The inference is inevitable from the ongoing Israel-US attack on Iran and the killing of several members of its top leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, that Israel calls the shots on American policy in West Asia. Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly and consistently forced Washington’s hand in the region, with the self-serving objective of removing Iran as an obstacle to Israel’s regional dominance, using America’s military as its battering ram.
The parallels between the latest strikes and the 12-day Israel-US bombing of June 2025 make that inference crystal clear. On June 13, 2025, Israel launched strikes on Iranian nuclear targets just before US-Iran negotiations in Oman were to resume. That forced the US to use its cluster bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan. That was not enough for Netanyahu. Last Friday, even as US emissaries were engaged in indirect talks with Iran in Geneva, he jumped the gun and commenced bombing, leaving no choice for the Americans.
Israel’s intent in preventing any agreement between the US and Iran is unmistakable. Its objectives go further than Washington’s. Last year, the US bombed Iran’s nuclear sites but did not, despite Netanyahu’s prodding, attempt regime change in Tehran. This time around, the Trump administration has expanded its objectives to accommodate Jerusalem to include, in addition to an end to Iran’s uranium enrichment plans, closure of its formidable missile programme, and regime change. The latter two are overriding concerns for Jerusalem, and the fact that Washington is going along with a regime change campaign despite repeated failures of that policy in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria attests to Netanyahu’s leverage on Donald Trump.
By killing the Supreme Leader, the Defence Minister and the chiefs of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Council (IRGC) and the National Security Council in the first wave of strikes, Israel has denied an early off-ramp to Donald Trump. He is now ensnared in the painful process of regime change. The removal of the leadership is only the beginning of it. Khamanei had put in place a succession plan, and resistance from the IRGC and the military is going to be formidable. It cannot be overcome without boots on the ground.
The repercussions from M/s Netanyahu and Trump’s adventurism are obvious and frightful, including for India. If the US does get sucked into ground involvement, it will entail prolonged instability in West Asia and ripple effects in South Asia, where Pakistan and Afghanistan are already daggers drawn. The constriction of oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz is sure to affect India immediately now that it has forsworn oil purchases from Russia. Another immediate concern is the safety of 9 million Indian workers in West Asia, and the 70 billion dollars they send home.
But are these overriding concerns for the Narendra Modi government? Seemingly not. The Israel-US attack on Iran puts into perspective Modi’s visit to Jerusalem just a few days earlier. In hindsight, it will go down as passive assent to the current aggression against Iran. Having gone to Israel even as guns were pointed at Tehran and spoke nothing of peace and mediation, he cannot now argue that he is only a spectator to it. This not only signals a final departure from the policy of non-alignment which was Nehru’s but also from strategic ambivalence, which is his own. Is this not bye-bye BRICS, and hello to Bibi?