Middle East Crisis: The New Fog of War

When everyone has footage and no one can verify it, the loudest voice wins, notes Prem Panicker who begins a daily blog on the War in the Middle East.

In 1832, the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz wrote (in his book On War, Vom Kriege in the original) that war is 'the realm of uncertainty'.

His point was that commanders act in a fog of incomplete information, misread signals, and unknowable enemy intentions. From that thesis comes a phrase in current usage: 'The fog of war'.

That fog is upon us now, and visibility has been reduced to near zero. The difference is that nearly two centuries after Clausewitz wrote of the problem of operating in an informational vacuum, the nature of the fog has mutated.

In the ongoing Iran conflict, the fog is on my phone, more than in the theatre of war. A missile strike is filmed, uploaded, contested, debunked, and re-shared, and all this happens within an hour.

A post on X contains a video where General Upendra Dwivedi, India's chief of army staff, says that India had informed Israel about the exact location of the Iranian warship that had been sunk in a submarine attack. The post was also shared (external link) by a Turkish account, and others (external link).

The Iris Dena had visited India (external link) on an invite by the Indian Navy to take part in naval exercises; revealing its whereabouts would amount to a shocking betrayal.

As it turns out, the video was digitally altered. Readers pointed out that General Dwivedi says no such thing in the original video (external link).

This is the new fog of war. And it is, in some ways, more dangerous than the original.

The fog Clausewitz spoke of was honest uncertainty: Field commanders, constrained by the primitive means of communications available in the 19th century, did not know what was happening outside their immediate area of operations.

Today's fog, on the other hand, is engineered. State media, military spokespeople, influence operations, and the relentless incentive structure of social media work together, and the combined cumulative effect makes truth elusive.

When everyone has footage and no one can verify it, the loudest voice wins. Or the most familiar one, the voice you follow. Or the one that confirms what you already believe.

I'm going to be writing here daily as this conflict develops. Not to tell you what is happening on the ground, or even who is right and who is wrong, because the fog makes that harder than most commentators will admit.

Rather, I hope to try and map the fog itself, to notice what we are being told but equally, what we are not being told, and what the gap between the two might mean.

In his tract, Clausewitz theorised that the fog would lift after the battle. But in this age of deep fakes, algorithmic amplification and 24-hour information warfare, the fog is designed never to lift.

While on this, Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist with BBC Verify, has a daily thread chronicling fakes and assorted mis- and disinformation. Here is his March 8 round-up (external link); his handle on X (external link) is worth bookmarking and following.

Another resource to cut through the fog is the blog Simplicius (external link), whose latest update sums up the state of play as on date.

NB: Given this fog, this blog does not intend to provide a blow-by-blow account of who struck what, where. What is obviously beyond dispute is that the war is not as one-sided as the United States initially led the world to expect: While air strikes by the US and Israel are hitting hard at Iran's military and civilian infrastructure (including a desalination plant, in contravention of the Geneva Convention), it is equally true that Iran's pushback has decimated US bases, radar installations and early warning systems based in the Gulf.

Ceasefire Talks and Iran Response

Cutting through dueling voices, it also seems likely that the US (acting on behalf of Israel) is in back-channel talks with Iran to bring about a ceasefire.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi, however, categorically ruled it out (external link), saying that Iran will continue to fight till there is a permanent end to the war.

Aragchi pointed out that a ceasefire had been put in place to end the 12-Day War (13 to 24, June 2025) and that the present war was in violation of those terms.

The thinking underpinning Aragchi's stand seems to be that Israel, which is being hit particularly hard by the escalating missile attacks on its capital and on major defense installations, needs a ceasefire in order to recalibrate, to plug the increasing gaps in its Iron Dome defenCe system, and to replenish its depleting armory.

Equally, the US has been burning through its military inventory and needs time to restock, to replenish.

Iran's no to a ceasefire proposal appears to be aimed at denying Israel and the US that breathing space.

Iran's changing of the guard

In arguably the most significant development over the weekend, Mojtaba Khamenei, second son of the slain Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been chosen (external link) as Iran's new supreme leader.

