23] Speaker 4: they have scalpels, and they have all manner of tools
[22:26] Speaker 4: in front of them, and then they proceed with the intervention.
[22:30] Speaker 4: It's not that you go with one tool and you
[22:32] Speaker 4: start an operation with one tool and then you realize, oh,
[22:35] Speaker 4: this tool isn't working. Maybe I need another tool. And
[22:37] Speaker 4: then that tool takes a week to arrive. Then a
[22:40] Speaker 4: third tool comes, and a fourth tool come. They said, oh,
[22:42] Speaker 4: maybe I need an off ramp. And you know, so
[22:44] Speaker 4: this is exactly what this war is. I think it's
[22:47] Speaker 4: one of the most bizarre conflicts of the twenty first
[22:50] Speaker 4: century where you have two countries who have literally stumbled
[22:55] Speaker 4: into it based on the fact that they know, they
[22:57] Speaker 4: have precise intelligence that the Iranian ship is meeting here.
[23:02] Speaker 4: There are thirty or forty leaders, including the Supreme leader.
[23:05] Speaker 4: This is our opportunity. Let's go and strike them, and
[23:09] Speaker 4: before you know it, there will be a you know,
[23:11] Speaker 4: a collapse. And this is what Robert Pepe the guy
[23:14] Speaker 4: says that the smart weapons trap, smart munitions trap. This
[23:17] Speaker 4: is exactly the thing that because today you have the
[23:21] Speaker 4: ability to strike fifteen thousand targets and strike all fifteen
[23:26] Speaker 4: thousand of them with one weapon each. Right in the
[23:29] Speaker 4: old days, you would have probably the ratios would have
[23:31] Speaker 4: been forty to fifty bombs for one target because you
[23:34] Speaker 4: didn't have smart bombs. Today, every target can be hit
[23:37] Speaker 4: with one weapon and one hundred percent chance of success.
[23:41] Speaker 4: This has led people to believe that they controlled the
[23:44] Speaker 4: escalation ladder. I'm going to hit them with fifteen thousand things.
[23:48] Speaker 4: What's going to happen after that? They'll collapse? And this
[23:51] Speaker 4: is the kind of faulty assumption they went into this
[23:53] Speaker 4: war with. Now, Iran, as we've discussed in the past,
[23:57] Speaker 4: has wargameed this. It's prepared for precisely this a decapitation
[24:02] Speaker 4: strike where the leaders would be taken out and they
[24:06] Speaker 4: would have this mosaic strategy where you had thirty one,
[24:10] Speaker 4: you know, commands all across the country with all their
[24:13] Speaker 4: own orders, which are now they're firing, they're executing their
[24:16] Speaker 4: orders and raising the costs for the region. So if
[24:21] Speaker 4: you thought that the US and Israel wanted to confine
[24:25] Speaker 4: the war to Iran, Iran has horizontally escalated it. It
[24:29] Speaker 4: has taken the war into places where which have not
[24:33] Speaker 4: seen conflict. Yue, Saudi Arabia, Well they've seen a bit,
[24:38] Speaker 4: you know, during Gulf for one and two, maybe to
[24:40] Speaker 4: some extent, but they haven't seen their gas infrastructure being hit,
[24:44] Speaker 4: their cities being it their airports, I mean Dubai Airport.
[24:47] Speaker 4: It's one of the most valuable pieces of real estate
[24:50] Speaker 4: in the world. They make something like a billion dollars
[24:53] Speaker 4: a day from that airport. It is twenty seven percent
[24:56] Speaker 4: of Dubai's UE's GDP that's been shut quarter of a
[25:02] Speaker 4: million passengers a day that's been shut on and off.
[25:05] Speaker 4: So Iran is expanding the pain to all these Gulf countries. Now. See,
[25:10] Speaker 4: I don't think anybody foresaw this, and I think we
[25:13] Speaker 4: also didn't. I have sense we did not wargame it
[25:17] Speaker 4: because that escalation ladder. I'm not saying I'm this great
[25:22] Speaker 4: genius who came up with this thing on the first day.
[25:26] Speaker 4: I was there in the studio on the twenty eighth
[25:27] Speaker 4: of February with an escalation ladder because I knew how
[25:30] Speaker 4: this was going to go. And the escalation ladder began
[25:33] Speaker 4: with a diplomatic spat and it went all the way
[25:35] Speaker 4: up to nuclear exchange, which, by the way, they're talking
[25:38] Speaker 4: about now possibly a dirty bomb. They have enough to
[25:41] Speaker 4: fashion a dirty bomb. And of course the US and
[25:44] Speaker 4: Israel are nuclear weapons stage. They could use nuclear weapons
[25:47] Speaker 4: if they felt the need to get something to declare victory.
[25:53] Speaker 4: But the fact is that I don't think we wargamed
[25:56] Speaker 4: this enough. We also assumed that this would have been
[26:00] Speaker 4: a short war, that Iran would not have been able
[26:02] Speaker 4: to hold out. And I think you know, when you
[26:04] Speaker 4: underestimate the resilience of a people or a regime, then
[26:09] Speaker 4: you start making miscalculations. Russia made this miscalculation in Ukraine
[26:15] Speaker 4: when they went in the world made a miscalculation that
[26:20] Speaker 4: because Russia has miscalculated, it will now collapse. But they're
[26:24] Speaker 4: fighting into their fifth year, right, The same thing happened here.
