[Trump: Sleeping through an “excursion” with bodybags]

Just as the Kremlin is unwilling still to own up to the conflict in Ukraine as a war, and is sticking with Putin’s initial phrase for it — “special military operation”, so coined to denote a small, swift, military action, Donald Trump is struggling to find the right label for the US’ joint misadventure with Israel in Iran. While the US “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth has called it “war”, the US President, ten days into an armed affair that is far from over, has been reluctant to do so because calling any military hostilities war immediately enlarges the canvas and the nature of operations and, worse, raises expectations his government cannot meet. Hence, Trump has settled on calling it an “excursion”, having realised soon enough that his talk of regime change was so much hoo-ha that, short of landing massive American armies in Iran, is impossible to realise.

And even then there’s no guarantee that the landed US forces will survive the intense firefights and close quarter guerilla fighting in attritional mode — something the Americans are loath to engage in — in the cities and in the Iranian countryside that over 31 Pasdaran (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) sub-regional headquarters with prepositioned stores have been preparing for. Besides there’s the Pasdaran’s Shia-ite theology of self-sacrifice to contend with. The Pasdaran are some 200,000 strong with a potential for unlimited manpower callup. The Karbala syndrome — the exaltation of Hussain Ali’s death at the hands of the Umayad Caliph, Yazid, in 680 AD at the Battle of Karbala (in Iraq), which fuels the Pasdaran effort, is not to be taken lightly. If the US military underestimated the “gooks” they were fighting in Vietnam, it may discover something equally chastening coming its way in Iran should Trump foolishly opt for a land war in a country twice as large as Iraq, which the US failed to keep in check after its ill-advised invasion in 2003. Given that Iran’s terrain is almost designed for mountain guerilla warfare of a kind that America lost in neighbouring Afghanistan not too long ago, Trump’s trumpeting “regime change” was manifestly the wrong tack for him to take. He has not repeated this nonsense lately, suggesting he may have seen the futility of setting such a goal.

In any case, Trump’s excursion is getting pricey! According to US Congressional sources Op Epic Fury is costing America $890 million per day to prosecute, and the bill to-date for just the expended guided munitions and armaments exceeds $560 billion! This void will be a bonanza for the US defence industry to fill. But it is the bodybags coming home to grieving American families that is upsetting Trump’s plans. In wars, the US sports a dismal record — its only success being the 1990-91 Op Desert Shield (or, the 1st Gulf War). Honestly, the American society has no social stamina for war — its muscularity being limited to beefy Hollywood stars wreaking havoc in action movies! So far the deaths of only 7 American soldiers has been enough to unsettle US politics, with the media and the people starting to clamour for a pullout. Sympathetic media pundits are preparing the ground, arguing that because Iran has been militarily hurt, in many respects grievously, Trump can call it a victory and get the hell out.

The real test, however, now looms for both the warring sides. Does Tehran and the new Mojtaba Khamanei dispensation think its military and the Pasdaran have squirrelled away sufficient quantities of guided munitions to keep the oil traffic through the narrow Hormuz Strait (23 miles at its narrowest) stalled? And then, for how long? Already the regional and international economies are tanking, with the oil, gas, and refining industries slowly grinding to a halt. If the Abadan oil refining complex and the oil storage and loading port at Kharg Island (able to handle 7 million barrels per day) have so far been spared Western strikes, Tehran too has desisted from taking out major refineries and tank farms in Saudi Arabia and in the Gulf. No one wants a world without West Asian energy. In fact, Trump warned Israel against hitting Iranian oil facilities again after it struck such an installation near Tehran. Keeping the Hormuz gateway closed is precisely Iran’s leverage, and Iran seems confident that it can keep it shut long enough to advantage it. The US offer of naval escorts for oil tankers through this Strait, isn’t the answer.

In this context, the Modi government’s considering the option of Indian navy ships escorting some 36 Indian-flagged tankers with India-bound oil stuck on either side of Hormuz is a perfectly silly and dangerous idea, particularly in light of Tehran’s pointed threats of attacking any crude-carrying ship. In fact, an Indian vessel would be a tempting target for Iranian missiles for many reasons. Providing Iranian naval ships and their crews safe haven in Indian ports will only get you so far with a Tehran that is caught up in a do or die struggle. A shot to disable an Indian ship would create a bilateral crisis, yes. But Tehran may deem this an acceptable price for signalling to bigger players its resolve to stop the oil traffic whatever it takes. Except, hitting an Indian vessel will be minus the danger of a US carrier group countering with a lethal response in case a western tanker is sunk. Therefore, which ever part of GOI thought up this damn fool idea — very likely MEA seeking to please Trump, the Indian government’s foreign policy reflex these days, should stop being an “idiocracy” (a word coined by Tom Cooper, the Swiss military analyst of repute)! Does Prime Minister Narendra Modi want the Indian Navy to be the “canary in the coal mine” for the US? Really?!

