As the US/Israel's war against Iran completes its first week of hostilities, Tehran continues to hold the line. Simultaneously, a complex political transition is underway in Iran.

Meanwhile, by torpedoing IRIS Dena, an Iranian frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka and killing at least 80 sailors, the Trump administration has brought the war to the Indian Ocean in a particularly brash manner.

In this episode, Bashir Ali Abbas, a senior researcher and West Asia expert at the Council for Strategic and Defence Research (CSDR), decodes the many overlapping layers of domestic political and geopolitical dynamics framing Iran's strategy and response of South Asian littorals to the downing of IRIS Dena.

Read Bashir's columns on West Asia in The Indian Express here: https://indianexpress.com/profile/guest-writer/bashir-ali-abbas/.

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