West Asia chaos ::: To adversely impact flows from the region that accounts for 20 percent of global oil supplies ::::: 'Digital money' from the Middle East to start moving towards Hong Kong or other hubs

"IAF fighter jets precisely struck military targets across Iran, eliminating 7 senior officials of the Iranian Defense Leadership:

Ali Shamkhani, Mohammad Pakpour, Saleh Asadi, Mohammad Shirazi, Aziz Nasirzadeh, Hossein Jabal Amelian, Reza Mozaffari-Nia.

The world is a better place without them", - tweeted Israel Defence Forces.

Iran suffers major casualties; defence minister, chief of armed forces declared dead after Khamenei

Aziz Nasirzadeh and Abdolrahim Mousavi killed in the US-Israel joint attacks (social media) 

Israeli defence also said: ONGOING STRIKE: 30+ targets so far, in western and central Iran, including aerial defense systems, missile launchers, regime targets and military command centers.

The IDF will continue to degrade the Iranian terror regime’s capabilities until they can no longer threaten our people."  

Well, this is only one side of the story. 

US President Donald Trump said the attacks would eliminate a security threat to the United States and give Iranians an opportunity to topple their rulers.

Of course, there has been 'no confirmed damage' to oil and gas infrastructure from retaliatory Iranian strikes. 

However, it goes without stating that the scale of the disruption will likely be determined by the duration of the conflict, but for now the threat and the uncertainty are already enough to ....

--- severely impact flows from the region that accounts for 20 percent of global oil supplies.

Aerial image shows the Valero Wilmington Oil Refinery adjacent to the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles - AFP snap  

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, has been killed. His daughter, son-in-law, and grandson were also killed. The Iran Govt declared 40 days of national mourning and seven public holidays.

Experts say global energy markets face one of their gravest shocks in decades as joint US and Israeli strikes on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory missile attacks across the Gulf disrupt oil exports from the world’s most important producing region.  

In the meantime ... ex military officers and geo-strategic analysts with experience in Gulf  say -- 

- Iran will be Targeting of Israel & Citizens abroad

- has already and at times 'successfully' Targeted US Bases and Ships

- Targeting of US allies Jordan, Qatar, UAE & Pakistan 

(Pakistan not attacked so far !! )

 

- Employment of Proxies to Target Israel and Assets in Mediterranean, 

Persian Gulf, Red Sea.  

- Cyber Attacks on US Networks

- Homeland Attack in US undertaken by Aligned proxies/ Lone Wolf adversaries especially

Indian missions in multiple countries had issued advisories urging Indian nationals to stay indoors, avoid military bases and pay heed to emergency alerts sent by local authorities. 

Advisories were issued by the Indian embassies of Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.

BBC sketch 

Debris from a drone intercepted by Dubai's military caused a fire at one of the berths of Jebel Ali Port, a known frequent stop for US Navy ships in the Gulf.

Dubai Civil Defense teams immediately responded to handle the fire.  

Economic Fallout: 

Of course, the aviation sector is the first victim already.

Delhi analyst told the blogger : "Dubai and larger middle East and West Asia airspace presently closed or about to close …

Hence --- the digital money ought to flow in and out.

Prospects brighten that 'digital money' from the Middle East also shall start moving towards Hong Kong or other hubs in South East Asia and even to the United States ... from Dubai / Saudi / Bahrain.

"This is expected more in fear or in panic and also combination of both the factors," the expert added.

Crucially, there have so far been no reports of disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that handles nearly 20 million barrels per day of crude oil and refined products.  

There is also a suggested viewpoint that in the modern-era and treacherous world; nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent. 

If you make a bomb, make it, don't talk. Iran is being bombed not because it wants to make a bomb, but because it did not make one. 

ends 

Syed Mojtaba Khamenei, son of late Supreme Leader, likely to be named as Iran's new Supreme Leader ::::: 56-year-old cleric also oversees a sprawling investment empire !!

 Syed Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Supreme Leader, likely to be named as Iran's new Supreme Leader

The 56-year-old cleric generally has been in north London but overseeing a sprawling investment empire, according to people familiar with the matter and the assessment of a leading Western intelligence agency. 