[26:27] Speaker 4: Trump thought that what I did in Venezuela, the swift
[26:31] Speaker 4: operation with a few light special forces or you know, bombing,
[26:35] Speaker 4: this thing I can do in Iran. Iran is not Venezuela.
[26:39] Speaker 4: And now they're scrambling for options. Oh, let's go and
[26:43] Speaker 4: get some boots on the ground. We don't have boots
[26:45] Speaker 4: on the ground. Where the closest boots on the ground
[26:47] Speaker 4: Southeast Asia. Well, you'll have to get them out of Japan.
[26:50] Speaker 4: So you have this arg amphibious ready group, the Tripoli group,
[26:53] Speaker 4: which is now crossing the Malaca Straits and entering the
[26:57] Speaker 4: Indian Ocean region. And as we discussed in the last issue,
[27:00] Speaker 4: it is going to be car Gallery because they believe
[27:03] Speaker 4: that car g Island is that Iranian crown jewel, which
[27:07] Speaker 4: if they grab then Iran will succumb. Now that is
[27:11] Speaker 4: another miscalculation. Possibly who knows Iran might attack car Gland
[27:15] Speaker 4: or it may not let the ERG pass through the
[27:18] Speaker 4: Straits of Hormos. The Straits of Hormos is something that
[27:22] Speaker 4: Iran has gained on shutting down for four decades. I
[27:27] Speaker 4: mean I was in school. I remember when the tanker
[27:29] Speaker 4: Wars were on in the eighties. Eighty four to eighty
[27:33] Speaker 4: eight was the peak when all that you're seeing now
[27:36] Speaker 4: is literally was already played. Then all they had to
[27:39] Speaker 4: do was to read history to see that. Look contingency plans,
[27:45] Speaker 4: What is Iran good? How is Iran going to respond?
[27:47] Speaker 4: They will shut the straits of Homos? Oh, I don't
[27:49] Speaker 4: think they can. They don't have the ability to do that.
[27:52] Speaker 4: When you start discounting all this your adversary. When when
[27:56] Speaker 4: you don't give your adversary the benefit of doubt, this
[28:01] Speaker 4: is what happens. You stumble into these kinds of traps.
[28:04] Speaker 4: It's exactly like what Israel thought of Hamas, right that
[28:08] Speaker 4: horrific massacre on the seventh of October. Israel had all
[28:12] Speaker 4: the plans for a year. They did not believe Hamas
[28:17] Speaker 4: could do it. Right, when you think that your adversary
[28:21] Speaker 4: can't do it, then it's not an intel failure. It's
[28:26] Speaker 4: a failure of assessment. It's a failure to read your
[28:28] Speaker 4: adversary's mind. And these are the problems that have happened
[28:32] Speaker 4: here in Iran. I'm not saying that Iran has won
[28:35] Speaker 4: or is going to teach the United States a lesson
[28:37] Speaker 4: or anything like it's Vietnam.
[28:39] Speaker 3: No, it's not. Probably an entirely different scenario. Who knows.
[28:41] Speaker 4: In the long run, the Iranian's mind lose very badly, right,
[28:44] Speaker 4: the regime possibly couldn't survive. But so far, entering the
[28:50] Speaker 4: third week, it has held up. It has held out.
[28:53] Speaker 4: It has not allowed the US to you know, impose
[28:58] Speaker 4: its will on Iran. And all of this was because
[29:01] Speaker 4: of miscalculations. But coming back to the original things. I
[29:04] Speaker 4: think we should have made more astute preparations for this
[29:11] Speaker 4: kind of a contingency. We've been here in the past
[29:15] Speaker 4: again during the Tianker War days of the eighties, where
[29:19] Speaker 4: you knew that it was even the US cannot protect
[29:22] Speaker 4: all their ships passing through there, right, they've had issues.
[29:28] Speaker 4: So who are we. We are certainly not going to
[29:30] Speaker 4: go into the Persian Gulf. It's a complete muddle over there.
[29:34] Speaker 4: It's mind. We don't have the capacity or the capability
[29:38] Speaker 4: to d mind stretches of that. And you couldn't do
[29:41] Speaker 4: that because Iran is sitting over there, right, So there
[29:43] Speaker 4: are various issues.
[29:44] Speaker 3: It's very very complicated.
[29:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, right, I completely agree with your points on that.
[29:49] Speaker 3: You know it is.
[29:51] Speaker 1: It was.
[29:52] Speaker 2: It was a slow response of the kind it was
[29:54] Speaker 2: the we didn't watch kind of where you kind of like,
[29:56] Speaker 2: oh shit, this has happened.
[29:58] Speaker 3: Now let's just see for a couple of days what happens.
