Iran Plays Hardball With India's Hormuz Requests

'I suspect that Bangladesh being given permission stuck in India's official craw, and this story was an attempt to balance the scales by giving the impression that a similar waiver had been given to India as well.'
Prem Panicker continues his daily blog on the war in the Middle East.

War is the ultimate stress test, not only for armies and governments but equally for the institutions that are supposed to help citizens make sense of what is happening.

Yesterday, the Indian media failed that test in a fashion that was instructive.

Early morning Thursday, a story began circulating that Iran had given India-flagged vessels special permission to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

The sourcing was anonymous, unidentified by name and/or designation.

Within hours, the story was everywhere. Regime-adjacent journalists and commentators used it to celebrate the omnipotence of Prime Minister Modi and the triumph of Indian diplomacy.

And, crucially, serious journalists -- people who have spent decades in this profession and know the difference between what a source whispers and what a government confirms -- gave it further oxygen without pausing to ask the most basic question: Has anyone actually verified this?

It is easy enough for a journalist to do: If the story is that Iran has permitted India-flagged ships to transit the Gulf of Hormuz, surely some authorized official attached to the Iran regime would have said so?

Three days ago, for instance, Iran officially permitted Bangladesh-flagged ships to transit Hormuz.

The waiver was first put out by Iran itself, and in response to queries, Iran confirmed that such permission had been given. (In passing, I suspect that Bangladesh being given permission stuck in India's official craw, and this story was an attempt to balance the scales by giving the impression that a similar waiver had been given to India as well.)

Reuters, for its part, straddled both sides.

It initially put out a story, citing 'Indian sources', to the effect that India had been given a waiver.

Shortly thereafter, it put out another story, this time citing an Iran source (also unidentified) to the effect that no such waiver had been given.

Journalist Sidhant Sibal became the poster boy of this incident when he said, in successive posts on X (external link), that Iran had given permission and also that Iran had not given permission -- the two posts were separated by a mere three minutes. [The Hindu quotes MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal as saying (external link) that while the issue of the safety of Indian shipping was discussed in calls between the foreign ministers of India and Iran, it is 'premature' to say that Iran has permitted Indian tankers to transit Hormuz. The MEA spokesperson, mind -- not 'sources'.]

• THE MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT

Conflicting Reports From Media Sources

In the words of Harry Belafonte (external link), 'It was clear as mud, but it covered the ground/And the confusion made me brain go 'round''.

Though the Iranian refutation came soon after the original story, Iran's supposed waiver in favour of India took on a life of its own, laundered through social amplification into apparent fact.

What did this achieve? A few hours of confusion.

A narrative useful to one political constituency. And a small but very real erosion of the information environment at a time of crisis, which is when people most need to be able to trust what they read.

As often happens in such cases, people reacted based on their political leanings.

Some went looking for reasons to suggest that such a waiver had already been put in place, and pointed to three different 'Indian-flagged' tankers that had reached Indian ports since the outbreak of the war.

That, too, was wrong (external link): The Pushpak flies a Cook Islands flag, and the Parimal flies a Palau flag.

The Shenlong is not an Indian tanker either -- it is Liberia-flagged (external link), and operated by a Greek company.

It took me less than five minutes to look those up.

This is the problem with 'sources' journalism, and it is worth naming precisely.

Journalists, of all people, should be aware that when a government wants to officially communicate something, it communicates officially.

Ministries have authorized spokespersons -- and it should be a simple enough matter, if a 'source' tells you something, to call the spokesperson of the relevant ministry seeking confirmation.

When an unnamed source offers a story, the journalist's job is verification.

• MUST READ! The New Fog of War
• Has US Repeated Its Iraq Mistake?
• Hormuz Crisis Threatens Global Economy
• Iran War Exposes Washington's Strategic Chaos

Dangers Of 'Sources' Journalism

In normal times, 'sources say' journalism is a problem.

In wartime, when information is weaponised and when rumours can trigger panic, it is worse by orders of magnitude.

The Strait of Hormuz is the jugular vein of global energy supply.

Whether India has or hasn't secured safe passage for its vessels is not a trivial matter to be aired and then retracted in the same news cycle.

India's official position, as stated by MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, was precise and measured: The foreign ministers of both countries spoke, shipping safety was discussed, 'beyond that it would be premature to say anything.'

That is what responsible official communication sounds like.