The younger Khamenei refrains from putting assets in his own name, he has been directly involved in the deals, some of which stretch back at least as far as 2011, reports said recently.  

Behind the facades of these luxury homes on The Bishops Avenue lies a network stretching from Tehran to Dubai and Frankfurt. The ultimate ownership traces back, through layers of shell companies, to one of the most powerful men in the Middle East: Mojtaba Khamenei, the second-eldest son of Iran's Supreme Leader. 

A year-long Bloomberg News investigation reveals how the family's financial reach has expanded beyond the borders of the Islamic Republic, it was claimed. 

Below is the moment that Khamenei's death was announced, with the statement, in part, that: "Leader and Imam of the Muslims, His Eminence Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, on the path of upholding the exaltation of the sacred sanctuary of the Islamic Republic of Iran, drank the sweet, pure drought of martyrdom and joined the Supreme Heavenly Kingdom", according to a Reuters translation.

"Hundreds of thousands of people stuck in wrong parts of the world" :::::: War kicks off travel chaos as airlines cancel flights ::::: Severe disruptions to global aviation in years

War launched by US and Israel on Iran has quickly escalated prompting anxiety and concern in whole region 

Flights from Bangladesh to several Middle Eastern destinations have remained suspended since yesterday afternoon as some countries in the region temporarily closed their airspace due to US and Israel’s strikes on Iran and Tehran’s retaliation.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines has suspended all of its Middle East-bound flights due to Iran’s ongoing strikes targeting US bases in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, according to Bosra Islam, general manager (public relations) of the national carrier.

The region has become more important for global aviation since the Russia-Ukraine war forced airlines to avoid both countries' airspace.

Flight maps showed skies over Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Israel and Bahrain virtually empty, while airlines across Europe and the Middle East announced sweeping cancellations. 

Gulf airlines, like Emirates and Qatar Airways, are also among the world's biggest cargo operators.

Dubai's international airport, which handles more than 1,000 flights a day, sustained damage during an overnight Iranian retaliatory attack on sites across the Arab Gulf states, while Abu Dhabi and Kuwait's international airports were also hit.

Major regional gateways including Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi were closed as countries across the Middle East shut their airspace following the strikes and Iran’s retaliation. 

Dubai and neighbouring Doha sit at the crossroads of east‑west air travel, funnelling long‑haul traffic between Europe and Asia through a tightly scheduled network of connecting flights. 

Any prolonged shutdown of its airports ripples far beyond the region, forcing airlines worldwide to reroute or cancel services.   

Iran struck the world-famous Fairmont hotel in Dubai, setting the hotel alight, as the war launched by the US and Israel on Iran quickly spread to the rest of the Middle East on Saturday.

Residents watched in shock as an Iranian missile hit the five-star hotel in Dubai’s luxurious Palm Jumeirah area. Social media videos showed fires breaking out near the entrance of the hotel, which led to four people being injured.

Later Dubai authorities said debris from an intercepted drone caused a fire at the city’s famous luxury hotel the Burj Al Arab and Dubai’s international airport. Abu Dhabi Airports said in a post on X that an incident at Zayed international airport in the UAE’s capital resulted in one fatality and seven injuries. It later deleted the post.

“Civil Defence teams responded immediately and brought the incident under control. No injuries have been reported,” the Dubai media office wrote on its X account.

An Iranian flag flutters, as Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, February 28, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS (Daily Star, Dhaka) 

Dubai Airports suspended all flights at Dubai International and at Al Maktoum International until further notice, urging passengers not to travel.

Major Middle Eastern airports, including Dubai, the world’s busiest international travel hub, were shut on Saturday 

UK-based aviation analyst John Strickland says: "It hits at so many levels. There is the immediate issue of what happens today and the ricochet effect of how long this persists".  

Airlines cancelled on Saturday about half of their flights to Qatar and Israel and about 28% of their flights to Kuwait, after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, according to preliminary Cirium data. 

About 24% of flights to the Middle East were cancelled. 