[30:00] Speaker 2: Because you know, I'll be honest, the miscalculation that you're
[30:03] Speaker 2: talking about happen in our defense as well, not as
[30:06] Speaker 2: though we are some great you know, I don't want
[30:08] Speaker 2: to alleviate us to the south. However, when whenever we
[30:12] Speaker 2: discussed the possibility of US attacking Iran. We always thought
[30:16] Speaker 2: the response of Iran would be limited to Israel because
[30:18] Speaker 2: Iran can't.
[30:19] Speaker 3: Reach the US.
[30:20] Speaker 1: The closest it can hurt the US was Israel.
[30:23] Speaker 3: No one thought.
[30:24] Speaker 2: We didn't think, at least at least on the day
[30:27] Speaker 2: one of the conflict itself, you just have Israel going
[30:30] Speaker 2: out and hammering everybody in the middle, everyone in the
[30:34] Speaker 2: getting the escalated the conflict from day one, something that
[30:38] Speaker 2: we thought would come maybe months later, months constantly bogged down.
[30:42] Speaker 2: So I'm guessing that's what maybe happened to our diplomats
[30:46] Speaker 2: as well. But then I think, like you said, the
[30:48] Speaker 2: ball has been said pretty rolling. Jeska has spoken to
[30:52] Speaker 2: our achieve several times.
[30:54] Speaker 4: Indian oil is going we have we have agency with
[30:57] Speaker 4: It's not like we are not you know, we have lines.
[31:00] Speaker 4: We may have been surprised initially, but I think we're
[31:02] Speaker 4: playing our cards pretty well now if you look at it.
[31:05] Speaker 4: We have a line to the Iranians and our ships
[31:08] Speaker 4: are going through and that's a very big thing. So
[31:11] Speaker 4: and I think for all our ships that are coming
[31:14] Speaker 4: out of Iran and from the Straits of Hormost, we
[31:17] Speaker 4: should send aid to Iran as well for the people.
[31:21] Speaker 4: I mean, you know, you need to send them aid,
[31:23] Speaker 4: medical supplies. They are under a you know, a warlike scenario.
[31:28] Speaker 4: And we don't have any issue with the people of
[31:31] Speaker 4: Iran and we must always remember that. And I'm not
[31:34] Speaker 4: I'm saying the same for the people of Israel as
[31:36] Speaker 4: well if you can't, I mean, you're not. I'm not
[31:40] Speaker 4: advocating India supplying weapons to either said, but this is
[31:43] Speaker 4: something that we can definitely do. Send humanitarian aid to
[31:46] Speaker 4: both countries, both to Iran and to Israel, and that
[31:49] Speaker 4: will show them that India is a is a country
[31:52] Speaker 4: that is peace loving country, that is on the side
[31:57] Speaker 4: of peace and will stand by the people of both countries.
[32:01] Speaker 2: And I think that might happen actually very soon, because
[32:04] Speaker 2: India has done that.
[32:05] Speaker 1: Previously on the past on several occasions. All Right, we'll
[32:08] Speaker 1: talk more about this.
[32:08] Speaker 3: But after a quick break.
[32:10] Speaker 5: Manji Ravasi Delai har deli hard or.
[32:31] Speaker 6: Yam jammun. It will take minimum three years two icebar.
[32:59] Speaker 5: Alan say yamuna y.
[33:03] Speaker 6: Artificially Brittish wo look just satice kilometer or jamuna.
[33:12] Speaker 5: Those meter jam.
[33:16] Speaker 6: Jamuna Jim Surtis pak or colind it's Jamuna Purana. You
[33:30] Speaker 6: have a dog he jaha pani j b he tabu
[33:37] Speaker 6: pan or wahi pani for salberta ugly jo jam he
[33:46] Speaker 6: woo Jamuna he hey, but yeah he vos j pan Jama.
[33:57] Speaker 3: Looks go.
[34:07] Speaker 1: Hey, hey, welcome back. Something.
[34:17] Speaker 2: Before the break, we were talking about the controversy, or
[34:20] Speaker 2: rather the debate over India's response to Iran. There's one
[34:23] Speaker 2: more tangent on that that I'd want to talk about
[34:26] Speaker 2: before we sort of you know, come back to a
[34:28] Speaker 2: different point.
[34:29] Speaker 5: Uh.
[34:29] Speaker 1: This is also what.
[34:30] Speaker 2: Critics have said that with India's response or lack thereof,
[34:36] Speaker 2: India seems to have quietly chosen aside. This is something
[34:41] Speaker 2: that you know, that's that's flown on social media and
[34:44] Speaker 2: several articles I've read in the first few days, but
[34:47] Speaker 2: in the last couple of days I've sort of seen
[34:49] Speaker 2: counter articles. One I haven't read fully yet, but written
[34:52] Speaker 2: by Sash this morning Indian Express. I haven't been able
[34:55] Speaker 2: to read it completely yet, where they've basically argued that, uh,
[35:00] Speaker 2: if you actually compare India's responses to conflicts in recent past,
[35:05] Speaker 2: in the last maybe half a century, the response that
[35:08] Speaker 2: we're sort of displaying right now is actually standard. It's
[35:11] Speaker 2: not really that unique for US or anybody to come
[35:14] Speaker 2: out and say in this particular case, India seems to
[35:16] Speaker 2: have chosen a side. Our diplomacy, whether it's a Prime
[35:21] Speaker 2: minister of whichever party, has usually and always been about
[35:25] Speaker 2: putting India first and you know, sort of always being
[35:27] Speaker 2: neutral and on on on on both sides. But critics
[35:31] Speaker 2: have our UK this time, No, India seems to have
[35:32] Speaker 2: chosen side. Uh.
