The on-again, off-again Iran war is now acquiring critical dimensions as the two protagonists, the US and Israel, cannot seem to agree on how to bring this faltering, flailing military adventure to a mutually acceptable closure. They still appear to be moving on parallel axes bent upon pursuing their essentially divergent strategic objectives. The region and the world, however, look on aghast as the geopolitical and geoeconomic ramifications of this unwarranted, bumbling war start to take their debilitating toll on them.

Did the US military really not consider the hypothesis whereby a maverick Israel starts pursuing its own vital national interests regardless of ostensibly joint strategic objectives and interests, in defiance of US diktat and the complexities of a war being conducted jointly? Did the US military miss this out, or is it deliberately ignoring it now? This hypothesis would have been extremely critical to the success of the war, keeping in mind the eccentric, volatile nature of the Israeli leadership and the import of its lobbies in the US. Its implications will yet determine the further conduct of the war and its final outcome. The US-Israel Combine’s war effort against Iran has neither met any of its major strategic objectives in the battle spaces nor at the negotiating table. Furthermore, the US has failed to subdue or coerce Iran into any sort of concessions on regime change, the military-nuclear-missile-drone programmes, the control of navigation through the Hormuz Straits, its proxies, the frozen funds, reparations, and so on. Iran, however,........

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