Who endures the pain, wins

THE Tehran-Amol highway, also called the Haraz Road, paves a two-hour drive from the Iranian capital to a royal-era ski resort nestled in the scenic Damavand mountains. In the early years of the Islamic Revolution, it was where the rich elite gathered for lavish picnics, unaffected by the radical changes convulsing their country. Along the road, the wafting sounds of melody and cadence revealed the musical preference of the day for Michael Jackson and Madonna. From the local pick, the Mordab (swamp) song by singing-acting sensation Googoosh was a rage with men and women heading to the skiing resort in the winters.

On the snow-caked hills on the far side of the gorge separating my binoculars from the ski slopes on a 1982 visit were massive love-heart signs etched in fresh snow by female skiers sans hijab. My official minder did look disturbed — not by the sight of the women in free flow, but by a busy camera devouring snapshots of those lovers of Omar Khayyam and Hafez Shirazi on skis. Which accounts for the camera with the film of some amazing frames being ‘stolen’ from a security van. It’s this terrain straddling most of the country about three times the size of Iraq, which stands as a granite honeycomb against foreign military visitors. Iran has been conquered before. But Donald Trump claims none of the strategic intellect or the experienced guile of Changez Khan to swamp Iran. Nor is the IRGC a Shah Muhammad II to be overwhelmed by a stranger from abroad, in his case from Mongolia.

Remember that Khomeini’s Iran didn’t flinch before US-aided chemical weapons used by Saddam Hussein for eight years against the clerical government. Iran didn’t have a standing army at the time, nor a battle-hardened or ideologically motivated force the IRGC has become. Moreover, Iraq was mostly a flat land as analysts with the experience of the US invasion of the country point out. Iran offers rugged mountainous terrain as formidable as Afghanistan’s, if not more. As for the prospects of a ground campaign, the proverbial boots on the ground, Iran’s foreign minister with his enviable arsenic smile called out the prospects. “We are waiting for them.”

There’s a major problem though. Theodore Postol is professor of science, technology and national security policy at MIT who describes Benjamin Netanyahu as a “homicidal maniac”. If Netanyahu feels cornered, which Postol with his acknowledged insights into the world of conventional and nuclear missiles, believes could happen anytime given Iran’s precision blows on Tel Aviv and Haifa, Israel could use nuclear weapons on Iran. Postol’s fear is widely shared. In his view, Iran could respond even after a nuclear attack by assembling 10 bombs for which in his view it has the resources to destroy Israel with. Not a happy scenario for the world at all.

If Iran can indeed survive the conventional assault from Israel and the US, it would radically alter the global architecture of power and influence.

If Iran can indeed endure the pain and survive the conventional assault from Israel and the US, which leading former officials from the American military and the CIA believe is all it needs to do to win, it would radically alter the global architecture of power and influence, nothing less. To begin with BRICS will become a supremely invincible movement, but it’s not clear what Narendra Modi would make of that eventuality. He is due to host the BRICS summit in September this year. But his heart, we are told, is in the Quad meeting also due in Delhi soon where he hopes to host his all-time favourite hero from Washington, D.C. It’s not difficult to remember the ease with which previous Indian prime ministers handled the disarming contrariness of India’s non-aligned policy. Indira Gandhi got standing ovations in the US and Moscow. Manmohan Singh had a triangular association, which included flourishing ties with Beijing. But Modi, by visiting Israel and embracing Netanyahu 48 hours before the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei, has fastened India’s sovereignty at Trump’s and Netanyahu’s stormy jetty. The boat under Modi runs the risk of keeling over in the storm.

India’s level-headed stance of Global South solidarity stands mauled while India’s opposition suffers from a glaring lack of will to unite to stall Modi, at home and abroad. As the war rages on, Modi, true to form, is busy consolidating his political hold over the country. He is eyeing the first BJP government in Bihar and making strategic administrative moves ahead of key state polls to target West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the doughty challenger of Hindutva. It’s entirely up to the Congress and the left to decide if they feel more threatened by Banerjee or by Modi.

The opposition has asked all the legitimate questions of his about-turn on ties with Iran, a crucial pillar of BRICS. Sonia Gandhi has, in fact, written a moving critique of Modi’s silence over Khamenei’s assassination, a searing essay that would make Nehru proud. Questions have been asked whether the dash to Israel was prompted by the Epstein files in which the prime minister of India received an unflattering mention. Of the 21 agreements signed in the mind-boggling visit, there’s just one that could qualify as urgent, a rephrasing of the security of investments clause, possibly spawned by Gautam Adani’s troubles with the missile attacks on Haifa whose port he runs.

As for the arms and security pact they inked, India must be watching with alarm the hammering that Israel is getting from a very distant Iran. The all-too-evident failure of Israel’s celebrated air defence should worry all its arms purchasers. Besides, as the wag used to say after the 1998 nuclear tests, who needs missiles if India and Pakistan can attack each other with bombs on bullock carts? It might be easier and cheaper to outsource bilateral ties to the skiers in Pakistan’s Malam Jabba and India’s Gulmarg who could draft more reasoned messages for each other, relayed to both sides by Chinese and Russian satellites.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2026

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