[35:34] Speaker 1: They've also pointed to Pmod's visit.
[35:37] Speaker 3: To Israel, right, which is rare.
[35:39] Speaker 4: Ambassador clarified, yes, clarified knowledge of Yeah, yeah, we didn't
[35:43] Speaker 4: have any primary but you know, I was.
[35:45] Speaker 2: Wondering before the break, like just a smaller side that
[35:47] Speaker 2: the optics of it I think would not have sat
[35:50] Speaker 2: very nicely in Deli.
[35:52] Speaker 3: And they may have questions. Absolutely, there's no question about it.
[35:55] Speaker 4: If if the if the government of India knew that
[35:59] Speaker 4: is right and the United States were going to attack
[36:02] Speaker 4: Iran just twenty four forty eight hours after the DM's
[36:06] Speaker 4: visit state visitor, I'm sure the Prime Minister wouldn't have gone.
[36:10] Speaker 4: And as the Israeli ambassador is clarified that this particular
[36:16] Speaker 4: meeting arose after the state visit. The fact that the
[36:21] Speaker 4: Iranan leaders were going into huddle and they thought that
[36:23] Speaker 4: that was the right time to strike rose after that, Yes,
[36:27] Speaker 4: after the Prime Minister wa The Prime Minister was back
[36:29] Speaker 4: on the twenty sixth Thursday, twenty fifth and twenty sixth
[36:32] Speaker 4: then twenty eighth is literally forty eight hours after that.
[36:36] Speaker 3: They launched the offensive against Iran.
[36:39] Speaker 4: And I think from then on they believed that if
[36:42] Speaker 4: they continued with that tempo of you know, five ten
[36:46] Speaker 4: thousand strikes, they're running a shorty rate of I don't know,
[36:49] Speaker 4: one thousand strikes a day or something like an incredible
[36:52] Speaker 4: shorty generation rate. And they thought that if they continued
[36:55] Speaker 4: with that tempo, Iran would be degraded to an extent
[36:57] Speaker 4: that it would collapse or it would be you know,
[37:00] Speaker 4: it will suf for peace or something like that. None
[37:02] Speaker 4: of that happened. So that was the biggest miscalculation. And
[37:05] Speaker 4: you know, going back to what I said before the break,
[37:07] Speaker 4: this is now you're reaching for your tools. You're calling
[37:10] Speaker 4: for tools which you should have had stacked in the
[37:13] Speaker 4: first place. You should have prepared for contingency. You should
[37:15] Speaker 4: have evacuated us people out of the region, and you
[37:17] Speaker 4: should have gained the fact that war gained the fact
[37:20] Speaker 4: that Iran would strike at the GCC countries as they
[37:24] Speaker 4: have in the past, but not with such intensity, with
[37:27] Speaker 4: such ferocity, because at the end of the day, you
[37:30] Speaker 4: have to see it that when you kill the supreme leader,
[37:33] Speaker 4: there's been no recorded case at least in the last
[37:37] Speaker 4: hundred years of ar And you know a leader of
[37:40] Speaker 4: one country being assassinated by the leader by another country,
[37:45] Speaker 4: where if you look at the Huthi prime minister was
[37:47] Speaker 4: skill of course, but not the leader of the jutis
[37:50] Speaker 4: not updel Malek Muti, right, But here in this case
[37:52] Speaker 4: it's a very different kind of thing. So I think
[37:55] Speaker 4: Iran was really rile by those two things, the assassination
[37:58] Speaker 4: of the Supreme leader and the killing of those innocent
[38:03] Speaker 4: girls in that school. So that kind of and if
[38:07] Speaker 4: you look at it in the past, also, Iran has
[38:10] Speaker 4: never been the first to launch an attack. It's always responded.
[38:13] Speaker 4: Nineteen eighty to eighty eight the Iran Iraq War, that
[38:18] Speaker 4: was a war that Saddam Muso launched on Iran and
[38:21] Speaker 4: he was egged on by the neighboring Gulf stage they
[38:23] Speaker 4: said look, this mad Iola has come in, and that's
[38:28] Speaker 4: trouble for us. We've got you know, Shia populations. They could,
[38:31] Speaker 4: you know, rise up in arms, so you better go
[38:34] Speaker 4: and teach him a lesson. And they thought that Sada
[38:37] Speaker 4: Saddam thought that he had an advantage over there, but
[38:40] Speaker 4: he got a root shock and he went on fighting
[38:42] Speaker 4: for eight years, and then finally they had to because
[38:45] Speaker 4: of what actually transpired in the Persian Gulf. Incidentally, that's
[38:48] Speaker 4: the reference to present context, where you had the US
[38:53] Speaker 4: entering the Persian Gulf. Iran and Iraq were both attacking
[38:57] Speaker 4: tankers that were plying there in the Persian Gulf, and
[39:02] Speaker 4: then you had those two very unfortunate incidents where you
[39:04] Speaker 4: had a US warship shooting down an Iranian airliner, the
[39:08] Speaker 4: Vincennes shot down and he just class destroyer shot down
[39:12] Speaker 4: a passenger liner, killing a three hundred. I mean, that's
[39:15] Speaker 4: a horrific incident of the kind that we saw with
[39:18] Speaker 4: MH twelve in Ukraine. That incident happened and there was
[39:23] Speaker 4: a Samuel B. Roberts, a US frigate that was mined
[39:27] Speaker 4: by the Iranians, upon which the US launched a major
[39:31] Speaker 4: operation naval Operation destroyed multiple Iranian naval ships. That was
[39:35] Speaker 4: in eighty six eighty seven, I think, and in eighty
[39:39] Speaker 4: eight end of conflict. So what happened over many years
[39:44] Speaker 4: then is now being compressed into a few days weeks.