Conflict zones add to operational risks, raising fears of accidental shoot‑downs and lengthening routes, which increases fuel costs. 

The US and Israel launched their most ambitious attack on Iran in decades killing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and prompting Iran to retaliate with missile and drone attacks. 

PASSENGERS STRANDED ACROSS EUROPE

Students travelling from Paris to Dubai said their college trip was abandoned. "We still have some students that went there earlier and they're stuck in Dubai and we don't know when they’ll be able to come back," said Benjamin Gnatek.

At Charles de Gaulle airport, Thai-bound traveller Roman Simon said his onward flight via Doha was cancelled. "Now, we’re trying to find a solution to still make our trip to Thailand," he told Reuters.

At Doha’s Hamad International Airport, gates were nearly empty as stranded passengers queued to make hotel arrangements, a Reuters witness said.

As countries in the region closed their airspace, aircraft were forced to divert around Larnaca, Jeddah, Cairo and Riyadh. Flightradar24 briefly went down due to surging demand.

The European Union's aviation regulator EASA on Saturday recommended its airlines stay out of the airspace affected by the ongoing military intervention.

The risk of a broader Middle East conflict raised !! 

One Dubai resident said that “everyone is very scared” as the situation continued to deteriorate.

“There is footage of missile interceptions all over the city,” they said. “I am packing a suitcase just in case … not that we can leave, because airspace is closed. It is the thing we have all been frightened about happening, and now it has.”

In Bahrain, an Iranian drone flew into a high-rise building in what looked like a targeted attack, exploding and engulfing the skyscraper in flames. Earlier, the country’s national security agency was also struck by an Iranian missile.

Social media footage also appeared to show a missile hitting the huge US naval base in Bahrain. In Kuwait, a drone crashed into the country’s main airport, wounding several employees and damaging the facility, says 'The Guardian'. 

As Iran responded to US and Israeli strikes by bombing the Gulf and Israel, its proxies joined the fray. Bases belonging to the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq were struck by either the US or Israel, killing at least two members of the armed Iraqi group Kataib Hezbollah.

Footage on the streets of Isfahan in central Iran show people cheering and honking their car horns in jubilation. Another video showed people gathering around a bonfire as fireworks lit the night sky. Several families of the killed protesters also celebrated in the streets and at homes, says BBC.

A report by Reuters news agency says there have also been celebrations in Karaj, a city near Tehran. In Tehran, images from news agencies show people on the streets mourning, some holding photos of Khamenei.

ends 

Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been killed, state media confirms

 India calls for restraint

Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been killed, state media confirms

Iranian state media has now reported that the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has indeed been killed.

40 days of public mourning and seven days of public holidays will be observed in Iran after he was killed at his office in the early hours of Saturday, state media reported.

Several hours ago, Donald Trump announced on social media that Khamenei had been killed in the US-Israeli strikes hit at least four buildings in the supreme leader’s compound in Tehran on Saturday morning.

U.S. and Israel Strike Iran in Operation Epic Fury, Kill Supreme Leader Khamenei

The joint strikes hit IRGC centers, air defenses, missile facilities, and nuclear remnants across nine Iranian cities, with state media confirming Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's death at his Tehran compound.

Iran retaliated with missiles at Israel—killing one civilian and injuring over 100—and U.S. bases in Gulf states, causing deaths in Abu Dhabi and disruptions in Dubai. Trump monitored from Mar-a-Lago, urging Iranians to rise up, while Netanyahu thanked him for eliminating an existential threat; casualties in Iran reached at least 201, including unconfirmed reports of a school strike.

India & Middle East: updating

- 8.9 mn Indian citizens - 48% of oil imports

- 68% of LNG imports - at least 38% of remittances to India - 15% of goods export mkt

- a top Indian arms source - growing investment

When 9/11 happened, Iran was one of the first countries that condemned the terror attack. It even helped the Americans in the war against Qaeda/Taliban. Bush returned the favour by calling Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, as an axis of evil. That was a warning sign. The North Koreans, who had the institutional memory of the  devastating American bombing of 1950-53, moved swiftly to make a bomb. I would say they were smart.  The Iranians chose not to make one. They thought the axis would give them deterrence while an advanced nuclear programme would provide them diplomatic cards. Khamenei even issued a fatwa against the bomb! 