On 28 February, the opening day of the conflict, Mojtaba had lost his father; his mother was grievously injured and died two days later; he lost his wife, one of his sons, and a niece, besides other close relatives.

Deemed 'unacceptable' by Donald Trump earlier, Mojtaba Khamenei is widely believed to be more hardline than his father.

Amal Saad, a lecturer in politics at Cardiff University, views his elevation as an affirmation (external link) of Iranian sovereignty.

Mojtaba's elevation to the most powerful position in Iran is seen as a signal that far from suing for peace, Iran is prepared to double down on its aggressive pushback against the US and Israel.

This plays into the popular mood. There have been reports of massive demonstrations in Iranian cities, demanding revenge (external link) for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's assassination.

It also undercuts chances for a Kurd-led insurgency that the US has been working towards -- such local insurgencies work only when there is an existing groundswell of unrest against the regime.

Interestingly, Al-Jazeera in a piece this Sunday (external link) mused on the mixed signals coming from the Iranian leadership, and suggested that the answer lay in Iran's lack of a designated supreme leader, and a clear chain of command. With Mojtaba Khamenei's elevation, that problem appears to have been solved.

CNN (external link), Iran International (external link), and the New York Times (external link) among others have extensive pieces on Iran's new leader.

India Faces Economic Fallout

Kerala and other south Indian states find themselves in trouble (external link) as cancelled flights have hit the supply chain for vegetables, fruits and seafood.

100 to 150 tons of vegetables, fruits, flowers and seafood are exported daily from Thiruvananthapuram international airport -- part of the 400 to 600 tons across the four international airports in Kerala, and that flow is now halted.

Elsewhere, 60,000 tons of basmati rice is stuck (external link) in various Indian ports, and exporters are now petitioning the government for various relief measures.

In the Morbi district of Gujarat, nearly 100 ceramic manufacturing units have been shut down following disruptions to supplies of propane gas, and another 400 units could shut down soon, National Herald (external link) and Hindu Businessline (external link) reports.

NDTV reports (external link) that as many as 23,000 Indian sailors could be stranded across the Gulf region. 36 Indian ships, including seven belonging to the Shipping Corporation of India, remain trapped in the Persian Gulf, the report says. Most of these ships were transporting crude oil, LPG and other commercial cargo.

Writing in Bloomberg (external link), Andy Mukherjee looks at India's many vulnerabilities even as oil prices climb past $114 per barrel. The last time oil breached the $100 mark was way back in 2022.

Besides such hot button issues as the exchange rate, the soaring price of gold, and the crippling impact of potential oil shortages, Mukherjee also looks at the potential impact on food security.

'Beyond the fuel pump,' Mukherjee writes, 'an enduring conflict could threaten food security.

'Qatar's liquefied natural gas, whose production has come to a temporary halt, is required as a feedstock in domestic fertilizer plants.

'Include it, and nearly half of India's soil nutrients are physically or economically hostage to the Gulf.

'A sustained stoppage would force a hard choice: a big expansion of an already sizable $19 billion fertilizer subsidy, or the displeasure of tens of millions of farming households.'

In passing, it is worth noting that the situation is fluid, and more signs of the impact of war on the Indian economy will emerge almost hourly.

I will, in my daily roundups, attempt to link to the most significant of such stories.

Further Reading: Seeing through the smoke

Jay Caspian Kang, writing in the New Yorker (external link) in October 2025, asked a question that is even more pertinent today.

In a piece on how the public remembers the war in Gaza, he asked what happens 'when every image becomes a site of contestation; when the rare sights we all see together, whether joyous or devastating, quickly fray into thousands, even millions, of threads, each with their own grip on reality'?

The piece is worth reading today, because it underlines the dilemma of all of us who attempt to peer through the fog of war, and to make sense of what is happening around us.

CNN's analytical piece (external link) from March 6 argues that Trump's demand to have a say in selecting Iran's next supreme leader reveals his 'Venezuela model' thinking: Military pressure forcing regime change rather than forcing regime collapse.

But Iran, the piece notes, is far more heavily armed and ideologically hardened than Maduro's Venezuela.