[39:49] Speaker 3: So I really don't know where this is headed.
[39:51] Speaker 2: Right, So to my question is so on your sort
[39:57] Speaker 2: of reading of the history of how India as for
[40:00] Speaker 2: it to responded to conflicts, your take on this debate
[40:03] Speaker 2: and do you really think that maybe India has chosen
[40:06] Speaker 2: a side on how does it compared.
[40:07] Speaker 4: To India's You know, India has not chosen a side
[40:11] Speaker 4: in this conflict. Yes, we're very close to Israel, and
[40:15] Speaker 4: yes there is that the optics of Prime Minister Mod's
[40:20] Speaker 4: visit to Tel Avivan is posing for pictures with you know, Benjaminathaniah.
[40:27] Speaker 4: But we also have a Palestine embassy, we have a
[40:31] Speaker 4: bilateral with Palestine as well. We have not abandoned the
[40:34] Speaker 4: cause of Palestine. We still say that the two state
[40:36] Speaker 4: solution is the only solution. So all of these are
[40:39] Speaker 4: there is been no great massive shift away from our
[40:43] Speaker 4: stated positions, And what Sashi says is correct if you
[40:48] Speaker 4: look at it. It's a little boring, you know, Indian
[40:51] Speaker 4: foreign policy studies is boring in its consistency. Actually, yes,
[40:56] Speaker 4: over the years that you think that, oh my god,
[40:58] Speaker 4: you know, India is now run into the American camp,
[41:00] Speaker 4: it's run into the Israeli camp. Who's run in the
[41:04] Speaker 4: Russian camp? No, we're with everyone. We are those guys.
[41:08] Speaker 4: We are the ALUs that is there in every survey.
[41:11] Speaker 4: You know, there will be an Indian alo in the
[41:14] Speaker 4: bricks subject. It will be Indian alo in the I
[41:16] Speaker 4: two you too, that will be Indian alo in Israel.
[41:19] Speaker 4: There will be Indian alo in the US. Right, so
[41:21] Speaker 4: we are indispensable.
[41:23] Speaker 2: Almost fantastic answer, And I think that's actually what makes
[41:26] Speaker 2: it so difficult for us to navigate such crisis, which
[41:30] Speaker 2: is also why, I think which makes it also so controversial,
[41:34] Speaker 2: so debated, because you know, topics like conflict wars are
[41:39] Speaker 2: very are by their nature very polarizing. So when you
[41:43] Speaker 2: have a country time to navigate that very sort of
[41:46] Speaker 2: quietly figure out what to do.
[41:47] Speaker 4: It's obviously going to cost some Yeah, so you don't
[41:50] Speaker 4: see the bottom line is that our security arrangements, we
[41:52] Speaker 4: are on our own. We know that. I've always said this,
[41:55] Speaker 4: and this came to me, this enlightenment came to me
[41:59] Speaker 4: from General Bipin Raba, the late General Bipin Rabah, the
[42:02] Speaker 4: first Chief of Defense Staff, where he said, I said,
[42:05] Speaker 4: who's going to come to our assistance in war? He
[42:07] Speaker 4: says nobody, nobody. We have to fight ourselves. This is
[42:09] Speaker 4: why do you think we got nuclear weapons. Because the
[42:12] Speaker 4: political leadership understood at that time post independence that we
[42:17] Speaker 4: did not want to go to any power blocks. And
[42:20] Speaker 4: if you didn't go to any power blocks, then who's
[42:22] Speaker 4: going to secure you?
[42:23] Speaker 3: No one? So how do you secure yourself? You need
[42:26] Speaker 3: to go.
[42:27] Speaker 4: Then you need to get the nuclear option. And that
[42:30] Speaker 4: is why even prime ministers who may have been perceived
[42:34] Speaker 4: as peace neks like pandit Nehu Missus Gandhi of course
[42:37] Speaker 4: tested the weapons, so she's no peacenake. So they kept
[42:41] Speaker 4: a nuclear option open. We did not sign the MPT
[42:45] Speaker 4: and this is one investment if you look at it
[42:47] Speaker 4: in hindsight, that's bonus. Well, because today we are a
[42:50] Speaker 4: nuclear weapons bar we are fairly autonomous. We can handle
[42:55] Speaker 4: our security. We don't have designs on other countries, but
[42:59] Speaker 4: we have nuclear weapons for our safety, our protection. Then
[43:03] Speaker 4: that's a you know, of course that we've chosen precisely
[43:07] Speaker 4: because of this thing of not being aligned to any
[43:09] Speaker 4: power block.