In 2015, they signed a deal, agreeing to limit the nuclear programme. They were fully compliant with the terms of the agreement. Trump returned the favour by tearing the deal apart in 2018. The rest is history. 

I wrote this in June 2025: In a treacherous world like ours, nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent. If you make a bomb, make it, don't talk. Iran is being bombed not because it wants to make a bomb, but because it did not make one. 

It's too early to make predictions about which way the war is headed, but this one will have far-reaching consequences in West Asia. This is far bigger than the June war.

(Stanly Johny) 

Kamala Harris, ex US Vice President 

Donald Trump is dragging the United States into a war the American people do not want. Let me be clear: I am opposed to a regime-change war in Iran, and our troops are being put in harm’s way for the sake of Trump’s war of choice.

"I'm dreaming, hello new world!" :::: Iran’s ruthless and pragmatic Ayatollah Ali Khamenei :::: End of an era :::: Dead or alive, it looks now that Khamenei is the biggest Newsmaker of the latest war

For a long time, Ayatollah Khamenei has been ailing, prompting feverish speculation over a successor. The end of his long career has made his many failings and many challenges manifest. 

Dead or alive, it looks now that Khamenei’s brutal balancing is over.  

Imprisoned repeatedly by Iran’s feared security services, Khamenei was nonetheless able to take part in the vast protests of 1978 that eventually convinced the shah to flee. 

Khamenei was always skeptical of the nuclear deal painstakingly negotiated by Iranian officials with the US and others, but he did not oppose its implementation in 2015. 

Analysts argue over whether he has sought to restrain or encourage hardliners in the IRGC who have pushed for Iran to acquire a bomb.

Born the son of a minor cleric of modest means in the eastern Iranian shrine city of Mashhad, Khamenei took his first steps as a radical in the febrile atmosphere of the early 1960s. The then-shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, had launched a major reform project largely rejected by the country’s conservative clergy.

As a young religious student in Qom, a centre of theology, Khamenei had soaked in the traditions of Shia Islam and the radical new thinking of the emerging leader of the conservative opposition, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. By the late 1960s, Khamenei was running secret missions for Khomeini, who had been exiled, and organising networks of Islamist activism.  

***

Iran targeted US bases in Middle East countries Dubai, Doha, Riyadh come under attack

The United States and Israel on Saturday (Feb 28) carried out airstrikes across Iran, with Israel’s public broadcaster reporting that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was among the targets.

A strike on a school in southern Iran killed 63 people, a local official said

In retaliation, Tehran launched missiles at Israel and Gulf nations hosting U.S. military bases, raising concerns about a potential broader conflict in the Middle East.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told counterparts from Saudi, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain and Iraq that it will use all its defensive and military capabilities under legitimate right of self defense.

Araghchi said, “What we are doing is act of self defense, which is absolutely legal and legal and legitimate.”

According to Iran’s Red Crescent Society, over 20 of the country’s 31 provinces were impacted by the U.S. and Israeli strikes.

International diplomatic efforts are crucial to prevent further escalation and promote stability in the Middle East

There is no precedent for regime change happening just because of air strikes. Saddam Hussein of Iraq was overthrown in 2003 by a huge US-led invasion force. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya was overthrown in 2011 by rebel forces that were provided with an air force by Nato and some Arab states. 

In both cases the result was the collapse of the state, civil war and thousands of killings. Libya is still a failed state. Iraq is still dealing with consequences of the invasion and the bloodletting that followed.

"Even if this becomes the first case of air power alone collapsing a regime, the Islamic regime will not be replaced by a liberal democracy that upholds human rights. There is no credible alternative government in exile waiting in the wings," Jeremy Bowen, BBC's international editor.   

Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that there were many signs indicating Khamenei “is no longer with us”, without explicitly confirming his death. 

Donald Trump also says Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead after US-Israeli strikes  

The US president wrote on social media that it is "justice" for "the people of Iran", Americans, and "people from many countries throughout the world".