And a companion piece (external link) quotes historian Max Boot: 'This war that Trump launched is unwarranted and illegal. That doesn't necessarily mean it'll be unsuccessful.'

It maps out both the optimistic scenario and the Iraq/Afghanistan echo -- two theatres where earlier attempts to effect regime change ended disastrously -- that haunts the entire enterprise.

This one is a bit old, but worth reading for background: A Centre for Strategic and International Studies analysis (external link) maps the regional reverberations of the conflict: Iran has struck targets in Bahrain (where, in the most recent development, the king has reportedly fled the country), Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Iraq and Oman.

The piece asks whether the Gulf States, caught between their US security umbrella and their economic exposure to Iran, can maintain any kind of neutrality.

In Bloomberg's opinion (external link) piece from March 6, Liam Denning argues that the war marks a historic shift: the US has gone from being the underwriter of global energy security to its disrupter.

With the Strait of Hormuz under threat, the four names that could trigger a true global energy crisis -- Hormuz, Kharg Island, Abqaiq, and Ras Laffan -- are suddenly very much in the headlines.

Of these, Kharg Island is most likely to become a flashpoint. Here are some stories you need to read, on why Kharg matters:

For background, read Politico's piece titled The oil island that could break Iran (external link) , which details how the island handles up to 90% of Iran's crude exports, and is a cornerstone of the IRGC's revenue stream.

The New Arab reports (external link) that White House advisor Jarrod Agen explicitly said on Fox Business: 'What we want to do is to get such massive oil reserves in Iran out of the hands of terrorists... We're going to get all of the oil out of the hands of terrorists.'

He compared Iran to Venezuela, where US energy companies have effectively taken over the oil industry following Maduro's capture.

On GZero, read Ian Bremmer (external link) who points out that the island is less than half the size of Manhattan and is not heavily fortified.

His core logic for an armed American takeover: 'You don't need to control the government if you control its main revenue source.'

But Bremmer also points to the logical countermove: Iran could simply destroy Kharg itself before US boots land, in the process sending oil to $120 and beyond and imposing massive costs on the world, while signaling that its tolerance for pain exceeds that of Washington.

Dainik Jagran English has a useful India-centric piece (external link) that puts Kharg in the context of the full naval picture: Iran's navy has been functionally eliminated from the Gulf, over 20 Iranian warships sunk, yet tankers were still loading at Kharg as of March 2 as per satellite imagery.

Its conclusion is stark: The world is operating on borrowed time in the Persian Gulf.

Moving on, the independent conflict monitor ACLED has a special issue (external link) just out and the highlight is the most granular conflict data available: Between February 28 and March 4, Iran launched over 90 attempted strikes on Israel alone, with around 20 hitting civilian areas.

That five-day total, ACLED notes, already exceeds 60% of all Iranian strikes recorded during the entire 12-day war last June, and suggests that Iran is burning through its arsenal at a pace that can't be sustained.

A Time story by Eric Cortellessa provides a blow-by-blow account (external link) of how Donald Trump decided to go to war in Iraq.

A 19FortyFive analysis (external link) by Robert Kelly is sCeptical: The risks are large, the American public is barely informed about why the war is being fought, US allies are keeping their distance, and if regime change requires a ground invasion, casualties could be enormous.

His bottom line: 'This will probably be a much bigger war than Trump and most Americans think.'

Linked to the above thought, read Phillips Payson O'Brien in The Atlantic (external link) , arguing that US capabilities are showing signs of rot.

Listing various unexpected setbacks suffered by the US, O'Brien concludes: "Just as the Roman empire survived for two more centuries after it started to decline, the United States isn't in danger of imminent collapse.

'But Trump's rejection of planning, expertise, and diplomacy is beginning to have real-world consequences.'

A Foreign Affairs piece (external link) by Dalia Dassa Kaye argues that a US war with Iran, launched on the assumption that military pressure could weaken or even topple the regime, rests on dangerously optimistic thinking.

Even if Iran's leadership were degraded, the authors contend, the likely outcomes range from hard-line military rule to State collapse and prolonged chaos, neither of which would stabilize the Middle East.