[43:10] Speaker 2: In fact, both are nuclear programs, the one to develop
[43:14] Speaker 2: the bomb and the one to develop the submarine. Then
[43:16] Speaker 2: you get powered bylistic submarine. Both of them strategic projects.
[43:19] Speaker 2: They are more intertwined with diplomacy than your tactical web.
[43:22] Speaker 3: Yeah. They they come directly under the Prime Minister's office.
[43:25] Speaker 2: So that I think is an example of what you
[43:27] Speaker 2: just said right now, that your diplomacy has been consistent
[43:29] Speaker 2: because both these programs have seen growth over different parties
[43:33] Speaker 2: in your It's never been the case that you've had
[43:36] Speaker 2: Party A come into part and be like, hey, hey,
[43:39] Speaker 2: project Hamny correct.
[43:40] Speaker 4: And so I think there is a fair consensus on
[43:44] Speaker 4: very big issues you know that affect the country, like
[43:48] Speaker 4: national security. There is by and larger consensus economic liberalization.
[43:54] Speaker 4: There is also a consensus that started in ninety one,
[43:58] Speaker 4: thirty five years back. But every part has actually taken
[44:01] Speaker 4: the cause of him.
[44:01] Speaker 3: Yeah, even the left won't take it back. For example,
[44:03] Speaker 3: absolutely no.
[44:04] Speaker 4: So the left would have issues with that, you know,
[44:07] Speaker 4: going with the US for the Clear Deal and all that,
[44:09] Speaker 4: but by uh liberalization to them, I don't think they
[44:14] Speaker 4: would even if they came to power, they wouldn't they
[44:16] Speaker 4: would not be able to roll it back. Right, So
[44:19] Speaker 4: these big broad issues that benefit the country. I think
[44:23] Speaker 4: there is general consensus, right right.
[44:26] Speaker 1: A couple of last points in the is one on
[44:29] Speaker 1: Iran and how ira views India.
[44:31] Speaker 5: Uh.
[44:32] Speaker 2: Now, it's very fairly obvious that Iran does not have
[44:35] Speaker 2: many have many friends in the in the world. Yeah,
[44:38] Speaker 2: maybe China to an extent, maybe Russia, kata are not
[44:41] Speaker 2: any friends as much as they are like sort of
[44:43] Speaker 2: you know, people who would be who play mediators. However,
[44:46] Speaker 2: if you go and attack Katari gas supply, I don't
[44:49] Speaker 2: know how how inclined Katara would be to a play mediator. Uh.
[44:55] Speaker 2: There has been growing chatter that India could actually be
[44:59] Speaker 2: the and to, if not play the media and at
[45:02] Speaker 2: least be the one to sort of, you know, be
[45:03] Speaker 2: the post box for the world, you know, take message
[45:06] Speaker 2: from Iran, give it to Washington, Washington, Tehran and sort
[45:09] Speaker 2: of met it in that that that way, not like
[45:11] Speaker 2: the way Katar does, for example, gather everyone in a
[45:13] Speaker 2: table and you know, hammer out an agreement.
[45:17] Speaker 3: At the conclave.
[45:18] Speaker 2: It was very I was very interested in the I
[45:21] Speaker 2: random ambassador's session because the sense I got out of
[45:24] Speaker 2: it is that and also the session that I saw
[45:28] Speaker 2: the conflict that was on Saturday, the ambassador at come and.
[45:31] Speaker 1: Also the first read out of the call.
[45:34] Speaker 2: Between s JA Shankar and Arakchi they ran Foreign Minister.
[45:37] Speaker 2: The first call that they had after the crisis erupted
[45:40] Speaker 2: the area from the run inside was fairly long and
[45:42] Speaker 2: fairly interesting to me. Both that and the ambassadive session
[45:46] Speaker 2: sort of gave me this sense, even though it's not
[45:48] Speaker 2: say it explicitly, that the Iranians understand indisposition. They know
[45:54] Speaker 2: India can not say certain things for their own strategic
[45:58] Speaker 2: best interest and they're okay with that, and you know.
[46:02] Speaker 2: But the massador actually went on to say that India
[46:05] Speaker 2: had done a lot to help Iran as far as
[46:08] Speaker 2: the sinking of Irish Dana was concerned. The whole episode,
[46:12] Speaker 2: not the Dana per se, but the fact that India
[46:15] Speaker 2: allowed another Iranian warship to take shelter, kept their sailors
[46:20] Speaker 2: at naval facilities for a few days, and then send
[46:23] Speaker 2: them back home to Iran. The ship still exists is
[46:25] Speaker 2: in India with a very very thin crew for basic
[46:29] Speaker 2: every day maintenance. While he did not mention this country,
[46:33] Speaker 2: while he said a third country which could have been
[46:35] Speaker 2: of help in that moment, did not help, but India did,
[46:38] Speaker 2: so he was pretty thankful for India. The comments out
[46:41] Speaker 2: of Iranian side aren't very you know, anti India. They're
[46:44] Speaker 2: fair fairly like, you know, almost I would say.
