Iran, not America or Israel, will determine the endgame

(The article was originally published in Indian Express on March 28, 2026 as a part of Dr Madhav’s column titled ‘Ram Rajya’. Views expressed are personal.)

While drafting of the American Constitution, in Federalist Papers, James Madison raised a pertinent question – “Quis custodient ipsos custodes?” – Who watches the guardians? His question was prompted by an earlier query posed by Alexander Hamilton while opening the Federalist Paper No. 1: “Whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend on accident and force”. Given the limitations of human infallibility, makers of the American Constitution envisaged a system of checks and balances by building various institutions with equal authority. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition”, Madison proclaimed, hoping that “competing sources of authority render a regime internally stable”.

Donald Trump has obviously either not read the Federalist papers or does not care to abide by the wisdom of America’s constitution makers. He believes in his own wisdom. There is no internal authority – neither the Congress nor the judiciary – that can guide or regulate him. He believes in the doctrine of “strategic inconsistency” and loves to keep the world on tenterhooks. It seemed to have worked well for a year, forcing many world powers to kneel before his whims. But one country, Iran, is posing a serious challenge to that. It, at least for the time being, succeeded in converting Trump’s “strategic inconsistency” into “strategic incoherence”.

America and Israel began their military campaign against Iran a month ago with the stated aim of “change of regime”. Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and dozens of senior officials of the Iranian government were eliminated in the early days of the campaign. But far from collapsing, the Iranian regime held on and continued to challenge big powers through its asymmetric capability. As the war continued to rage on, it became clear that the initiative now passed into the hands of Iran. It appears that Iran, not America or Israel, will determine how and when to end the war.

The US and Israel made grandiose claims at the beginning of the war. They boasted that a 20-year planning went into it. But Iran too seems to have prepared for this eventuality even longer. The Americans, who entered the war without an exit plan, are struggling now to find one. Some senior American and Israeli leaders are now talking about “change in the regime” instead of “change of the regime”, whatever it may mean. Trump even talked about joint management of the Strait of Hormuz with the very same Ayatollah whose regime he wanted to obliterate, saying, “It will be jointly controlled by me and the Ayatollah, whoever the next Ayatollah is”. As far as Iran’s nuclear program is concerned, we were told after last year’s missile attacks that its nuclear capability has been completely destroyed. But the US now says that “removal of all the highly enriched uranium” would be one of its demands for ending the war. The Iranians too confirmed that the US asked them to “hand over all our enriched uranium”, which, obviously, they refused. In other words, after weeks of war, tall claims about ending Iran’s nuclear program notwithstanding, we get to know that stockpiles of Iran’s enriched uranium are safely concealed in underground tunnels and its nuclear capability is far from over.

It is the universal wisdom that wars are easy to begin and difficult to end. Yet, every country that goes to war – Russia or Israel or America – thinks otherwise. In this age, no war is local. All wars have global consequences. The Ukraine conflict caused severe food shortages across continents. The Iran war is leading to “energy emergency” forcing countries to scramble for managing domestic energy requirements. Countries now realise that a single war can threaten global maritime commons, digital commons and space commons. In the past, only the terrorist groups like Houthis threatened those commons. But today, sovereign nations are using them as bargaining chips.

Iran’s biggest victory is in forcing the US to the negotiations table with its own choice of whom to talk to. America’s biggest failure is to turn to Pakistan, a rentier state known for its own lawlessness, for mediation. In the last couple of weeks, the US tried appeals and threats to elicit support from its European and Asian allies. But none came forward to step into the quagmire. What better proof is required than the response of US’ closest allies in Europe! While big powers like the UK, France, Germany and Italy refused to join US war efforts and Spain went one step ahead by condemning US-Israel action, countries like Poland, Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania remained its passive supporters. Far from “making America great”, Trump ended up “making America alone”.

Along with most other countries in the world, India too wisely opted to stay out of the conflict. Ignoring the taunts by an unimaginative opposition, Indian government led by prime minister Narendra Modi stuck to the line that deescalation, negotiations and diplomacy should be the way forward. No major power wanted to take the risk of mediating between the recalcitrant Ayatollahs and an unpredictable Trump. A medium power like Oman made valiant efforts with its foreign minister, Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi shuttling between capitals of both countries till the last moment to avoid war. Claiming that a peace deal was “within reach” hours before “an unlawful military strike”, Al Busaidi lamented in the end that “active and serious negotiations mediated by my country between [the U.S.] and Iran were undermined… Neither the interests of the U.S. nor the cause of global peace is well served by this”.

However, one question begs an answer. Is strategic neutrality of global powers the only right option in such situations? In the face of total failure of the global multilateral institutions as evidenced during the two consecutive wars – Ukraine and Iran, shouldn’t major powers come forward to take a more proactive role in settling disputes before they turn into major conflicts rather than allowing failed regimes like Pakistan to pretend as peacemakers?