He says bombing will continue, that "this is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country", and that many Iranian forces "no longer want to fight".   

BBC Verify has confirmed three videos showing celebrations in the cities of Karaj and Tehran tonight following unconfirmed reports of the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in strikes by Israel and the US.

One clip, filmed in a residential district near the city of Karaj, external, shows a group of residents dancing and cheering on the street, while cars sound their horns.  

In another video, a man shouts "I'm dreaming, hello new world!" and the crowd is seen celebrating in the southern Fars province while taking down a sign of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

 

Iranian attacks have been reported in Dubai, Doha, Bahrain, Kuwait - places with US military bases ::: Similarities b/w Trump’s siege of Iran and George W Bush’s disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq

This attack on Iran was launched by the same Donald Trump who promised American voters “no new foreign wars” and railed against previous American attempts at regime change – in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 Iran’s foreign ministry called on Muslim and non-aligned states to demand an urgent meeting of the UN security council, pointing out that the US-Israeli strikes on Saturday were the second such attack in a year while Iran was in the middle of sensitive negotiations over its nuclear programme.

Iranian official says 85 people killed after strike hits girls' school. 

The talks were designed to set up a verifiable process whereby Iran could not acquire the materials for a nuclear bomb. The chief mediator in the talks, Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, had said on Friday that he believed peace was within reach.

After the first wave of Israeli attacks in Tehran on Saturday morning, officials insisted the leadership, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the president, Masoud Pezeshkian, were safe, despite an attempt to assassinate them in the bombings. Khamenei’s office in the capital looked to be a charred ruin, judging by satellite images.

Apparent Iranian attacks have been reported in Dubai, Doha, Bahrain, Kuwait - places with US military bases, or that are allied to the US - and elsewhere. 

The Iranian military confirmed that it had sent drones and fired short-range missiles at al-Udeid airbase in Qatar, the Ali al-Salem base in Kuwait,al-Dhafra airbase in the United Arab Emirates, the Prince Sultain airbase in Riyadh, the US base in Erbil, northern Iraq, the Muwaffaq Salti airbase in Jordan, and the US Fifth fleet base in Bahrain. 

Saudi Arabia and the UAE issued statements condemning Iranian violation of their sovereignty, and warning of their right to take reprisals.

Iran has launched a barrage of retaliatory missiles aimed at Israel and US bases across the region, denouncing the two countries’ airstrikes as a breach of the UN charter and an act of flagrant aggression designed to end any possibility of a diplomatic resolution.  

Verified footage shows a missile appearing to fall uncontrollably, external, possibly after being intercepted, in a residential area of Qatar.

The person filming can be heard saying, "Move to the side, run!" The camera then pans to show dozens of people running away and screaming as the missile falls. A huge fireball erupts as the missile hits the ground and a dark black plume of smoke follows as people continue running.

The man then briefly turns the camera and says, "it’s just in front of my room" before saying "may God protect us".

Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement, external strongly condemning Iran for "targeting of Qatari territory with Iranian ballistic missiles" and said it considers it "a flagrant violation of its national sovereignty, a direct infringement on its security and territorial integrity" and an "unacceptable escalation".

Iranian state TV earlier showed footage of the damaged school in Minab. The BBC has verified its location

Vice President JD Vance was in the Situation Room at the White House last night monitoring the US attack on Iran, according to a source familiar with the matter who asked not to be named.

Vance was joined by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. 

The group was dialled into a conference line with President Trump and his national security team, who were monitoring the strikes from the president's Florida estate Mar-a-Lago. (BBC report)  

Earlier, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) put out an urgent alert on its Farsi page on X, warning "all personnel" in an industrial zone in Iran's Isfahan region to "immediately evacuate".

A translation of the post says: "In a few minutes, the Israeli army will attack military infrastructures in this zone".

Residents of Mazraeh, a village in the province, were told to stay inside their homes until the morning, and to avoid approaching the industrial zone after the attack. 

Isfahan is home to important nuclear and military-industrial facilities.  