[46:45] Speaker 1: Friendly towards India. So how do you explain this this reaction?
[46:50] Speaker 2: Is it because like I said at the top of
[46:51] Speaker 2: this question, that Iran doesn't really have a lot of friends,
[46:53] Speaker 2: so it knows that India perhaps is one.
[46:55] Speaker 4: I think that's more like it. I think Iran also
[46:59] Speaker 4: understands that it can't get the kind of assistance that say,
[47:04] Speaker 4: China and Russia can give it. Right, so there is
[47:08] Speaker 4: a very deep military relationship between China, Russia and Iran.
[47:14] Speaker 4: Iran has supplied missiles drones to Russia. It has helped
[47:19] Speaker 4: Russia set up production lines in Alabuga in Tatarstan. China
[47:25] Speaker 4: has supplied them components, It's supplied them chips, it supplied
[47:30] Speaker 4: them fuel, all of that for its missile and drone program,
[47:34] Speaker 4: which is the kind of assistance that India will probably
[47:39] Speaker 4: never give.
[47:39] Speaker 3: Iran.
[47:39] Speaker 4: They understand that, right, we are the good guys, So
[47:43] Speaker 4: we normally never, we don't do these kinds of things.
[47:47] Speaker 4: So I think they see India as a very important country,
[47:52] Speaker 4: especially in the post conflict arena. When they're looking at
[47:57] Speaker 4: this conflict has to end sooner than later. I would
[48:03] Speaker 4: give it another two three weeks. And I'm looking at that,
[48:07] Speaker 4: you know, or that arg of the Tripoli that's sailing
[48:11] Speaker 4: into the Indian Ocean region, because that is signals a
[48:14] Speaker 4: possible thing or it could go completely out of control.
[48:18] Speaker 4: I don't want to make any predictions right now, but
[48:20] Speaker 4: I do believe that the US is trying to leverage
[48:23] Speaker 4: car Island against the Iranians.
[48:26] Speaker 3: Now.
[48:27] Speaker 4: That said, the regime is extremely weak right now. It's
[48:32] Speaker 4: lost a lot of leaders and they continue to be targeted.
[48:36] Speaker 4: And if there is going to be a post war reconstruction,
[48:42] Speaker 4: Iran will need all the friends that it can get,
[48:44] Speaker 4: and one of those friends is India. And I think
[48:48] Speaker 4: that is what they are. They don't want to make
[48:51] Speaker 4: enemies out of us, and they're looking at US as
[48:54] Speaker 4: potential friends who have not been of the kind of
[48:58] Speaker 4: who not provided the kind of assistance that say Russia
[49:01] Speaker 4: and China have provided. But they understand it, I think,
[49:05] Speaker 4: and we just hope that this war gets over quickly,
[49:09] Speaker 4: because they're promising two hundred dollars a battle. Yeah, that's
[49:15] Speaker 4: they have really dug in the Iranians and very quickly.
[49:19] Speaker 4: You know why I take away from this whole thing
[49:22] Speaker 4: not to say that we must turn into a warmongering
[49:25] Speaker 4: nation or anything like that. There are lessons for us
[49:27] Speaker 4: for our military industrial complex from this that a country
[49:31] Speaker 4: which has been under every manner of global sanction has
[49:36] Speaker 4: you know, produced the tools which the US is now
[49:39] Speaker 4: going and you know building Shi one three six, which
[49:43] Speaker 4: incidentally is a German tool designed by West Germany, which
[49:47] Speaker 4: the Iranians picked up. And there are lots of things
[49:49] Speaker 4: for us to understand from this thing, the resilience of
[49:52] Speaker 4: the people, military industrial complex, that if the Iranians can
[49:56] Speaker 4: do it, surely we can.
[49:58] Speaker 1: Right.
[49:59] Speaker 4: Why must we be running for technology to other countries?
[50:03] Speaker 4: Why didn't we do it ourselves? So at some talk
[50:07] Speaker 4: many years back, I was asked, what would you do
[50:09] Speaker 4: to the Indian system to you know, increase technology absorption
[50:15] Speaker 4: or something. I said, I would start it with Iranian
[50:17] Speaker 4: and North Korean bureaucrats or you know, military officials who've
[50:22] Speaker 4: managed to do so much with so little. Surely we
[50:25] Speaker 4: can do it as well. So, I mean there are
[50:28] Speaker 4: things that Iran does and these are civilizational things. You know,
[50:32] Speaker 4: they are in a they are where they are today
[50:34] Speaker 4: because of the way they think, and they think like
[50:39] Speaker 4: a civilizational state and not like content creators or reality
[50:43] Speaker 4: show hosts or something like that. You know, I want
[50:46] Speaker 4: a quick outcome of this, and.
[50:48] Speaker 3: So there.
[50:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like we always said previously, as they didn
[50:52] Speaker 2: on the last episode especially that for Iran to win,
[50:55] Speaker 2: it just needs to survive.
[50:56] Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's what they're doing.
