The fragile calm over the Persian Gulf has broken. US officials now expect the renewed military campaign against Iran to run anywhere from a few days to several weeks, possibly longer, with the outcome hinging entirely on whether Tehran keeps attacking commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Attack, the best defence
President Donald Trump declared the memorandum of understanding with Iran effectively dead on Wednesday, after Iranian forces struck three commercial vessels transiting the strait. Hours later, on Air Force One, he struck a softer note, saying Iranian officials had reached out wanting “to make a deal”, though he remained doubtful they could be trusted to honour one.
By Thursday morning, US Central Command had carried out strikes on roughly ninety targets along Iran’s coastline, including an IRGC Aerospace facility in Bushehr, Iranshahr airport, and infrastructure at Chabahar port. Iran responded with missile and drone attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, triggering air raid sirens across the Gulf. Tehran’s foreign ministry called the American strikes a “gross war crime”, while chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned that the strait would reopen “only on Iranian terms”.
The impact on India
For India, the conflict lands close to home on two fronts.
The first is Chabahar. India has spent nearly two decades building the port as a trade corridor into Afghanistan and Central Asia that bypasses Pakistan. Washington had shielded Chabahar operations from sanctions as recently as October, recognising its strategic value. Strikes on port infrastructure this week complicate that calculus, regardless of intent, and will worry Indian planners who have treated the port as a rare zone of insulation from US-Iran hostilities.
The second is oil. The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly a quarter of the world’s seaborne crude and a fifth of its LNG trade. India buys heavily along this route, and Iranian crude itself once made up over a tenth of India’s total crude imports before sanctions squeezed that trade. Washington’s decision this week to revoke Iran’s oil sanctions waiver, taken alongside the fresh strikes, tightens that squeeze further and adds a fresh layer of uncertainty for Indian refiners already navigating volatile freight and insurance costs on Gulf routes.
There is a sliver of reassurance. US officials say hundreds of tankers have safely transited the strait in recent weeks via the southern route close to Oman, which has eased Washington’s worry that renewed strikes will trigger an immediate oil price shock. That calculation could change quickly if Iran escalates its own attacks on shipping.
The big picture
The wider picture is sobering. The IMF has already trimmed its 2026 global growth forecast to 3.0 percent, citing the uncertainty even before this week’s exchange of fire, and stock markets fell as Trump’s “it’s over” comments spread on Wednesday. Two days of strikes have left more than a dozen dead and dozens injured in Iran, according to Tehran’s health ministry.
For India, a country that depends on Gulf energy, hosts millions of workers across the region, and has bet on Chabahar as a strategic asset, the coming days will be less about taking sides and more about managing exposure on every front at once.
