On the 4th of March 2026, a US submarine torpedoed the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean, 40 nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka. At least 87 sailors were killed. Over a hundred remain missing. Pete Hegseth called it “quiet death” from the Pentagon podium; bragging it was the first torpedo kill since World War II.
MILAN at Vyzag
The IRIS Dena had just left Visakhapatnam. It had been India’s guest. Formally invited to MILAN 2026, the International Fleet Review hosted by the Indian Navy, attended by 86 ships from 74 nations. The Eastern Naval Command had tweeted a welcome photograph two weeks earlier: “reflecting long-standing cultural links between the two nations.”
Two weeks later, that ship is on the ocean floor. And from New Delhi, silence. Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi said it plainly: Frigate Dena, a guest of India’s Navy, was struck in international waters without warning. That line will not be forgotten in Tehran. It should not be forgotten in New Delhi either; because it is the most precise summary available of what Modi’s diplomatic positioning has actually cost India.
When guests are murdered
Say what you want about Pakistan’s post-colonial elite; and there is plenty to say. But since Pahalgam they have been reading the room better than New Delhi has. Not because Islamabad became richer or more competent. Neither of those things happened. What happened is simpler: when the bombs fell on Iran, Pakistan said nothing loud, and that silence was itself a signal. Across the Muslim world that signal was heard. Loyalty travels farther than power. Whether that loyalty is strategic or genuine is a separate question. The effect is the same.
Pakistan Post-Pahalgam
Since Pahalgam, Pakistan has been on a quiet diplomatic winning streak. China is an all-weather relationship that was never going anywhere. More surprisingly, Islamabad has cultivated a real working line to Trump; useful, manageable, a partner worth keeping. India, watching this, seems to have concluded that the way to hack into that relationship is through the Israeli back door: be Netanyahu’s most enthusiastic friend, signal civilisational alignment with the US-Israel axis, hope Washington notices. It reads less like strategy and more like a bid for attention. And it has been an expensive one, because the cost was Iran.
Indo-Iranian Allies
India and Iran have been genuine strategic partners for decades. Afghanistan, Central Asian connectivity, energy, Chabahar, the entire Persian-Indic corridor that predates modern geopolitics by centuries. That relationship had depth. Depth is rare in international relations. And it was casually discarded for a press conference; while the ship India had just welcomed home was being hunted by an American submarine in international waters.
If Iran survives this war, and it is showing every sign of doing so, New Delhi will eventually reckon with what that cost them.
What is the point of Wealth?
There is a deeper question underneath all of this that the current moment keeps raising and nobody in power seems to want to answer: what is the prosperity actually for?
BB argued this week that India is getting rich, that the Global South is merely a waiting room, and that once India joins the wealthy world these debates will fade away. The mechanics are probably right. The conclusion deserves harder scrutiny.
Because what the West is currently offering the world is not capitalism in any classical sense. It is a very specific, very late, very degraded version of it; one where markets calmly price in geopolitical catastrophe, where you can assassinate a head of state and live-tweet the memes, where Pete Hegseth brags about “quiet death” at a Pentagon podium while over a hundred sailors are missing in the Indian Ocean. Mammon in its terminal phase. Accumulation without purpose. Power without wisdom.
The Epstein System
India’s temptation, visible in every choice this week, is entry into that system without questioning its premises. Get rich, align with the winners, the values will sort themselves out. Pakistan’s failure runs the other direction: feel everything too intensely, substitute solidarity for strategy, emotion for policy. One risks having no principles. The other risks having nothing but principles and no power to defend them.
The harder position is less glamorous. Prosperity is a precondition, not a destination. You build wealth to build something worth living in; not to join a club where the membership fee is your moral independence.
The Conviction of a Supreme Leader
The missiles keep coming out of Iran because forty-seven years of ideological preparation cannot be decapitated. You can kill a Supreme Leader. You cannot kill what he spent four decades distributing into every cell of a system built precisely for this scenario. The Pahlavists in the room with Netanyahu and Trump believed their own diaspora’s map of Iran more than Iran believed it. An old colonial error; made, this time, by people who look like the colonised.
The Global South doesn’t need a new Global North. It needs a different organising principle, one serious enough to say that the purpose of civilisation is to produce human beings, not billionaires; that independence is worth more than alignment with the powerful; that prosperity without wisdom is just a better-appointed ruin. India used to understand that instinctively. The question now is whether it still does.
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it’s a pretty clear article
>Since Pahalgam, Pakistan has been on a quiet diplomatic winning streak. China is an all-weather relationship that was never going anywhere. More surprisingly, Islamabad has cultivated a real working line to Trump; useful, manageable, a partner worth keeping.
