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Iran’s refusal to bend, and its “determination” shown in the face of sustained missile barrages by the United States and Israel – noted by prominent sections of American opinion and in the media – offer lessons for the world.

They also show the mirror to India, whose leader Narendra Modi does not tire of saying that the world “looks to India!” Indeed it does, but how? More pertinently, how will Indians now look at Modi’s India? But first, the world.

From February 28 to March 15, according to US media reports, Iran has taken 15,000 (fifteen thousand) missile hits but refuses to be cowed. It has rejected outright President Donald Trump’s suggestion for a “ceasefire” after some ten days of incessant bombardment. Instead, it has imposed important conditions before fighting can stop (not merely bring about a “ceasefire” which has implications of resumption), and these include “reparations”.

Meanwhile it continues its own pain-inducing attacks on US military assets strewn across the Gulf, and on Israel. It gives no signs of huffing and puffing and panting while the American public are chafing at raised petrol prices. Iran’s top leadership was killed on the first day of the strike but there has been a smooth succession and prosecution of the war, striking at important Israeli and American assumptions about Iran’s government and the clerical state.

If there are doubts, these are about the state of Israeli leadership. Its Knesset or parliament is due to discuss a motion on the dissolution of the present parliament coming Wednesday (March 18). In the US, there are serious worries about the political fallout for Trump with an important political test round the corner.

Although it is impossible to tell where the fighting would lead to, it is hard to resist the inference that Tehran does not regard Washington or Tel Aviv to be on top of things as far as this imperialist war goes though it is nowhere near being a military equal of the US and certainly not of the US-Israel warmongering coalition.

The ongoing Trump-Netanyahu military campaign against Iran has shown, in sum, that the world is not back to being uni-polar as it seemed to many to have become after the emerging post-Soviet multi-polarity looked to be ebbing. What’s more, recent events show that in today’s world the challenge to American power – indeed to the very notion of uni-polarity – need not necessarily come only from China or Russia but also from a determined regional entity like Iran.

Another important lesson is that American military guarantees to the Gulf monarchies have come to mean little in the face of the hits against US targets – military and civilian – inside these states that Iran has carried out.

The question then is: Does it help to be........

© The Wire