ONE WAR, MANY FRONTS

By: M. Burhanuddin Qasmi
Editor: Eastern Crescent, Mumbai

The fog of war has thickened across the Middle East and South Asia, and the opening of a new front by Pakistan against Afghanistan on 22 February was clearly a US–Israel calculated move. It is increasingly evident now that the Af-Pak war is part of a checkmate strategy along Iran’s eastern borders, rather than an isolated border escalation between two Sunni Muslim neighbors.

While diplomatic signals suggested that Iran had shown flexibility — even indicating willingness for zero nuclear enrichment on 27 February — Washington remained crying for war. This author has earlier wrote that the US–Israel axis of evil was buying time, waiting for a new eastern pressure point to emerge along Iran’s borders. By engaging Afghanistan, a regional actor presently sympathetic to Tehran, the battlefield widened — and global attention fragmented.

This fragmentation serves a strategic purpose. Instead of a singular global debate centered on a potential US–Israel confrontation with Iran, the world now finds itself divided between multiple theatres: the Afghanistan–Pakistan war on one side, and the Iran–Israel–US wars on the other. In reality, these crises are interconnected, forming layers of one expanding conflict.

India’s position adds further complexity. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, New Delhi unexpectedly embraced Benjamin Netanyahu while war sirens were in the air, marking a departure from India’s long-standing pro-Palestinian diplomatic position.

Meanwhile, Pakistan — extensively aligned with Washington since the 1980s and especially after the forceful removal of Imran Khan through US support — has become a puppet for US strategic interests in the region.

The geopolitical chessboard grows even more intricate when considering China, Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia — each balancing fragile relationships with Tehran, Washington, Islamabad, and Tel Aviv. Should Iran retaliate against Gulf states hosting US or Israeli interests, as it has already done today on 28 Feb. following US-Israel bombardments in Tehran, the conflict could rapidly transform into a region-wide inferno, a very costly and disastrous war.

India and Pakistan — adversaries since 1947 — now appear, paradoxically, positioned within the same strategic orbit in these unfolding confrontations. Both countries are aligned with the US–Israel axis of evils and wars. India through Israel and Pakistan through the USA and Arab monarchs.

What seem like separate wars may, in essence, be converging fronts of a larger struggle over regional autonomy, global power hierarchies, and resistance to a perceived unipolar order. If major powers such as China and Russia are drawn in more directly, the specter of global escalation — a third world war — cannot be dismissed lightly. Nuclear weapons are in the hands of both sides, thus the entire world is deliberately put in danger by the war-mongering axis of evils — the USA and Israel — who sell war as corporate industry.

History reminds us that world wars rarely begin with declarations alone; they grow through alliances, miscalculations, and expanding theatres.

The war drums are beating across the Middle East, East and West Asia, and Eurasia. Yet when bombs fall, they recognize neither wealth nor poverty, neither sect nor ideology. They destroy indiscriminately — reducing cities, skyscrapers, ambitions, and human certainties to dust. The greatest tragedy is not merely who wins or loses, but how much humanity is lost before reason prevails.