Iran survived with great confidence despite elimination of top leadership: Salman Khurshid

Amid the ongoing West Asia conflict, former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid said there has been a major miscalculation by the US and others in assessing the Iranian resistance, and it is remarkable that the country has survived with great confidence despite the elimination of its top leadership.

Amid the ongoing West Asia conflict, former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid said there has been a ''major miscalculation'' by the US and others in assessing the Iranian resistance, and it is remarkable that the country has survived with ''great confidence'' despite the elimination of its top leadership. In an interview with PTI Videos, Khurshid said the lesson in this is that ''a country like Iran that everybody thought was a pushover, is not a pushover''. The West Asia conflict, which has stretched for more than two months now, began when the US and Israel conducted air strikes on Iran on February 28, and Tehran retaliated by attacking several Gulf countries that hosted American military bases, impacting global aviation operations and oil prices and triggering a looming energy crisis. Asked about his assessment of the current situation in West Asia, Khurshid said, ''Who knows the mind of President (Donald) Trump? He is obviously playing games in his mind all the time. He has a view of the world, the view of the United States in the world, nobody can fathom it completely. People respond and react to it. It's impossible to say.'' The senior Congress leader, who is also chairperson of the party's foreign affairs department, added, ''One thing is profoundly clear: There has been a major miscalculation in assessing what Iran's resistance could look like.'' ''I think the US must have gone back to the drawing board to work out something. That could be why it's taking so long,'' he further said. Khurshid said that, however, there's a ''huge lesson in this for many of us: that a country like Iran that everybody thought was a pushover, is not a pushover.'' ''And certainly, after having suffered what nobody imagined they could suffer -- which is the elimination of their top leadership at the hands of an ostensible enemy -- Iran has survived, and with great confidence. It's quite remarkable,'' he added. He was also asked about Pakistan seeking to emerge as a mediator between the US and Iran to resolve the ongoing conflict. ''Well, have we not misread the signals that the world was giving, the geopolitical gravity shifting towards Asia?'' Khurshid asked. ''We are in a difficult place in Asia because we can't really get along with some of our neighbours. We can't get along with Pakistan, understandably, but we can't get along with China either. We want to. We want to be able to do partnership with China, but there are several impediments making it impossible,'' the Congress leaders said, adding, ''We looked at the US at a time when everything was shifting to Asia.'' Replying to another question, he reiterated that Washington's assessment of Iran was ''completely, completely wrong''. ''But, it wasn't just its assessment of Iran that was wrong. It was also the assessment of the US administration about its own people. They don't have an appetite for the kind of war that has to be fought to subjugate Iran, and it's quite understandable,'' Khurshid said.