Instead of its ships risking passage through Hormuz, Delhi should quadruple oil imports from the Sakhalin oil field that ONGC has equity in — a far simpler and obvious solution. It should herald a fullscale restoration of oil trade with Russia on a sustained and permanent basis, not subject to cut offs of energy ties everytime some Trump/poodle barks in Washington. Had Modi not allowed Trump to walk all over him and told the US President off in no uncertain terms that good relations with America will not be at the expense of ties with Russia, an old and reliable friend, and that India buys Russian oil because it will always suit India’s purposes to do so, and that the US centrally requires India to be on its side in its rivalry with China, that trade with India and access to its vast market benefits America more, as does the flow of cheap skilled labour. It’d have silenced Trump. And a grateful and appreciative Putin would have sold oil pennies on the barrel. Now the country will have to pay through its nose for the Sakhalin/Siberian energy. But better oil from somewhere than no oil from anywhere. And it can make this as in the past a remunerative business by selling refined petroleum products to Western European countries who’d be less willing in the future to impose sanctions just because Trump wants it so.

In this respect, it may be noted that when the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, assuming a lofty attitude, told the American Press that America had “permitted” India to buy oil from Russia, there was NO immediate challenge from the MEA to say that the country’d damn well buy oil from where ever and whenever as dictated by national interest, and that Delhi did not need US permission or approval. That reaction came two days after it had become a hot political issue here.

How little regard Trump and his Administration have for Modi and India was clear when Washington failed to inform Delhi about the plan for one of its nuclear attack submarines to torpedo an Iranian missile destroyer, IRIS Dena, barely outside Sri Lankan waters, when it was returning to home base after participating in the Indian Navy’s International Fleet Review off Vishakhapatnam (Feb 15-25, 2026) and the MILAN 2026 maritime exercise with friendly navies hosted by the Indian navy. The Modi regime couldn’t have averted this incident on March 4, but to spare it the blushes, could have reasoned with the US Indo-Pacific Command, Honolulu, to postpone the action to when the vessel entered Iran’s near seas so as to link it up with Op Epic Fury — a not illogical ask. Instead, Dena sank with the Indian government making much of sheltering the other two ships in the Iranian flotilla, Lavan and Bushehr, with external affairs minister S Jaishankar, at the Raisina Dialogue, MEA’s annual poster event, apparently justifying the kill by pointing to the US and other foreign naval presence in Diego Garcia and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean region. Hegseth described the surpise attack as “quiet death”! 87 bodies of dead Iranian submariners were fished out and 32 sailors rescued. (https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/iris-dena-iran-israel-war-indian-ocean-caught-on-wrong-side-of-events-s-jaishankar-on-iranian-ship-sunk-by-us-11181112)

Israel may have good reasons to want Iran defanged militarily and nuclear-wise, and to get that chump, Trump, to activate the American strike wherewithal against Iran, thus distributing the work load and the risk. No doubt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid it on thick about how easy it’d be for the Hero of Venezuela to depose the regime of the Ayatollahs, have some working stiff manage things for the West in Tehran, and position Trump, after Venezuelan oil (with Saudi and Gulf oil already in the American bag), to now also control the far superior grade oil and gas pumped out of Iran, and thereby hoist himself up as the true energy King of the World, or some such…! True to type Trump swallowed it whole and now finds himself up a creek.

Russia and China meanwhile couldn’t ask for a better turn of events. In stark terms, Russian oil is at a premium again and will stay that way for a good while yet, and the fact that two US aircraft carrier groups and huge air forces have been mustered to deal with Iran along with the redirection of logistics to the West Asian theatre, means a more desperate Kyiv being forced to husband its meagre military resources, and fewer American weapons to fight the Russians with. China, likewise, benefits from the US military forces in the Indo-Pacific being preoccupied with Iran — a mission that is fast depleting the American stock of guided munitions and long range missiles, and weakening the US’ military readiness profile in the Far East.

The seemingly scatter-brained Trump faces a no-win situation. Despite the Israeli and US onslaught, Iran has reportedly managed to preserve the bulk of its deadliest arsenal, made up entirely of indigenously designed and produced long range weapons systems — the Bavar 373 surface-to-air missile, and the 300km range Mehran air defence system operated by the Pasdaran. It means there will be more losses of American fighting assets, more casualties, and no easy wins for Trump to trumpet. Moreover, the longer the conflict the bigger the number of bodybags delivered back to the US, multiplying the political difficulties for Trump at home. He was, after all, elected in 2024, in part because he had promised “no more wars”.

In the event, with the November Congressional elections looming, the continuing Iran imbroglio will likely lose his Republican party majorities in the lower house and possibly even in the Senate. This is a certainty. As of January 2027 then, he will become a lame duck president and his usual theatrics will be of little avail. It is an end-state he wishes to avoid. So, if he isn’t already looking for a face-saving excuse to decamp from West Asia, he soon will. America’s reputation and credibility as partner and ally, or what little is left of them, being as usual in tatters after each such episode.

If no credible excuse comes his way and Hormuz remains bottled up and no oil flows, look for Trump get out any way. He will invent some fiction for the US military to flee West Asia. It is something the American armed forces have had a lot of practice doing all over the globe in the last 70-odd years (Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan) and is good at — cutting and running from the battlefield!