Journalists who have covered Indian foreign policy for years know how to read that kind of language, and they know that what it does not say is as significant as what it does.

MEA's Official Position On Hormuz

The media's job in a crisis is to be the steadiest voice in the room.

Yesterday, too many voices that should have known better chose instead to be the loudest. [Newslaundry (external link)]

More on India

Between 22-23 May 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Iran. [MEA (external link)], the first by an Indian prime minister since 2001.

During his visit, Modi held discussions with then president Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (the latter was touted as a 'rare honour' for a visiting head of government.)

Various agreements were signed and, while there, Modi also inaugurated a three-day conference (external link) on 'India-Iran, two great civilisations: Retrospect and prospect'.

India under various prime ministers has often touted this civilizational connect -- which now appears to have blown a fuse.

Reading between the lines, the Indian side is now contending with the fallout of Modi's more recent visit to Israel, in course of which he told the Knesset that India stands with Israel 'then, now, and forever' -- a statement that, given the war that broke out immediately after the visit, has apparently been interpreted as India's unconditional support for Israeli aggression.

To make matters worse, India earlier this week co-sponsored a UN Security Council resolution condemning the 'egregious attacks' by Iran against GCC countries and demanding the 'immediate cessation' of all attacks by Tehran (By Tehran, note, not the US and Israel.) [The Hindu (external link)]

Once the war broke out, India has been noticeably laggard in reaching out to Iran.

Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar has spoken to Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on at least three different occasions; the last such call, earlier this week, resulted in Araghchi spelling out in detail Iran's case against the US and Israel.

As noted in a previous edition of this blog, Jaishankar's post on X about the call was telling in its vagueness: Had a call, agreed to keep in touch.

Now India is in damage control.

Yesterday, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal 'expressed grief' over the deaths of children killed in a bombing of an Iranian school -- which happened on 28 February. [Hindustan Times (external link)].

That this expression of grief comes 13 days after the atrocity, at a time when India is trying to get Iranian permission to use the Strait of Hormuz, is evident, and evidently self-serving.

India-Iran Relations Under Strain

Also yesterday, in between election runs in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Prime Minister Modi found time to speak to Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian, 13 days after the war had broken out.

It is worth noting that Modi had spoken to the UAE president, the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the king of Bahrain, the Sultan of Oman, and the king of Jordan and condemned Iranian attacks on these countries.

Modi's read-out (external link) of the call was anodyne, and his avoidance of condolence for the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader noteworthy.

Commentators speculated that Modi would have asked Pezeshkian to permit Indian tankers to transit Hormuz.

Whether the Iranian president responded, and if so in what terms, is not known.

What we do know is that Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, in the first public statement after his elevation, has said the blockade of Hormuz will continue. [NYT (external link), paywalled; The Guardian (external link)].

The arc of this story, and the inherent irony, is worth pausing on. Not so long ago, Narendra Modi stood in Tehran and inaugurated a conference on two great civilisations and their shared future.

That future now looks considerably less certain -- the casualty, it appears, of a series of choices that placed India, at the critical moment, on the wrong side of the Iranian ledger.

India has for long traded on its reputation for strategic autonomy: Its ability to speak to all sides, to be useful precisely because it is beholden to none.

That reputation is now being stress-tested in real time, with Hormuz as litmus paper.

Whether the civilisational relationship can survive the accumulated weight of the Knesset pledge, the UNSC vote, and the sequencing of Modi's outreach, or whether some bridges, once burned, take a generation to rebuild, is a question India's foreign policy establishment may be only just beginning to reckon with. [Also read Sushant Singh in The Caravan (external link) and Anirudh Kanisetti in The Print (external link)]

Reading List:

Franklin Foer in The Atlantic argues that Trump went to war with Iran sustained by two convictions simultaneously: That he was uniquely exempt from the catastrophic consequences that had deterred every previous president, and that Iran was weak enough that those consequences might not materialize anyway.

Foer is unsentimental about both: the first days of the war were indeed a display of American power, he says, but the hard facts of geography (Hormuz), theology (a regime that celebrates martyrdom and has spent decades preparing for exactly this war), and strategic incoherence (no exit, no endgame, no plausible candidate for a deal) were always going to have their say.

