Iran War and the Bankruptcy of Bangladesh Foreign Policy

The US–Israel war on Iran has shaken the whole world. The surprising air attacks on February 28, amid ongoing diplomatic negotiations, came as a shocking development, drawing condemnations and muted responses from around the world. Bangladesh’s reactions to the war, crafted in measured words, condemned violations of sovereignty of the Gulf states by Iranian counterstrikes, but not Iran’s sovereignty violated by the US and Israel. The reference to Iran as the primary victim was missing, exposing not just economic vulnerability, which is widely acknowledged, but a deeper, structural weakness in Bangladesh’s foreign policy. The war has not created this weakness; it has simply revealed it. Bangladesh today finds itself scrambling to manage fuel shortages, rising prices, and diplomatic ambiguity while […]