Pakistan isn’t a ‘partner’ to anyone. Its a vassal for hire. To the 3 uncles.
I’m not so sure being coralled into the ‘Bored of Peace’ counts as a win for Pak. If the Saudis were a partner to Pak, or any other West Asian monarchies, where is the assistance on the Afghan ‘open war’ front? All the noise emanating from Doha to Istanbul, is notably even-handed to facilitate ‘talks’ and a potential ceasefire.
Having to stand when Drumpf demands, and sing paeans to him as a savior and Nobel Peace prize worthy leader, while he bombs Tehran, and not even uttering a peep against the US – Do you think any of this is going unnoticed?
Iran is being tossed around like a rag doll. America sunk an Iranian ship in Sri Lanka’s EEZ with a SSN. Is there any evidence that India denied refuge? If anything Sri Lanka to blame for their delay.
Ocean is vast, even if you get lucky, where is the evidence that American made Boeing P8I submarine hunters of the Indian navy have the ability to find American SSNs? India uses Sonobuoys by the hundreds a year, America expends them by the hundreds of thousands. There is a proportional difference in capability as a result. To get peer capabilities Indian will have to spend a lot more.
The combined might of Indian armed forces, cannot stand up to American navy in Indian ocean beyond 300 miles of India’s coast. LRAShM hypersonic anti ship missile is the only hope for at least the next decade. SMART torpedo is also promising development other than the trusty Brahmos. But absolutely nothing can deter the Americans.
no one is asking India to “stand up” to the Yanks in that way; but India has clearly chose a side..
Pakistan has condemned the assassination of the Supreme Leader. India has not even bothered to do this (as far as I know).
India clearly believes Israel can do no wrong. Which is fine–it’s a choice. But Iran will remember this.
Pakistan is in a tough position. We have a long border with Iran. There are many Pakistani nationals living in that country. They will now need to be repatriated to Pakistan.
At the same time, the US is the world’s major superpower and Pakistan does not want to upset that country. Pakistan also has important relationships with the “brotherly” Gulf countries. So we have to thread this needle carefully.
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@XTM: this is trolling.
“Aukaat” is offensive.
yes well I still think Pakistan has manoeuvred this deftly; the problem is that the entire analysis in BP (as Kabir says) is that Pakistan must always be doing a mistake.
Sure, there’s a predisposition and a bias that I myself am also guilty of.
But its hard to disagree with the argument that Pakistan has traded short-term gains for some major long-term risks.
The fact that the bar is so low for Pakistani diplomacy that a handful of photo-ops and overt obsequious fawning is considered …deft – is in itself quite telling.
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“Law minister warns media about opinions/ comments critical of Pakistanโs foreign policy. โWhen it comes to foreign policy the constitution does not allow debates about scenarios such as how Pakistan can align with Iran when it is aligned with Saudi Arabia or between UAE and KSA. These matters should be left to the state.โ Warns if โred lineโ is crossed the law will be used.”
https://x.com/Benazir_Shah/status/2031288563330068706
The ‘deft maneuvering’ seems to require ‘constitutional’ repression of even discussions of said maneuvering.
‘Hot’ declared war with Afghanistan, undeclared one with India, and roped into the Iran theatre by both Uncle Sam and Uncle Saud.
I’m sorry, but none of this deft – by any stretch.
Statements are not reality per se. For instance the Pak military cannot ignore the will of 90%+ of the Pakistan people. They will never countenance the invasion of a brotherly Muslim nation (Iran).
Afghanistan is another thing.
Care to explain why ‘Afghanistan is another thing’?
Would you be surprised if PakMil gets pulled into the Iran war on the pretext of ‘protecting the Saudis’? There have already been official statements made indicating this.
My comment was removed I see. Not optimal.
Reports now indicate that the Iranian ship had asked the Sri Lankan government permission to dock, but was kept waiting in international waters for hours and hours. Almost as if it was intentional.
Needless to say, I disagree with the framing being pushed in this post – that somehow the Americans torpedoing an Iranian ship in international waters far beyond Indian jurisdiction or even its EEZ, is somehow to be pegged as Indian responsibility.
yes the phrasing was clunky
China is an all-weather relationship that was never going anywhere.
China has been a consistent friend to SL since 1950’s. It is SLGovts that are not consistent, a failure inbuilt intof Democracy
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Prime Minister, Dudley Senanayake, (West Aligned) however, fully backed his Minister of Commerce and was prepared to pay this price; he realized that the benefits to Sri Lanka from the agreement far outweighed losses consequent to the cutting-off of American AID.
