The World This Week | West Asia spirals into war, Trump faces 2 tariff setbacks, Nepal’s polls reflect generational shift

The joint military operation came a day after negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities concluded in Geneva without a breakthrough. The enrichment programme had been a cause of concern for Israel and a point of contention with the West for decades.

With the survival of the regime at stake and the range of its ballistic missiles not exceeding 2,000 km, Tehran has pursued a strategy to inflict the maximum amount of damage to US allies in the region in a bid to build pressure, prompting them to persuade the White House to end the conflict.

Iran unleashed a barrage of drones and missiles on US assets and allies in the region—Turkey, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar—all of which house US military bases.

Six American personnel were killed in Kuwait. US embassies in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were closed following drone strikes in their complexes. Over 100 people have been killed across West Asia.

In Iran, at least 1,300 people have been killed so far, including 175 in a strike on an elementary school in Minab.

In the meantime, Tel Aviv launched a fresh wave of strikes on Iran’s proxy group Hezbollah in Lebanon after the Shia militant outfit attacked Israel for killing its ideological leader in Tehran. The attacks have killed at least 120 people in Lebanon and injured 700 others.

Dozens more fatalities were reported across West Asia.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has also blocked off the Strait of Hormuz – a major chokepoint through which a fifth of global energy shipments pass – and targeted oil tankers passing through it. The IRGC brandishes its own naval force, among its other military branches, which operates independently of Iran’s regular navy.

AI data centres in the UAE were struck, and West Asia’s largest oil refinery (in Saudi Arabia) was hit twice.

Although India has not imported significant amounts of crude oil from Iran due to US sanctions in place since 2019, tankers belonging to other major trading partners in the region—like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the UAE—have halted.

Commercial flights across the region were grounded for days. Air space is gradually reopening.

A flawed rationale: Last year, amid negotiations with Tehran, the Trump administration unilaterally bombed three Iranian nuclear sites, incapacitating its enrichment program, barely three days into the US President’s self-imposed “two-week” deadline. This time, US assets moved into West Asia days before he issued a clear warning of an attack.

Amid negotiations in Geneva, the Trump administration’s rationale for the military buildup in the Gulf had oscillated between Tehran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, a need for regime change, and concerns over its ballistic missile programme.

But hours before the strikes, Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi made the details of nuclear negotiations that took place on Friday public, revealing that Tehran had conceded to several of Washington’s demands.

These include zero stockpiling of nuclear material, down-blending its existing 60 per cent enriched stockpile to irreversible fuel, and allowing US inspectors access to Iranian nuclear sites. The US went ahead with the attack anyway, launching strikes aimed at the regime’s top leadership.

Right after the operation, Washington and Tel Aviv called on Iranian citizens to topple the Islamic regime, with Trump urging the people to “take back your government”, effectively moving to a regime change rationale. However, the strike on the school in Minab leaves a severe dent in this venture.

Days after the attack, Trump told CNN: “We don’t know what the succession plan is in Iran or who the new leader will be,” and hours later, his Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reiterated that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. Hegseth also cited Tehran’s ballistic missile programme in the Pentagon briefing, raising the question—what plunged West Asia into a full-blown conflict? Saudi officials had been saying that they would acquire nuclear weapons if Iran did.

Possibly, the momentum of the military buildup—aligned with Trump’s “peace through strength” narrative—had grown strong enough that it could no longer be reversed without the MAGA lobby looking weak.

Peace not in sight: Earlier on Tuesday, Trump said that the Iranian leadership “wants to talk,” but “it’s too late.” Hence, Washington signalled that it will carry on the campaign despite not having a clear picture of who will lead Tehran in the coming days, leaving the prospect of negotiations and peace in limbo. US lawmakers rejected two War Powers resolutions that would have required Trump to seek congressional approval to continue the operation.

Iranian ship sunk off Sri Lanka: The US on Wednesday (March 4) sank an Iranian naval frigate, IRIS Dena, in a submarine attack off Sri Lanka’s coast, extending the contours of the confrontation to the Indian Ocean. At least 80 people on board were killed.

The vessel had participated in the Indian Navy’s International Fleet Review and and MILAN-2026 conducted in Vishakapatnam on February 17 and 18.

Russian oil and the Ukraine equation: The war in West Asia has also introduced crosswinds to the US’s policy towards Russia. Washington had been building pressure on New Delhi to stop purchasing Russian oil in a bid to isolate Moscow amid the war in Ukraine, which entered its fifth year this February. The US had also introduced punitive 25 per cent tariffs on Indian goods to this end (which were removed early February after Trump announced the framework for an interim trade deal with New Delhi).

This policy took something of a U-turn this week. With a halt in crude oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz, the US has issued a temporary 30-day “waiver” to allow Indian refiners to buy Russian crude that is already in the high seas. This was done to help keep global oil prices down by easing pressure on refineries worldwide, a vivid example of how the White House shifts its rhetoric when it suits its interests.

Tariff trouble mounts

A coalition of two dozen states sued Trump on Thursday over the new 10 per cent sweeping tariffs he imposed on imports from around the world, creating another hurdle barely weeks after the Supreme Court struck down his global tariffs, his favourite foreign policy tool.

After the court struck down a bulk of his global duties, imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), Trump reintroduced 10 per cent blanket tariffs using a separate legal provision – Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act. This provision allows him to institute tariffs of up to 15 per cent for 150 days.

The US administration reaffirmed its commitment to use levies to counter trade deficits. Trump and the architect of his tariff strategy, Peter Navarro, said that they will pursue alternative legal mechanisms to bypass congressional approval of tariffs.

We discussed in detail all the legal provisions available to the Trump administration in a previous article in the World This Week series.

Earlier this week, the US Court of International Trade ordered the federal government to recalculate the levies paid by importers with the IEEPA tariffs removed and to issue refunds. The US Customs and Border Protection said they will set up an electronic process for importers to request the refunds estimated at $166 billion in the next 45 days.

Nepal elections

The second South Asian country to hold elections this year in the aftermath of a revolution, the counting of votes for Nepal’s general elections is currently underway, with the newly formed Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) inching closer to a landslide victory.

Rapper-turned-politician Balendra ‘Balen’ Shah, 35, is poised to become the Prime Minister, reflecting a public mood of rejection of established parties like the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist). Nepal has had 14 governments in the last 18 years.

In 2024, the party had four cabinet ministers in the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre)-led coalition under Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’.

Unlike Bangladesh’s polls this year, all of Nepal’s traditional political parties have been pushed to the fringes. According to the Election Commission’s data available from 161 of the total 165 constituencies, the RSP has won four seats and is ahead in 110 others, as of Saturday morning.

K P Sharma Oli, whose coalition government with the NC was deposed in the Gen-Z revolt last year, is lagging behind Balen in Jhapa-5 constituency.

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