President Trump’s appetite for foreign military intervention has increased since his bombing campaign against Iran last year and the capture of Venezuela’s president last month. No Americans were killed in either of those limited actions.

The attack on Iran is on an entirely different scale. And he is warning of the likelihood of American casualties as a result of this operation, even if the plan seems to be to remove the regime in Tehran without putting American boots on the ground.

Many of his own supporters may feel that this is not what they voted for.

American presidents usually rely on vote in Congress to give them the authority to launch this kind of military offensive. Donald Trump did not consult them.

Trump also did not use a more traditional television address to the nation to explain why he felt the need to take action. Instead, he used a short video posted on social media at 02:30 in the morning to inform the American people that he had launched a massive attack against Iran.

Frontline magazine image 

Despite rumours that the commander-in-chief of the army, Maj Gen, Amir Hatami, had been killed, it did not initially appear that the attacks had managed to target its leadership on the same scale as it did last June. 

But the fate of the Revolutionary Guards commander, Mohammad Pakpour, was in doubt, and the home of the leading reformist and former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi was badly damaged.  

We cannot know where this foolish, reckless attack will end – but new hatreds will be seeded, terrorist vendettas sown and, ultimately, little will be achieved.  

There are certain differences, the similarities between Donald Trump’s siege of Iran and George W Bush’s disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq are striking. Both crises fit a wider pattern of ultimately unsuccessful, costly US interventionism dating back to Vietnam – and the 1953 CIA-led Iran coup. Trump promised to avoid foreign adventures. Surprise! He lied ==

-- writes Simon Tisdall in 'The Guardian' newspaper.  

ends

The Board of Peace: A Bait-and-Switch :::: Three converging pressures made the US-Israel attack on Iran :::: Courtesy 'The Raisina Hills' by Nirendra Dev

 The pressure is always harder to quantify but impossible to ignore. The cloud of suspicion over Donald Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein has not been dispelled, despite the justice department’s evident efforts to manage the flow of revelations about the sex-offending financier’s child-trafficking operations. 

The matter has not gone away — and it does not appear that it will. 

The fact of the matter is a toxic convergence of judicial humiliation, midterm anxiety and unresolved political scandals pushed a flailing presidency toward military adventure — at the cost of international law and lasting peace

Three converging pressures made the US-Israel attack on Iran not merely conceivable, but — in retrospect — almost predictable. The first was judicial. The second was electoral. The third was personal, and perhaps the most corrosive of the three.

On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court delivered what is arguably the most significant loss of Trump’s second term, ruling 6-3 that he exceeded his authority when imposing sweeping tariffs using a law reserved for national emergencies. 

The ruling was not a close call. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, found that Trump’s legal stance ‘would represent a transformative expansion of the President’s authority over tariff policy” — and that the law he had relied upon simply did not authorise him to impose tariffs.

Trump responded with characteristic fury, calling the ruling “deeply disappointing” and declaring he was “ashamed of certain members of the court” — including two justices he had personally appointed — for “not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.” 

Tariffs, it turned out, were deeply unpopular: over 60 per cent of Americans disapproved of them, including nearly a quarter of Republicans and three-quarters of swing-vote independents.  

The humiliation was real. A president who had built his second term’s economic identity around tariffs had been stripped of his primary instrument — by a court he had stacked in his own favour.

The Midterm Arithmetic

The electoral pressure compounded the judicial one. With midterms approaching, the economy — battered by tariff-driven price rises and business uncertainty — had become one of the issues Americans cited most frequently as a concern. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that nearly 90 per cent of the costs of the tariff regime had been borne by American firms and consumers, with the Tax Foundation estimating they added around $1,000 to household costs in 2025 and as much as $1,300 in 2026.

A president with declining approval ratings, a rebuked economic agenda and an opposition energised by the court ruling needed a narrative shift. 

War, historically, has provided one.

Blogger 

Behind the strikes on Iran lies a broader pattern of foreign policy underperformance that has defined Trump’s second term, despite his pre-election bravado about ending multiple wars.

Trump had claimed during the 2024 campaign that he could solve the war in Ukraine in a single day. By August 2025, he was candid about how badly he had misjudged it.