He argued:
“Ceylonยs oil trade pattern has been knocked out by changes in the world market and we have to seek new markets for our needs of essential foodstuffs and for our exports”
R. G. Senanayake: “We noted on the Chinese side the absence of the spirit of bargaining and haggling on comparatively small points. On the other hand, they gave us the impression of being large minded and forthright in their dealings”
Significance of Ceylon-China Trade Agreement of 1952
https://island.lk/significance-of-ceylon-china-trade-agreement-of-1952/
This was the welcome China gave PM Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1963. A welcome worthy of a World leader, to a small nation
Sirimavo was the worlds First Woman PM
https://youtu.be/OawZYty0ieE
Sri Lanka trying to โsafeguard livesโ on second Iran ship after US attack
Sri Lanka is โtrying to โsafeguard livesโ on another Iranian ship off its coast, โ its cabinet spokesperson says, after an attack by the United States on an Iranian frigate killed more than 80 people and left dozens missing.
Jayatissa said the second warship is reported to be carrying more than 100 crew members and is heading to the same area where the US submarine destroyed the Iranian frigate. There are fears the second vessel could be targeted in the same way.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/5/sri-lanka-trying-to-safeguard-lives-on-second-iran-ship-after-us-attack?
“Looks like Sri Lanka has inadvertently or deliberately worked with its partner, the US (which many say installed the current govt removing China friendly Rajapakse govt), to sink Iran’s ship. The ship was safe as long as it was along India’s coast. It went to Lanka and waited there for 11 hours before it was sunk. Then propaganda was spread as if India was accountable. ”
https://x.com/NewsWireLK/status/2029492986409848930
interesting – the fog of war
Sri Lanka playing too safe. And this SL govt are cowards.
India claims to be the big boy in the block. India could have asked the Iranian ship to say in Indian Harbor. Of course that makes the Harbor a target for US bombing
what I have noticed in BP is that unless one sings to the choir (that is India good, Pakistan bad) one gets plaudits.
at least with Kabir he admits his biases (Pakistani Muslim nationalism), which makes it easy to deal with.
I have been saying this for months. The default attitude on this site is anti-Pakistan.
It is not intellectually defensible to argue that Pakistan can never do anything right. As you have noted, Pakistan’s diplomatic position is much stronger today than it was prior to “Operation Sindoor”.
It’s fine for the other commenters on here to be Indian nationalists (and rather right-wing ones at that). But one does expect a certain amount of honesty about it.
I must object to you referring to me as a “Muslim nationalist”. I am a Pakistani nationalist. There is a difference between the two things.
You are very invested in Muslim causes.
Also we’ve put your recent post in pending; we do want more novel contribution in BP posts rather than reposts or YouTube links.
What do you consider to be a “Muslim” cause? This is a serious question. I’m not trolling.
The vast majority of my comments on BP are me defending Pakistan. I don’t think I’m particularly invested in “Muslim” causes. Unless you mean Palestine which is an issue of settler colonialism and not particularly “Muslim”.
As for the recent post: It was an interview with Vali Nasr–one of the world’s foremost experts on Iran.
I’m fine with it being deleted. But this standard of original content should then apply to all authors.
In the end, it’s your blog.
We do remember you making Hinduphobic comments from time to time.
At any rate it’s ok you are entitled to your views; for some instance we believe Pakistan is a part of Greater Bharat (admittedly there is some complexity) and Pakistanis would do very well to be much more Hindu but that’s our view.
We like the Ummah but we’re passionate about Bharat. So most of the time the Commentariat and us get along just fine till we write a post about Pakistan and Iran and the Ummah may not be such disasters then we’re not so well-appreciated.
You are the only author who doesn’t add novel content to their posts; RNJ, Sbarr, BB all add novel content. See BB’s latest post..
“Hinduphobia” is subjective.
At any rate, there was also plenty of Islamophobia on display.
“Pakistanis would do very well to be more Hindu”– I’m sorry but non-Pakistanis do not get to define Pakistani national identity. The country is called the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It’s a 97% percent Muslim country. This is just reality.
I’m fine with whatever your policy is on “novel content”. I will note that RNJ has made a post in the past which was basically just Akhtar Mengal’s anti-Pakistan speech.
So this policy does need to be implemented even-handedly.
Choir? There’s may be 5-7 people hyperactive in the commentariat and 2 of those are rabid India haters. What else do you count as plaudits? Up/downvotes on comments? Look at this post for e.g. – I see only one person ‘presenting’ India’s case and 3 fervently prosecuting the flimsy argument that somehow it was India’s responsibility to save belligerents in a war.
