3 min readJun 9, 2026 06:00 AM IST First published on: Jun 9, 2026 at 06:00 AM ISTOne hundred days into the West Asia conflict, Iran and Israel have exchanged fire for the first time since a fragile ceasefire took effect on April 8. The escalation was hardly unexpected. Tehran has long insisted that any ceasefire must include an end to Israel’s bombing campaign in Lebanon. That is something Donald Trump has also pursued publicly, and evidently unsuccessfully. The latest flare-up began after Iran fired ballistic missiles at northern Israel on Sunday in retaliation for Israeli strikes on southern Beirut. Israel responded with attacks on targets in central and western Iran. The renewed hostilities threaten to unravel the progress that had been made in the US-Iran talks, further narrowing the limited space for diplomacy that had opened up over the past two months.The US President, who has demanded that Iran and Israel “immediately stop shooting”, finds himself trapped between a recalcitrant rival and an intransigent ally. Iran sees its control of the Strait of Hormuz as a source of leverage to extract concessions, while Israel remains unwilling to compromise on the Hezbollah threat. Domestic political considerations further complicate matters: In all three countries, two of which face critical elections in the coming months, any compromise risks being portrayed as capitulation at home. Even as a section of public opinion in the US has turned sharply against Israel, the political establishment remains committed to supporting it unconditionally. Trump cannot afford to be seen as abandoning Israel, but he must also contend with the prospect of higher energy prices and supply-chain disruptions. Netanyahu, meanwhile, depends for his political survival on his hard-right coalition — after Iran’s offensive, one minister declared that “Tehran must burn”. How Trump balances these competing forces will determine when the shooting stops and diplomacy gets another chance.AdvertisementEven before the return to kinetic action, the US and Iran remained far apart on a deal because their core demands — on nuclear weapons, sanctions, regional proxies and frozen assets — have been fundamentally irreconcilable. Deep mutual distrust, compounded by the absence of meaningful direct contact between Tehran and Washington since the Islamabad meeting in April, means that even if Trump succeeds in securing a de-escalation, the region is likely to remain trapped in a state of no-war, no-peace, with continuing consequences for the world economy. For India, a second increase in domestic LPG prices in three months, as oil companies continue to grapple with surging energy costs, is a reminder that the conflict in West Asia is not a distant one.