By Sushil Kutty
Another ‘war’ and we have balcony seats, some front row ones, and it doesn’t matter so long as you aren’t in danger of catching a missile, forget the odd ‘enemy drone’ which escaped the iron dome or the Iranian shield, which folks say works considerably less efficiently than the Israeli dome.
But it is United States President Donald Trump who needs to be kept an eye on. For all his “I stop wars” rhetoric, this President mongers war as often as he washes his hands, an obsessive compulsive disorder.
And, when he is not joining the war with big talk of war, Trump is gloating at missiles and drones raining death from the skies.
His latest on Israel-Iran is “they will make a deal” but “let them fight it out” first! And never mind the deaths, bring ’em on. President Trump’s son Barron is not in harm’s way and neither is the ‘First Lady’, Melania Trump, and so he sits in the White House or areas ‘United States’ and mongers war.
By the way, Trump’s war is good versus evil and all other wars are evil. India’s war with Pakistan, he said, would end “nuclear” but not the Israel-Iran war with the United States meddling. Iran says President Trump is the “evil” and one of the Trump-men said Trump vetoed an Israeli decision to assassinate Ayotullah Khamenei.
Meanwhile, Indian students in Iran cannot even curse President Trump for foisting the war on them, too. The Indian student community in Iran is mostly students from Kashmir and they’re petitioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi, beseeching him to please-please evacuate them from missile-and-drone hit Iran, where there’s a backdrop of Israeli strikes and targeted “nuclear and military sites.”
On May 9 or May 10, President Trump claimed he sat up late in the night and bore down on prime ministers Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif and brought both to their knees by making them bow to reason and halt their war or else feel the trade heat. “I prevented a nuclear war,” Trump bragged.
Then, in the India-Pakistan context, Trump claimed he prevented a nuclear showdown, and now he is egging on one. A global media quoted an Indian student resident in Teheran, scared to her heart’s content, pleading to be brought home in one piece. “The attack started at around 3:30 am and we felt the land shake,” she said, properly intimidated and probably shifted to a safer area.
News is that India has asked Iran to help evacuate Indian students from Tehran and other Iranian cities, but while not optimistic, Iran responded with “all airports are closed, but all the land borders are open”, which smacks of an open invitation to get ambushed at a border-crossing. A stray or deliberate attack on Indian students would mightily come handy to whoever plans to escalate.
Yup, Indian students in Teheran are losing sleep over the uncertain security situation and internet disruptions. Some have contacted “the embassy”, which told them to “email local addresses and contact details for emergency purposes.” What, isn’t it an emergency situation right now?
Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi do one of his “daring evacuations”? Like the one he did from Yemen, and the one he executed from Ukraine or has his international clout been cut to size post the “4-Day War” with Pakistan? Will Iran like Ukraine open a corridor for the safe evacuation of Indian students? After all, doesn’t Prime Minister Modi enjoy a Superman-like aura around the world?
And isn’t Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Prime Minister Modi’s friend for life? Maybe ‘Bibi’ will stop belting Iran and allow a beltway for facilitating the evacuation of Indian students trapped in Teheran’s missile and drones infested sky.
These are testing times for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the PM Modi has to deliver come what may in the month of June. As it is, it is no longer ‘Howdy Modi’ between Trump and Modi and the two are like they’ve finally seen the real each other and what they saw wasn’t ‘great’ to write home about.
But India’s children are scared and Prime Minister Modi has a reputation to save. What’s surprising, it is hard to believe, is that these students don’t know or haven’t guessed that the airspace over Tehran has been closed for everybody except Israeli missiles and Israeli drones and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi wouldn’t be able to land his “air force one” on the Imam Khomeini International Airport tarmac.
Also, India is not an Islamic country for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s influence to creep into Iran. and Israel is a tough no-nonsense enemy, which won’t buckle under “we’re friends forever”. Iran is an equally stubborn foe now faced with a nuclear-like holocaustic condition.
At least that is what President Trump hints at to keep his humour alive and his spirits high. Nobody should be fooled by the Trump rhetoric that he’s a president of peace in an ocean of war. Trump is the US President who dropped 10,000 pound bombs on Syria and on an Afghanistan village.
Almost all American presidents have been warmongers and war hysteria runs in their blood-thirsty veins, this one included. The effects of the 10,000 pound bomb still runs in the veins of the children of the Afghanistan village and is proof that Trump doesn’t need a nuke to leave human beings in distress for years together.
President Trump, like all normal human beings, loves his family and then the “America first” family and then only, if he is in the mood, the rest of humankind. Indian students caught in the Israel-Iran crossfire have little chance of escape. It is a challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and to the Indian armed forces.
Perhaps the biggest challenge that has come Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s way in the eleven years he has been occupying the prime minister’s ‘Chair’. Let’s not forget Iran doesn’t have a system to defend its citizens from missiles and projectiles and Indian students caught in the “rain” have nowhere to run or hide.
It is like Poonch times 100 or 1000. In the first flush of the ‘4-Day war’, Pakistan managed to blur the LoC and hit civilian targets in Poonch. The mayhem that followed killed several people including children. If there were only bomb-proof bunkers to hide and bide the time?
No two war like situations can be less or more worse off. If the situation in Poonch was death-dealing, the situation in Iran’s cities and towns and villages won’t be any different. Israel is hell-bent in ridding Iran of imaginary nukes and in the process bringing about a favourable regime-change, asking Iran’s right thinking people to rebel and to hell with clerics.
Let’s see if Prime Minister Narendra Modi can do a Houdini and bring home the children of India from Iran! India’s youth believe Modi is “Vishwaguru” and that “Modi hai toh mumkin hai!” (IPA Service)
Israel Has Degraded Iran’s Missile Infra And Neutralised Early Warning System 