New Delhi, June 15 -- On 13 June, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion that targeted nuclear sites across Iran and killed several senior military commanders. Among the killed were General Mohammad Bagheri, who oversaw the Islamic Republic's armed forces; General Hossein Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; and General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who ran the country's ballistic missile programme.

The flare-up is being viewed as the most significant showdown between the two West Asian archrivals in decades, with former Indian diplomat Mahesh Sachdev describing it as an "important inflexion point" in the 26-century-old Jewish-Babylonian conflict, in a recent column. Mint explains:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu h...