The Trap: Why None of the Three Parties Can Stop — and Why India Cannot Look Away
Day 13 of Operation Epic Fury
BY VK SHASHIKUMAR
The question is no longer whether the US-Israeli war campaign against Iran is working. It is why it cannot stop.
The answer lies in what game theorists call a “no-exit equilibrium”: a configuration in which each party’s rational response drives escalation, and no party can de-escalate without losing more than it gains by continuing.
Why America Cannot Stop
Washington launched ‘Epic Fury’ on the premise of an imminent Iranian threat — a premise its own Pentagon briefers contradicted. Senator Mark Warner confirmed he has seen “no intelligence” supporting it. The Oman-mediated negotiations, which the Omani Foreign Minister said had reached a “breakthrough” with Iran agreeing to zero enriched uranium stockpile and full IAEA verification, were abandoned on the eve of the strikes. The Wall Street Journal reported Senator Lindsey Graham made the most compelling case for the assault; the Washington Post reported Saudi Crown Prince MBS and the Israeli government lobbied Trump repeatedly.
Trump has committed to regime change, accepted flag-draped coffins at Dover, and is burning $1 billion per day. To stop without achieving stated objectives would mean the most expensive air campaign in modern history, American dead, a broken energy market, and nothing to show. The White House has framed the campaign at 100 days. Secretary Rubio announced strikes would “increase in intensity.” There is no off-ramp that preserves American credibility without Iranian capitulation. Trump told Axios on March 11: “Anytime I want it to end, it will end.” But Israeli Defence Minister Katz said the same day: “The operation will continue without any time limit.” The two statements are incompatible. Someone is not in control.
Why Israel Cannot Stop
Netanyahu framed ‘Operation Roaring Lion’ as existential. Israel bombed the Assembly of Experts during a succession meeting. Then Hezbollah reopened the northern front — precision strikes on a missile defence site south of Haifa, the first since the November 2024 ceasefire. Israel responded with “large-scale” strikes on Beirut’s Dahiyeh, southern Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley. Over 630 Lebanese killed. Over 800,000 displaced. The IDF moved further into Lebanon, telling residents to evacuate north of the Zahrani River — 40 km from the border. Turkey’s foreign minister warned Israel to stop “before Lebanon collapses.” Israel is fighting on two fronts with an existential framing that permits no retreat.
Why Iran Cannot Stop
Iran is fighting for regime survival under the Karbala paradigm — the Shia theological framework in which martyrdom is the highest form of victory. This is operational doctrine, not metaphor. Khamenei’s assassination has been framed as a Karbala event. The new Supreme Leader was installed under bombardment. His first statement on March 12 offered no off-ramp: Hormuz stays closed, US bases will be attacked, the “revenge file remains open.” He referenced “other fronts where the enemy has little experience” that would be “activated if the state of war continues.”
The IRGC continues striking even after Pezeshkian apologised to Gulf neighbours — and was publicly excoriated by hardliners as “weak and unacceptable.” The split between civilian government and military command is now visible. Pezeshkian set three conditions on March 11: recognition of Iran’s legitimate rights, war reparations, and firm international guarantees against future aggression. Mojtaba Khamenei, 24 hours later, promised only revenge. Iran’s conditions require an international architecture that does not exist. America’s condition is unconditional surrender. The gap is unbridgeable.
The Three Failed Assumptions
Decapitation did not paralyse. Khamenei killed, 40+ officials eliminated — and the state continued. The Provisional Leadership Council governed within hours. The IRGC launched retaliatory strikes with institutional depth. Mojtaba Khamenei was named Supreme Leader on March 8. As the Council on Foreign Relations assessed: “Taking out Khamenei is not the same as regime change. The IRGC is the regime.”
Degradation did not prevent retaliation. Thirty ships sunk, 300 launchers neutralised, 200 air defences destroyed — and Iran is mining Hormuz, hitting tankers daily, and threatening to “set the region’s oil and gas on fire.” Iran does not need a navy to close Hormuz. It needs mines. It does not need an air force to hit Gulf infrastructure. It needs drones.
The people’s revolution has not materialised. The Stimson Center’s verdict: “What strategic bombing campaigns have reliably produced, across a century of evidence, is not rebellion but solidarity.” Meanwhile, the CIA is arming Kurdish militias in northern Iraq while Israel clears the border — a strategy that contradicts the revolution thesis by terrifying the very urban, nationalist middle class needed for uprising. The Iranian professional who despises the mullahs but sees Kurdish forces penetrating from Iraq sees Libya, not liberation. He rallies to the flag.
What This Means for India
The trap matters for India because a trapped war is an endless war. And an endless war at Hormuz is an existential economic threat to an economy that imports 88 per cent of its oil.
If the US cannot stop and Israel won’t stop and Iran’s new Supreme Leader has declared Hormuz permanently closed, then India’s 37 stuck tankers are not a temporary disruption. They are the new normal. The LPG shortages that hotels are reporting today reach households next. The kharif planting season approaches with 40 per cent of fertiliser imports blocked. The rupee’s slide toward 95 accelerates. The 9 million Indians in the Gulf face not a weeks-long emergency but a months-long exposure. India’s proposed Navy deployment to safeguard oil supplies is an operational acknowledgement of a strategic reality: the war is no longer “over there.” It is here.
Each endpoint leads to a higher level of escalation. Khamenei killed: war escalated. Assembly of Experts bombed: war escalated. Navy sunk: war escalated. Hormuz mined: war escalated. Every rung on the escalation ladder leads to the next rung. No rung leads down. And India is chained to the bottom of that ladder by geography, energy dependency, and nine million lives.
(VK Shashikumar is a former roving foreign affairs correspondent who covered West Asia, and later set up the investigations team at CNN-IBN, now News18. He writes on geopolitics, conflict, and strategic affairs. The opinions expressed by the author and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of Canary Trap or any employee thereof)
Canary Trap is on Telegram. Click here to join CT’s Telegram channel and stay updated with insightful and in-depth content on Security, Intelligence, Politics, and Tech.