The piece ends on a phrase worth remembering: "the obvious is now seeking its revenge." [The Atlantic (external link), paywalled]

Haaretz reports on a vulnerability that the fog of early battlefield success has obscured: Iran and Hezbollah have been systematically targeting the early-warning and air-defence infrastructure that protects Israel: radar systems, THAAD batteries, Iron Dome launchers.

The strategy is based on the knowledge that degrading detection capability is the precondition for landing a decisive blow.

A retired Israeli air defence chief spells out the dilemma with uncomfortable clarity: every battery defending another battery is a battery not defending a town.

The American approach, he says, is 'an approach of wealth'-- one that Israel, with its far smaller strategic depth, cannot afford to replicate.

Read alongside the quiet US feelers for an off-ramp, this piece helps explain why: the missile defence architecture that looked impregnable two weeks ago is beginning to show potentially fatal cracks. [Haaretz (external link)]

Susan Glasser in The New Yorker counts Trump's Truth Social posts so you don't have to, and the numbers are quietly devastating.

In the first nine days of a war that has killed Iran's Supreme Leader, shut the Strait of Hormuz, spread to ten countries, and cost eleven billion dollars, fewer than a fifth of Trump's posts mentioned it.

The rest were about Gavin Newsom, Asian carp, Thomas Massie, and the rigged 2020 election.

The White House's official account, meanwhile, has been posting videos that mash up the actual war with video games, as for instance one where missile-strike footage intercut with bowling animations: a bowling ball labelled USA (external link) knocking down pins labelled Iranian Regime Officials and another that intercuts baseball strikes with missile strikes (external link). (Is the White House social media account run by teenagers?)

Glasser's larger argument is both simple and chilling: The incoherence is not a communications problem.

A president who has said in the same week that 'we won' and 'we're not finished yet', who demanded unconditional surrender and then denied that was his aim, who called the war 'a little excursion' at a Kentucky rally, is a man scrutinising his own ramblings for clues, not executing a strategy.

Congress has opted out, the adults in the room have learned not to disagree, and the Israelis are discovering that the one variable they cannot control is the man who started the war.

The piece ends with the only certainty on offer: Whatever happens, Trump's account of it will say VICTORY. [New Yorker, paywalled (external link)]

The New York Times widens the lens on a war that is still barely two weeks old.

To bolster air defences in the Middle East, the Pentagon has begun moving THAAD interceptors out of South Korea, the only Asian ally hosting the system, deployed specifically to counter North Korea.

Asia is drawing three early conclusions: That it is not America's priority theatre regardless of what Pete Hegseth said in Singapore last year; that China, watching American stockpiles drain and allies grow anxious, is the principal beneficiary; and that no country can rely on American weapons deliveries in a crisis, given that over a thousand Patriot interceptors, which equals roughly two years of production, may already have been expended in under a fortnight.

South Korea's president said the quiet part out loud: 'If we rely on others, there are times when that dependence can collapse.'

The Pentagon's response to the region's concerns was a brief email: We have nothing to provide. [NYT (external link), paywalled]

Book recommendations:

The weekend is upon us and with it, plenty of time for wider reading (restaurants are closing anyway, and eating out is no longer as pleasurable as it used to be, so why not stay home and read?) Here are two recommendations, from my archives:

Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (external link): The definitive account of how the great powers of 1914 stumbled into a war none of them had planned for and none of them knew how to stop.

But why a book on World War I, now?

Because Tuchman's central insight is that confidence in a short, decisive conflict is usually the first casualty of war, and that thought has never felt more relevant.

If you haven't read it, this weekend is the moment.

If you have, it may be time to read it again.

Vali Nasr, The Dispensable Nation (external link): Nasr, a former US State Department insider and one of the most clear-eyed analysts of American foreign policy in the Muslim world, has written multiple books on Iran, and on the geopolitics of the region. (Iran's Grand Strategy (external link) is one I acquired two days ago, and will be reading over the weekend).

In Dispensable Nation, Nasr argues that the United States has consistently mistaken military superiority for strategic leverage in the Middle East and paid the price each time.

Though it is written about an earlier era (The Obama first term, when then secretary of state Hillary Clinton tried to push through an ambitious South Asia/Middle East policy), the book reads as if it were a prognosis of a future that has now arrived.

• MUST READ! The New Fog of War
• Has US Repeated Its Iraq Mistake?
• Hormuz Crisis Threatens Global Economy
• Iran War Exposes Washington's Strategic Chaos

Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff