Examine India's strategy of engaging simultaneously with Iran, Israel, and the United States amid West Asian conflicts.

India's West Asia policy rests on de-hyphenation — treating ties with Tehran, Tel Aviv and Washington as independent tracks rather than a zero-sum choice. The 2026 US-Israel-Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz crisis have made this balancing act both indispensable and harder to sustain.

Why India engages all three

• Iran — connectivity and energy: the long-term Chabahar Port contract (2024) and the INSTC give India a sanctions-resilient land bridge to Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan [1].
• Israel — defence technology, agriculture and water management, and counter-terror cooperation.
• United States — the defining strategic partnership, covering Quad, technology, defence and diaspora remittances.
• Gulf as the common stake — India's crude, LNG and expatriate workforce ride on stability in a region whose chokepoint carries about one-fifth of global oil and gas [3].

How the strategy operates

• Issue-based multi-alignment: India engages Iran bilaterally and through BRICS — Modi and President Pezeshkian met at the 16th BRICS Summit, Kazan (October 2024) [1] — while deepening I2U2-type links with Israel and the US.
• Principled neutrality: India urged "immediate de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy" rather than condemning any party [2].
• Quiet crisis management: evacuation of nationals, energy-basket diversification and continued humanitarian positioning.

Strains the conflict has exposed

• Hormuz disruption stranded roughly 20,000 seafarers on about 2,000 vessels, with shipping near standstill even after the June 2026 accord — a direct hit to India's freight and oil costs [3][4].
• US sanctions repeatedly slow Chabahar and Iranian oil purchases.
• Great-power gridlock: the Gulf-sponsored UNSC resolution on Hormuz shipping safety was vetoed by China and Russia [5], leaving India without multilateral cover.

India's simultaneous engagement is therefore not fence-sitting but a calculated hedge that preserves autonomy while diversifying dependencies. Going forward, accelerating Chabahar and INSTC, widening energy sourcing, and using BRICS, the G20 and the IMO to press for safe navigation can convert this balance into durable influence — consistent with India's long-held commitment to strategic autonomy and peaceful settlement of disputes.