It is indeed a major escalation in the West Asia where despite the international opinion against it, Israel has launched retaliatory strikes inside Iran.
This comes as Iran has promised massive response should the Jewish nation attempt to provoke the Shi’ite nation. But the larger issue to be addressed is if this indeed a regime change war that is being initiated.
Coz the narrative in some of the social media circles is that Iranian regime is evil and the people of Iran are also looking forward to a change. Is it another ‘bring about democracy’ project that has been unleashed in West Asia knowing all too well that Iran will be forced to respond and war will begin.
But let us then try and address the larger issue. What is the larger game or what could it be? If the West is already engaged in Ukraine against Russia, why would it risk triggering another major war ? Does it make sense or does it not ??
Well so lets try and break it down for the masses to understand. Lets us chalk out the possibilities that may be in the offing if a regime change is now being planned in Iran.
So should a regime change come about in Iran, the nuclear programme will be abandoned and West would begin doing business with this country as normally as with any other. That would cause a major loss to Russia in wanting to connect with India via the Chabahar port. This will also be a major loss to China who might be looking for a role in the resource rich West Asian region.
How will India be impacted? Well the possibility is that West would then allow India to buy as much it wants from Iran knowing all too well that India would have no reason to purchase Russian oil or gas ever again. On the weapons front, the West is already quite happy that Russian arms sale to India has become limited.
With that the Western narrative that Russia China are together and India should side with the West and west alone would also come true.Diminishing Russian oil sale to India coz it has a nearby supplier approved by the West might surely impact not only Russia India ties but also the fiscal situation of the country.
This also leaves India vulnerable to coercion by the West as Russia, the only other major power eyeing a multipolar world might get diminished. Multilateral platforms like BRICS and SCO would fall apart and de-dollarization aims would also be going no where.
After a regime change in Iran, West would not have difficulty in monitoring Afghanistan or controlling rather unexplored Central Asian trade but would also not have any use of Pakistan, known for playing double game with the Western block.
It need be recalled that US already has gone public with the intent of expanding AUKUS with multiple Asian nations, mostly around China and India but has also the intent of deploying its missiles in Philippines.
If such a scenario does unfold, US would have ensured a reasonably bipolar world order with China only having hugely diminished Russia by its side.