Which leads me to a more philosophical question – what really is the point of the comments section here? As of now, the level of discourse isn’t a lot more high signal than rage-bait i see on social media.
should I shut down the comments section on your recommendation?
I don’t think the comments section should be shut down. You have recently instituted new rules to control the “low-signal” trolling. I think those rules have to be given a chance to work.
It is true that the relatively sensible commenters (Pandit Brown, Girmit etc) are not commenting as much. Perhaps because of the amount of “rage bait” that does go on in the comment section.
I object to NDG’s characterization of me as a “rabid India hater”. I have great admiration for India’s culture (Hindustani music etc). I am happy to admit when India does something right. Obviously, as a Pakistani nationalist I have major issues with India’s foreign policy and I am capable of justifying all those viewpoints.
We do not worry about the make up of the comments section since otherwise we’d be fretting over the small details.
Not at all. You have a thankless job and for what it is worth, I think you are fairly ‘neutral’ and do a great job of moderating. The first part of comment was to call out the needless monkey balancing in this post.
My comment was more of a lament at the relative degradation of our discourse (seen from the eyes of a long time follower and recent commenter). I myself have been responsible for some of that but the tone of comments here in general seems more rage-baity any time there is a discussion of India or Pakistan. If I were you, I’d just ban some of these users but I understand that would not be good for the commentariat because the most active ones also tend to be the most emotionally charged, so may be that’s what is holding you back.
We’ve realised BP is in waves and peaks and surges though your point is valid. A highly engaged and qualitative commentariat does inform the Weblog.
It’s a fine balance, we don’t run the Comment board just for Masala (we learnt it the hard way last year) but also Kabir and Sbarr are entitled to their views, so long as it is within proprietary.
a thousand flowers bloom and all that.
I’m more interested in the comments of some of the people here than I am of random people on X. I’ve been reading XTM, Omar, sbarkum, kabir, brown, and several others for several years and the continuity is important.
You’re one of the relatively sensible commenters here. Please comment more often.
In general, moderation needs to be more stringent. I agree with NDG that the tone when it comes to India and Pakistan is often “rage baity”. There are definitely two teams on here (Sbarrkum and me vs. BB and RNJ).
When my dad used to run “The South Asian Idea”, he had to work hard to make sure people commented in an academic manner and focused on ideas and evidence vs. the person making the argument. This is a difficult task.
yes Girmit is excellent and pure class.
thanks. i’m just compensating for how disagreeable i am IRL.
thank you ๐
The Second Iranian Ship
All 208 crew members from the Iranian naval vessel IRIS Bushehr have been safely evacuated by the Sri Lanka Navy from near Sri Lankaโs territorial waters.
The crew are being brought ashore, while the vessel will be moved to the Port of Trincomalee.(one of the biggest Natural Harbors in the World)
https://www.newswire.lk/2026/03/05/crew-of-iranian-ship-near-sri-lanka-to-be-brought-to-colombo-port-president/
First Iranian Ship
Not enough space in Galle Mortuary for the dead sailors.
The locals have donated a mobile Refrigerated Container for the Bodies
Rear Admiral Colombage says we have a region 27 times our land mass for search and rescue missions. So duty and Responsibility of SL to rescue those in Distress in those waters
Mostly in Sinhala.
Last bit by in English by Rear Admiral Colombage
https://youtu.be/lx_IZcO3Pow
Trump will rename the Indian Ocean as ‘The American Ocean” and there is absolutely nothing Modi ji will be able to do about it
Welcome back.
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And this is anti Pakistan trolling 101!
This is exactly the kind of “low-signal” behavior that drives off sensible commenters.
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Admin Note: Calm
Admin Note: Stop trolling. We have also removed all your comments as we don’t necessarily appreciate our posts being called “nonsense.”
So? I also don’t think very highly of Indosaurus.
Stop trolling.
it’s fine. We’ve dealt with it.
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US pressing Sri Lanka Not to repatriate Iranian Sailors: Reuters
The United States has urged Sri Lanka not to repatriate Iranian sailors rescued following the sinking of the Iranian warship IRIS Dena, according to an internal U.S. State Department cable reported by Reuters.
These are remaining Sailors the UNARMED Iranian Navy ship that was torpedoed
There was a second Iranian Navy ship that given save haven. Sailors are in Colombo and the Ship in Trinco Deep Port
A third ship given refuge in Kochi, India
https://www.newswire.lk/2026/03/07/us-pressing-sri-lanka-not-to-repatriate-iranian-sailors-reuters/
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