With Soleimani kill, Iran-Russia-China triad stronger as India ties wane

More serious questions about Chabahar’s future arise because of a warming Indo-US bilateral relation and a worsening US-Iran one and which, has assumed the darkest of hues now after the killing of an Iranian top general in a targeted airstrike at Baghdad airport by the United States on Friday—in what may be seen as an exercise in brinkmanship.

New Delhi:It may entirely be a coincidence that a major naval war exercise named “Maritime Security Belt” between Iran, China and Russia—the first-ever between the three—ended on December 30, 2019, even as the three nations promised to stage more similar exercises in future. What was significant was Indian navy’s exclusion from the exercise.

What was important was the port of focus. It was at Chabahar port in southeastern Iran, a seaport where India has invested substantially. For India, Chabahar is a critical link that connects it to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan and is key to Indian ambitious plans to make inroads to Central Asia and Eurasia.

More serious questions about Chabahar’s future arise because of a warming Indo-US bilateral relation and a worsening US-Iran one and which, has assumed the darkest of hues now after the killing of an Iranian top general in a targeted airstrike at Baghdad airport by the United States on Friday—in what may be seen as an exercise in brinkmanship.

But this time, President Donald Trump may have gone a bit afar, so much so, that the world is looking at the dangerous possibility of a major war.

What was surprising is the urgent and no-holds-barred statement by the US Department of Defense that said the killing was at the bidding of President Trump: “At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization… This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”

General Qasem Soleimani, very close to Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, is a legendary figure in Iran who headed the al-Quds Force, the most elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Force (IRGC). A tactical and operations expert, he is reported to have extended operations globally and even to India when a ‘magnetic’ bomb was used to target an Israeli diplomat’s car in a tony New Delhi street in February 2012.

Besides effectively fighting the Islamic State, General Soleimani also cobbled together pro-Iran militias under an umbrella outfit in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere. He is believed to have been instrumental in directing the reportedly Houthi rebel missile and drone attacks on Saudi oil installations including the one on an Aramco refinery on September 14, 2019, that shook global crude oil prices.

After an on-the-spot assessment in Saudi Arabia, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had called the attack an “act of war” without divulging US’ future course of action. On Friday, Pompeo tweeted: “Iraqis - Iraqis - dancing in the street for freedom; thankful that General Soleimani is no more.”

All this is in the backdrop of a tussle for leadership of the Islamic world or ‘ummah’ between Iran and traditional leader and key US ally Saudi Arabia. Interestingly, the relation between the Saudis and Israel is also much warmer than ever.

Traditionally close to India, Iran also chose to vehemently protest the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir even as the Saudis maintained a stoic silence over the development in what it saw was “India’s internal issue”. It makes one wonder, was the Iranian position in response to India’s definite warming of ties with the US as India’s oil imports from Iran went on a nosedive in alignment with US sanctions.

By Sanjib Kr Baruah, senior journalist