 “I thought this was going to be one of the easier ones,” he said. “It’s actually one of the most difficult.” More than a million people have been killed or wounded in the conflict, and the war continues.

His handling of the India-Pakistan crisis in May 2025 drew even sharper scepticism. A ceasefire was announced on May 10 after four days of fighting, but it addressed few of the fundamental issues dividing the two nuclear-armed states, which have fought three major wars since their independence in 1947. 

Trump subsequently claimed he had secured the ceasefire by threatening to cut trade with both countries. India has repeatedly and strongly rejected that account.  

In November, 2025, Trump promoted what he called a ‘Board of Peace” to the UN Security Council as the only viable path to ending the slaughter in Gaza. 

But by the time the first missiles struck Tehran, it had become clear that the initiative was, as one analysis in the Guardian put it, a bait-and-switch operation — sold to the international community as a multilateral mechanism but designed in practice as a rival body to the Security Council, with Trump in charge.

The Opportunity They Calculated

Israel and the United States had made a calculation: that the Islamic Republic was vulnerable. 

It was grappling with a severe economic crisis, the political fallout from a brutal crackdown on protesters earlier in the year, and military defences still badly degraded from the previous summer’s conflict. The conclusion, apparently, was that this was an opportunity that should not be squandered.

The legal basis for the strikes is, to put it carefully, strained. The attack on Iran constitutes a clear violation of the UN Charter in the absence of any credible, imminent Iranian threat to the United States. Trump offered justifications in generalities — denouncing Tehran’s leadership as a “vicious group of very hard, terrible people” and invoking 47 years of enmity between Washington and the Islamic Republic.  

BBC journalist Jeremy Bowen addressed the legal dimension directly. 

“In their statements, both President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Iran was a danger to their countries,” he wrote. 

But he noted that it is difficult to see how the legal justification of self-defence applies given the enormous disparity of power between the US-Israel axis and Iran.

It is, as Bowen concluded, another blow to the already tottering system of international law.

The Guardian, drawing on multiple sources, offered a pointed summary of Trump’s trajectory: for a man who had far more success as a reality show character than as a property developer, war had begun to look like a better distraction than peace. He had been visibly energised by a daring special forces raid on Venezuela in January, in which US operatives removed President Nicolás Maduro from the country without a single casualty.

The Iran strikes follow that template — bold, dramatic, and designed for maximum impact on a domestic audience hungry for evidence of strength. 

Whether they produce anything resembling a durable outcome in the region is a question that the coming weeks will begin to answer.

(courtesy - The Raisina Hills ) 

ends

Ending weeks and months of speculation .... West Bengal Electoral Roll is out --- 63 lakh voters deleted; another 60-lakh-plus under consideration

 “Over 63 lakh voters have already been deleted. Another 60-lakh-plus are under consideration. Even in Bhowanipore there will not be enough voters left to re-elect Mamata Banerjee,” BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari said.

In the chief minister’s constituency, Bhowanipore, 47,111 voters have been deleted. In 2021, Mamata Banerjee had initially suffered a humiliating defeat in Nandigram against Suvendu - a former Trinamool leader himself.

The names of Naihati Municipality ward No. 4 Trinamool councillor Sushanta Sarkar and his mother, Arati Sarkar, have been deleted from the final rolls published on Saturday, it has been alleged. 

Without studying it in detail it would be wrong to make any comment, remarked a Trinamool leader. 

"From what I have gathered from Naihati [in North 24-Parganas], names of genuine voters have been deleted. I have found seven doctors, railway employees and others missing. More will be found," says TMC lawmaker Partha Bhowmick.

Around 1.18 lakh voters have been deleted from the final rolls in Bankura district.

In Nadia, the figure is around 2.73 lakh.

Amit Shah with Suvendu Adhikari 

On SIR list, Union MoS Sukanta Majumdar says, "The list that has come, is not a final list. Some names are approved and the rest are seen by the judicial officers. The judicial officers will see and those are eligible their names would keep coming in. Now the protests are politically motivated". 

West Bengal now has 7,04,59,284 voters and 60,60,475 of those names are “under adjudication”.

Notably, after the draft rolls were published last December, the total number of electors was 7.08 crore.

The Election Commission has published the electoral rolls on Saturday, Feb 28th after its special intensive revision (SIR) exercise and as per Supreme Court's directives.  

As per Supreme Court's orders, the judicial officers from West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha are working to complete the process of adjudication.

As many as 5,46,063 names were deleted from the voters’ list on the basis of Form 7 (for objections) submitted by individual electors and political parties. 

In the draft roll published last December, names of over 58 lakh voters were deleted.  

“We have tried to make the list as foolproof as possible,” Bengal CEO Manoj Agarwal said. 

“It was a huge task and some mistakes happened, which we rectified at the earliest".

The total number of voters deleted in Bengal since the SIR exercise was rolled out is now over 63 lakh. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has repeatedly said 1.2 crore voters will be deleted in Bengal.

Election Commission officials maintained that deletions were primarily on account of death, migration, duplication and untraceability, while additions were processed after scrutiny of documents.

A total of 1,82,036 new voters were added to the list.

Around 17,000 voters were deleted in the final draft in north Kolkata, taking the total deletion to 4.07 lakh in the area since the SIR process started.

In south Kolkata, the number stood at 3,207 while the fate of another 78,675 voters is yet to be decided.

In Alipurduar in north Bengal, 11,96,651 names featured in the final rolls, with the total deletions in the district at 1,02,835, officials said.

In several parts of Bengal, residents crowded notice boards displaying printed lists, going through pages and capturing photographs of entries on mobile phones. At district magistrate and sub-divisional offices, people waited in serpentine queues to verify whether their names had been marked 'approved', 'deleted' or kept 'under adjudication'.  

On the Final Draft List of SIR 2026, Additional CEO Arindam Niyogi said:  

"This mobilization of huge manpower was there. It was unprecedented, as done in West Bengal, there were 24 district election officers. 

The electoral registration officers for each assembly constituency were 294 with one ERO for each AC. The assistant electoral registration officers, that is the EROs, were of 8,571 numbers, officers. Supervisors were there 8,136, who supervised the works of the BLOs...". 

Niyogi also said:

"There is a complete transparency in each stage with 100 percent physical verification strategy. 

The approach it was you know it was very exhaustive in nature with BLOs, the boot level officers who distributed the forms, the enumeration forms in the house to house visit and after that they collected the filled in enumeration forms, then it was digitized and processed...". 

Twenty-eight years after walking together into Parliament, Trinamool Congress and BJP (since 1998) now face each other as sworn enemies—making West Bengal’s coming election the most acerbic yet.  After 2014 as the BJP stepped up attack against Mamata Banerjee; at one point she was furious and had said -- "Who is Amit Shah?". 

But the BJP's rise has been phenomenal. It became single largest and principal opposition to TMC while former dominant force the Left parties drew blank in 2021. And so did the Congress party.  

In retrospect, Mamata Banerjee helped the BJP gain its first real foothold in Bengal—when the state was still a secure Left fortress. The irony is profound. Friends turned foes now trade accusations daily, but the roots of this rivalry lie in 1998, just a few months after the Trinamool Congress was born.

That year, the TMC–BJP alliance stunned the Left, winning eight Lok Sabha seats with a combined vote share of 34.63%. BJP’s Tapan Sikdar humbled CPI(M) heavyweight Nirmal Kanti Chatterjee in Dum Dum by over 1.36 lakh votes. The BJP’s vote share jumped sharply, crossing 10%, while the Congress collapsed to 15.2%, reduced to a single seat.

BJP national spokesperson Shazia Ilmi says, "The journey of change in West Bengal is not just a political program. It is not just a political program. It is a symbol of public sentiment. 

This journey is to send a message to villages to tehsil that violence will not work in democracy. And whatever will be the decision will be of the people. So, public contact is important for this. Dialogue is important for this. 

The suppressed issues for years, whether it is violence, corruption or unemployment, dialogue will be on all these issues. Our workers will go to every house and talk to them...". 

ends