The US is, indeed, the mightiest military in the world. But its might is being manoeuvred by tiny Israel to fight its own battles in West Asia, making a cartoon portraying Benjamin Netanyahu with the caption, “Worst President America has had”, cut closer to the bone than the cartoonist probably had imagined.

Two developments lend credence to US Secretary of State Marko Rubio’s contention that the US hit Iran when it did to pre-empt attacks on US interests by Iran in response to an imminent Israeli attack.

One, the Director of America’s National Counterintelligence Centre, Joseph Kent, resigned, saying that he cannot be party to a war that advances Israel’s interests rather than America’s. Two, Israel attacked Iran’s major gas facility, the South Pars gas field, in a clear bid to provoke the response that Iran came out with.

Iran has attacked oil and gas facilities of its neighbours in the Perisan Gulf, including Qatar’s LNG facility drawing gas form the Northern side of what Iran calls the South Pars gas field, and Saudi Arabia’s refinery on the Red Sea, from where the oil can move into the Indian Ocean braving only the Houthis, not having to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Saudi Arabia has threatened to join the war against Iran, and the US has threatened to obliterate Iran’s oil and gas facilities if it persists with attacks on Qatar.

Crude Reality Check

Israel is wary of President Donald Trump declaring victory and calling off the war before the Iranian regime is overthrown or destroyed. It wants to remove the sole remaining obstacle to its total domination of the region, which could lead to the removal of Palestinians from the lands Orthodox Jews believe were promised to them by none other than their God.

Trump’s post on Truth Social has an implicit warning to Israel as well, as it says Israel will no longer bomb any Iranian oil or gas facility.

It is likely that Israel would heed Trump’s warning and desist from further attacks on Iran’s hydrocarbon facilities. Iran’s only goal in the war is to survive, and it is willing to stake regional stability to force America’s Gulf allies to lobby President Trump to stop the fighting.

Even if no more oil and gas facilities are attacked, it will take several weeks to get things back to normal at the oil and gas facilities that have been hit. Oil and gas prices have soared. Aviation turbine fuel has nearly doubled in price, and airfares are rising alongside, threatening to hurt travel, tourism and hospitality for months.

The Bearish Shift

Small wonder that the US Fed and the Bank of Japan have held policy rates. The European Central Bank is expected to follow suit.

While oil and gas prices have shot up, their second-round effects are yet to feed through the economy. Rate cuts stand ruled out for the foreseeable future, as central banks will try to prevent inflation from becoming a conflagration that consumes the economy in the coming couple of months.

The stock markets have turned bearish, around the world, in response. That is only to be expected.

But the Indian market got an additional jolt from developments at HDFC Bank, where part-time chairman Atanu Basu resigned, citing ethical concerns. While the RBI has hastened to clarify that it does not see any governance failings at the bank, investors have sold the stock massively, causing its price to crash.

Trust Deficit

Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer survey finds India a country low on trust. Surprise, surprise. With drug companies that sell toxic cough syrup at home and abroad, with an Election Commission that holds potential voters to be aliens unless they prove their citizenship, and Opposition parties’ wholesale lack of trust in the Speaker of the legislature and in the Election Commission, India is not exactly awash with trust.

Retail prices climbed 3.2% in February, a 10-month high. The Iran war started only on February 28, so the effect of the subsequent oil prices would be felt only in the March figure. February’s higher prices reflected changes in food and tobacco prices.

The government continues to emphasise that there is no shortage of fuel, and people should not panic. However, pictures of queues for LPG cylinders have cropped up in newspapers.

The poor, who do not have formal cooking gas connections from the oil marketing companies and buy their LPG in tiny cylinders from the informal market, are the hardest hit by the cutback in LPG supplies to the commercial sector. Eateries struggle to cook on electricity, as there is a shortage in the market of induction stoves of different sizes and heating capacities.

Powering The Switch

The market is full of induction cooktops produced by small companies, whose brands carry little recognition or credibility. Large retailers would do themselves and the public a service by devising a standard certification scheme for induction stoves, so that households can buy brands that carry this seal of approval, even if the brands themselves are virtually unknown.

The well-off can purchase their new electric hobs that offer three or more induction cooktops of different sizes. The poor will need help to finance the purchase of induction stoves and cookware that will work on such stoves.

The government should take steps to step up the generation of electricity, strengthen the power grid to permit the higher loads that would result from hundreds of thousands of induction cooktops drawing power at the same time in the evening, and incentivise local manufacture of induction stove parts.

Manufacture of the components of induction cooktops and their assembly is a new manufacturing opportunity that deserves government support. The government could procure them in bulk and sell them through the public distribution system, encouraging banks and non-banking finance companies to finance the purchase of the stoves.

Switching to electric cooking saves at least 30% on fuel. This would allow even the poor to adopt induction stoves, provided they can finance the purchase of the stoves.