[50:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, this isn't their DNN is where it I think
[51:00] Speaker 2: comes from. And good you mentioned the shy Hadrone because
[51:04] Speaker 2: it was going to be something that was going to
[51:06] Speaker 2: talk about. You know, I think I want to call
[51:09] Speaker 2: it the weapon of mass nuisance.
[51:11] Speaker 3: You know, it's like the perfect.
[51:13] Speaker 4: It's not a nuisance. It's a weapon of destruction. Of course,
[51:16] Speaker 4: the fact is that they're able to knock down a
[51:18] Speaker 4: lot of them, but some are still going through. And
[51:21] Speaker 4: I mean, just look at it. Such a simple thing.
[51:23] Speaker 4: It's such thirty thousand dollars. It's something that has been
[51:29] Speaker 4: invented like forty or fifty years back, and it's a
[51:31] Speaker 4: very simple solution. And it's like I say that the
[51:35] Speaker 4: Germans have come up with every single solution on the battlefield,
[51:39] Speaker 4: whether it's a cruise missile, it's your ballistic missile, it's
[51:41] Speaker 4: your air to ground missile, air to air missile, and
[51:44] Speaker 4: of course this one which they developed in the nineties,
[51:49] Speaker 4: it's a simple engineering, frugal engineering solution which they picked up,
[51:52] Speaker 4: which is the most efficient way of delivering ordnance on target.
[51:58] Speaker 4: And you if your face with missile defenses, then you
[52:02] Speaker 4: build tens of thousands of this and overwhelm your enemies
[52:05] Speaker 4: defenses and they've broken through that. The ship is the
[52:08] Speaker 4: EQ forty seven.
[52:09] Speaker 3: Of this conflict. Yeah. True.
[52:12] Speaker 2: I think we'll end this episode there. I hope our
[52:14] Speaker 2: producer Tanya is happy with our discussion. She was related
[52:18] Speaker 2: a very invested right.
[52:21] Speaker 4: So it's like that Mogambo kusha Lineush.
[52:25] Speaker 1: Yeah, we ask that after this recording ends.
[52:29] Speaker 3: So great. Thanks on THEEP.
[52:31] Speaker 2: You said, you see even though you want to predict,
[52:33] Speaker 2: you see maybe two three more weeks, but you see
[52:36] Speaker 2: this ending very very soon. But just like you know,
[52:39] Speaker 2: before we end, because this happened this morning, like I said,
[52:42] Speaker 2: we still want to sort of wait a few days
[52:44] Speaker 2: for things to develop, But just a very quick take
[52:47] Speaker 2: of what's happened this morning in terms of attacks on
[52:50] Speaker 2: oil facilities, because that is that, you know, next step
[52:52] Speaker 2: on the estallation ladder, after which it becomes very difficult
[52:55] Speaker 2: to because the US response was that it's like it's
[52:58] Speaker 2: suddenly like who everybody, calmed down, you know, don't hit it,
[53:02] Speaker 2: because Iran did not know you were not involved.
[53:04] Speaker 1: Is well, calm down because what are you?
[53:06] Speaker 3: What are you doing?
[53:06] Speaker 2: So now it was the US trying to be like,
[53:09] Speaker 2: what is going on? So you're a pic take on
[53:11] Speaker 2: what quick take on this is that they're basically faced with.
[53:15] Speaker 2: There's this character from going the movie and I keep
[53:18] Speaker 2: using this is Goli Mari, which is a character called
[53:22] Speaker 2: fires Tucker. So it's called Tucker Pailwan.
[53:25] Speaker 4: He goes and he immediately launches into walls and this
[53:27] Speaker 4: that he's played by a great actor who's no longer
[53:31] Speaker 4: with us, Razakhan. So this is a thing of conflict
[53:34] Speaker 4: of Tucker pilvans. I mean, where the hell, guys, you're
[53:38] Speaker 4: going and hitting each other's gas and you know, oil
[53:40] Speaker 4: facilities and on the Middle East is the most valuable
[53:45] Speaker 4: place on Earth because it supplies fifty almost half of
[53:48] Speaker 4: the world's oil gas reserves. You're going to destroy economies
[53:51] Speaker 4: of the world. And I think this is where Israel
[53:53] Speaker 4: is playing a dangerous game. Even Trump is shocked. I mean,
[53:57] Speaker 4: that's how aggressive Israel has been on this conflict U.
[54:01] Speaker 4: And if you see the kind of statements that are
[54:02] Speaker 4: coming out from the United States about them leading the
[54:08] Speaker 4: US into this conflict, that's very dangerous, right.
[54:12] Speaker 1: Right, That is so great.
[54:14] Speaker 2: I think we'll end there and we'll see how the
[54:17] Speaker 2: conflict evolves over the next few days, and we'll get
[54:20] Speaker 2: back very soon. Thanks and Deep as always, great chat,
[54:23] Speaker 2: Thanks for having me there, and thanks as always to
[54:25] Speaker 2: our listeners and viewers. That's it for this fix's defense
[54:27] Speaker 2: noes for more tune in next week. It will then
[54:29] Speaker 2: stay safe and not toss any boundaries for their passport.

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