When US and Israeli warplanes hit Tehran on February 28, 2026, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and around 168 schoolgirls in Minab, the architects of the strike expected swift collapse. What they got was the opposite. Iran sealed the Strait of Hormuz. Oil shot past $120 a barrel. The limits of American air power were laid bare in a matter of days.
This Frontline package pulls together reporting from across the war: the breach of the UN Charter and the miscalculations that followed; the destruction of Iran’s cultural heritage and the civilian toll—schoolchildren among the dead; the shifting calculations of Gulf monarchies that host US bases; and the quiet backing Iran has drawn from Beijing and Moscow.
For India, the stakes cut close. Nearly nine million of its citizens live in the Gulf. More than half its crude arrives through waters now choked by war. The Chabahar port project sits mothballed under American pressure. From New Delhi’s belated condolences to the Prime Minister’s visit to Israel just days before the bombing began, these pieces trace a series of choices that have boxed India’s foreign policy into a corner. Together, they show how a war fought thousands of kilometres away now tests the country’s diplomatic nerve.