Iran's defeat would not resolve the region's deeper conflicts, militant networks would endure, US allies could grow more wary of Washington, and global ripple effects -- from energy markets to great-power competition -- could intensify.

In short, far from ushering in a 'new Middle East', the war risks leaving the region, and US interests, worse off than before.

But wait, why is the US fighting this war in the first place?

We don't know what the objectives of the war are -- as the BBC roundup (external link) points out, the American leadership has been speaking in tongues.

We don't know how long it will last -- the Pentagon now says it could last until September (external link) (and it is worth keeping in mind that such estimates, without being mapped to a clearly defined objective, or a clear idea of what a win looks like, is just a shiftable goalpost).

We don't even know if the US is actually at 'war' -- Speaker of the House Mike Johnson says (external link) the president has made it 'very clear this is a limited operation'. Limited to what, is not clear.

We do know what it costs (external link) , via this ticker (external link) which is updated by the second.

As I write this, the cost -- to the US alone -- is $9 billion and climbing, and this does not even take into account the impact on the economy, the stock market, etc.

A Guardian chronicles Trump's constantly changing rationale (external link) for the war on Iran.

In an opinion piece in Bloomberg Max Hastings, who has written books on World War II, the Vietnam war and the Cuban Missile Crisis, argues that this is by design (external link) .

'What we have learned over the past 14 months about Trump's way of doing war and peace alike is that he never articulates clear objectives, so that nobody can accuse him of failing to attain them,' Hastings writes.

'Instead, he makes up a story from one morning to the next, so that he can choose his moment to declare victory and walk away, regardless of where it leaves the country concerned.'

Lydia Polgreen, who had served as the New York Times correspondent in India from 2009-2012 (when she helmed the insightful India Ink (external link) blog), in an opinion piece in the New York Times headlined 'Trump's Fantasy is Crashing Down'; (external link), makes the point that Trump's disconnect is scary.

"It is unsettling," Polgreen writes, "how often Trump affects astonishing indifference, as though the most powerful man in the world were merely a spectator to events he himself has set in motion -- and who, in any case, has little investment in the outcome.

'But that curious passivity reveals a darker truth.

'Trump seems to believe that he, like his fantasy America, exists on a different plane, utterly untouchable by the swirl of global events.

'The devastating consequences of his actions are not just someone else's fault. They are someone else's problem, too.'

At times like this, the only people who make sense are the late-night standups. Desi Lydic captures the fog of war perfectly, here (external link) .

This is already an overlong post (and reading all the pieces linked to here should keep you out of mischief for the next 24 hours at least).

But bear with me -- since this is the first post in a daily series, I've had to go back in time to establish a baseline narrative.

And I'll leave you now with one piece, from the London Review of Books, that has gone viral on the net.

In keeping with the London Review of Books's tradition of long-form political essay, Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi argues (external link) that the war on Iran was never compelled by evidence.

Rather, it was a choice driven by decades of neoconservative ambition and Netanyahu's lobbying.

The Islamic Republic, the piece insists, is not Saddam's Iraq or Gaddafi's Libya: It was built for exactly this kind of siege, and its sights are set on attrition, its strategy is to raise the cost of war until Washington blinks.

The most arresting section deals with Khamenei's death and its unintended consequences.

A figure widely hated at home -- 'Death to the Dictator' was a genuine street slogan -- may now be recast in martyrdom, the writer points out.

Trump may have removed him from the political landscape only to fix him permanently in it.

While reading this, I was reminded of Rahat Indori-saab's poem (external link) , which had attained anthemic status during the anti-CAA protests in India.

And specifically the lines: 'Lagegi aag to aayege ghar kai jad me/Yaha pe sirf hamara makan thodi hain'

What reminded me of this poem is the opening line of this London Review of Books piece: 'The dry and the wet burn together'.

The piece closes with the school in Minab, in the Hormozgan province, where 165 graves have been dug for girls aged seven to twelve, killed by a US double-tap strike, according to ongoing investigations. (external link) Its telling Persian epigraph -- "the dry and the wet burn together" -- returns towards the end, as both telling image and damning verdict.

And with that, I'll close for the day. Back tomorrow, with more.

• THE MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT

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