Israel-Iran conflict: Echoes of history haunt West Asia
With West Asia ablaze and alliances on edge, history is back not as memory but as missiles. The region’s civilizational rivalry goes back to Alexander’s conquest of Persepolis. The battlelines seem new, but this conflict’s roots are ancient.
The ghosts of Persepolis are awake. And the ancient civilizational memory of the Persian Empire’s conquest by Alexander, long buried under diplomacy, trade deals and strategic hedging, has erupted again into confrontation. Since last week, Israel and Iran have exchanged fresh attacks—a dreary birthday greeting for the Nobel Peace Prize aspirant President Donald Trump; now he is yet another US president presiding over yet another Middle East war.
While the Israeli strikes may not have been formally greenlit by Washington, Tehran clearly believes that the US gave its tacit support. The optics confirm the suspicion. Trump quickly praised Israel’s actions as “excellent." The reality is that America, for all its denials, is enmeshed in this spiral.
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The retaliatory calculus now unfolding across the region is not merely a security crisis for West Asia, but a geopolitical accelerant that’s likely to impact every energy-dependent economy, every maritime route and every diplomatic playbook.
Israel’s posture is clear. While Tel Aviv’s official rationale focuses on preventing an Iranian nuclear threat, the ambition goes much deeper. Its public call to the Iranian people to reclaim their ancient identity from a repressive regime signals that this is more than a deterrence operation. It is a deeper push for regime change—dressed in the rhetoric of historical destiny and national security. But history warns us: such efforts are rarely clean or conclusive. Iran, despite economic pain and internal pressures, remains a deeply entrenched security state, ideologically hardened and regionally networked.
This is Iran’s gravest moment since the brutal eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s. It will not roll over. If anything, it may double down—invoking nationalism, escalating hostilities asymmetrically and hardening its anti-Western stance. Its diplomatic patience has already snapped: nuclear talks with the US are off. Tehran’s proxies, weakened but not dismantled, can still act.
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The hostility of recent decades often obscures a longer arc of cooperation. Iran and Israel were once covert allies if not friends. During the Shah’s era, intelligence coordination, defence exchanges and economic trade between the two countries ran deep.
Iran, despite its Islamic identity, had few qualms engaging with Israel when Arab states turned their backs. That brief alignment ended with the revolution of 1979, which ushered in decades of mutual suspicion, proxy conflicts and now direct warfare. The war that has broken out is not between strangers. It is between two actors that know each other’s red lines and vulnerabilities all too well.
Meanwhile, this week’s G7 summit in Canada was expected to focus on Ukraine and trade wars. Instead, the war in West Asia has hijacked the agenda. America’s allies, already stretched by conflict fatigue and inflationary pressures, now face a volatile and wider theatre. Each leader has domestic elections to win.
Energy markets responded instantly. Brent crude surged by around 10%, briefly touching $80 per barrel before retreating. Even the threat of a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a choke-point for one-fifth of the world’s oil, is enough to send freight and insurance rates soaring, stress inventories and raise inflationary risks globally.
Financial markets are jittery. Stock indices across Asia and Europe slid on the news. Safe-haven assets like gold and the Swiss franc gained. Central banks, already wary of inflation, now have another external shock to factor in. What began as a localized exchange is fast becoming a global variable.
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India must prepare for a more volatile neighbourhood and a world less forgiving of ambivalence. India must read this moment with clarity and urgency. Our ties with both Israel and Iran are strategic.
With Iran, our partnership has roots in oil, infrastructure and geography. The Chabahar port, India’s critical gateway to Central Asia, sits precariously close to the theatre of conflict. Any disruption in Iran destabilizes India’s westward ambitions. With Israel, the country’s relationship is deep on defence, technology and innovation. It is one of our most trusted sources of military and cyber-defence systems. This is not a conflict India can watch from the sidelines any longer.
India chose to distance itself from a recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization statement condemning Israeli strikes. That was a calculated signal—of an independent posture and refusal to be boxed into bloc geopolitics. But non-alignment cannot mean silence.
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India must prepare for more than diplomatic discomfort. Most of India’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Any escalation that imperils this artery will translate into rising prices, supply insecurity and inflationary pressure back home. The cost of shipping oil will rise, pressure on the rupee will increase and our space for fiscal comfort will narrow.
What this moment demands is pre-emptive preparedness: logistical agility, strategic stockpiles and deeper bilateral assurances with Gulf oil-supply partners. India has unique diplomatic capital. New Delhi can speak to Tel Aviv and Tehran, to Washington and Riyadh and to Moscow and Brussels. That bridge-building potential must now translate into global diplomacy, strategic engagement and firm messaging. As fires rage across West Asia once more, it is not just oil that flows through the Strait of Hormuz, but also the weight of history as ancient civilizations try to secure their future.
The author is a corporate advisor and author of ‘Family and Dhanda’
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