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On March 4, the reach of the burgeoning US-Israeli war against Iran turned the Indian Ocean into a fresh theater of combat. The sinking of the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena by a U.S. submarine—a rare and chilling use of torpedoes in the modern era—did more than claim the lives of 87 sailors; it signalled that the instability which has plagued West Asia since the 1948 creation of Israel risks spilling over into areas outside the area of conflict. 

As President Donald Trump pivots from his campaign promise of “no more endless wars” to a full-scale military offensive which he most recently described as aimed at “Making Iran Great Again” (MIGA)—a paradoxical euphemism for regime change—the world is witnessing a dangerous collision between ego-driven diplomacy and the harsh realities of geopolitical friction.

Influencing this escalation is President Trump’s fixation on the Nobel Peace Prize. Having long coveted the accolade, he appears to operate under the delusion that peace is a commodity to be traded in high-stakes deal making. But peace is not a “deal” to be brokered over a weekend at Mar-a-Lago; it is a gruelling, generational laboor of trust-building and painstaking negotiation.

During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly promised that he would not start new wars. His supporters applauded his criticism of previous administrations for dragging the United States into costly foreign conflicts.

Yet the present confrontation with Iran clearly contradicts those promises. Not only has the United States become deeply involved in a major military campaign, but the conflict has expanded geographically and strategically in ways that could draw in additional countries.

The irony is particularly striking given Trump’s earlier criticism of institutions such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). His administration shut down significant portions of the agency, arguing that its programmes were being used to promote regime change in foreign countries.

Bypasssing the hard work of diplomacy, Trump has fallen into a predictable trap: a victim of Israeli influence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has masterfully played to Trump’s ego, framing a regional war as a shortcut to a “legacy” of strength. In doing so, Trump has abandoned the very isolationist principles that won him his base.

Having shut down USAID programmes, accusing them of wasting taxpayer money on “regime change,” he now finds himself asserting a right to “choose Iran’s new leadership”—effectively appointing himself the arbiter of Iranian destiny, much as he did when he unilaterally declared himself the “Acting President of Venezuela” or the “President of the Board of Peace” in Gaza.

A backyard ablaze: The Indian Ocean incident

The attack on the Iranian ship IRIS Dena last week by the United States is a diplomatic catastrophe that stretches far beyond the sinking of a hull. By torpedoing a vessel that was effectively under the “moral hospitality” of New Delhi, the U.S. has shown a reckless disregard for its allies.

The silence from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been met with fierce domestic criticism. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi noted that the conflict has reached India’s “backyard.”

India’s navy and defence ministry said the Iranian warship had participated in the International Fleet Review and the multilateral naval exercise MILAN 2026, organized by the Indian navy in the port of Visakhapatnam from Feb. 15 to Feb. 25. The ministry said 74 countries had joined the events

India has long viewed the Indian Ocean as central to its security, with its navy regularly conducting patrols and multinational exercises to safeguard key sea lanes used for global trade and energy shipments. It has also traditionally sought to maintain a careful diplomatic balance in tensions between the U.S. and Iran while emphasizing on diplomacy and talks.

Indian opposition leaders, however, on Thursday questioned the government’s lack of response to the incident, saying the sinking of the warship so close to India’s maritime neighborhood warranted an official statement.

“The conflict has reached our backyard, with an Iranian warship sunk in the Indian Ocean. Yet the Prime Minister has said nothing,” opposition leader Rahul Gandhi wrote in a post on X.

Kanwal Sibal, a former diplomat who served as India’s foreign secretary from 2002 to 2003, wrote on X that India was “far from politically or militarily responsible for the U.S. attack,” but its “responsibility is at a moral and human plane.”

“The U.S. has ignored India’s sensitivities,” Sibal said. “The ship was in these waters because of India’s invitation.”

For Sri Lanka, the incident is an even more direct violation of sovereignty, bringing a hot war into its exclusive economic zone. The prudent move by the Sri Lankan Navy to escort a second Iranian ship Irins Bushehr, which sought Sri Lanka’s assistance (to Trincomalee on the country’s East Coast while evacuating 208 members of the crew and lodging them separately in the navy Camp at Welisara on the West Coast suggests a quiet, regional realization: the United States, under its current leadership, can no longer be trusted to respect maritime boundaries or the safety of non-combatant zones.

Surprisingly neither India nor Sri Lanka have yet summoned the United States Ambassador to the Foreign Ministry to express concern at the torpedo attack on Iris Sena.

The shifting goalposts of the Washington-Tel Aviv alliance reveal a lack of coherent strategy. First, the objective was to prevent a nuclear weapon. Then, it was to decapitate leadership—evidenced by the clinical, Mossad-led assassinations of military officials and even the late Supreme Leader Khamenei. Now, the goal has devolved into the total destruction of the Iranian Navy and a nebulous “regime change.”

While the U.S. and Israel possess undisputed technological superiority, Iran possesses “staying power.” A defiant population and a culture of resistance mean that while the U.S. can sink ships and bomb facilities, it cannot govern the rubble. Iran’s leaders are effectively waiting for the U.S. to “put boots on the ground,” knowing that fighting for one’s own soil is a different existential reality than fighting a proxy war for an ally’s regional hegemony.

The erosion of Western consensus

Perhaps the most significant casualty of this war is the “Special Relationship” between the United Kingdom and the United States and the unity of the West. The carnage in Gaza—during which over 70,000 deaths occurred including mostly women and children opened the eyes of world opinion. This was followed by the first attack of the current US Israeli military campaign which began on February 28 – March 1, 2026, by a missile strike which destroyed a girls’ primary school in Minab, southern Iran, resulting in a reported death toll of 150-168 people, including numerous children.

The incident, has been described by UNICEF as a grave violation of international law. Even the most steadfast European allies and the United Kingdom are now “fighting shy” of joining the American bandwagon. They recognize what Washington refuses to see: that this war is not a path to stability, but a guarantee of its absence.

The Gulf states, too, find themselves in the crosshairs. On the verge of the outbreak of the hostilities on February 28, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi warned the US that military action would derail serious, ongoing nuclear negotiations, stating, “This is not your war”. He urged restraint, asserting that a deal was within reach just before the joint US-Israeli strike. The Omani Foreign Minister’s desperate warning—”do not be sucked into a war that is not yours”—highlights the terrifying reality that the U.S. is willing to put the entire energy corridor at risk to satisfy a localised vendetta.

A necessary nivot

If the region is to find peace, the dynamics must shift away from external “deals” and toward internal reconciliation. Iran and the Gulf States have to engage in a great deal of introspection and realize that the U.S. and Israel will always prioritise their own interests, even at the cost of their allies’ security. There is a desperate need for a regional security architecture that does not rely on the whims of a United States President who mistakes volatility for victory.

Donald Trump may believe he is building a legacy of peace, but by ignoring the hard work of negotiation in favour of the “prize” of a sunken ship, he is merely adding another chapter to a century of instability. (javidyusuf@gmail.com)