Everyone's playing war fantasy league

The moment the US declared war against Iran, something interesting happened: everyone became a West Asia strategic expert. Overnight, the world is awash in maps of the Strait of Hormuz, diagrams of missile ranges and solemn pronouncements about 'Shia-Sunni dynamics' and Likud politics. People who, till last Friday, thought that Qom was a new brand of kombucha, have already sent us mails pointing out the 'utter naivete' of our two editorials above. The phrase 'geopolitical chessboard' is being deployed as many times in the last 48 hours as 'six-seven'. Meanwhile, hashtags like #PersianPivot and #OilWars trend as if foreign policy were a Marvel franchise.

This war is being treated especially like a fantasy league, with armchair generals tallying 'points' for drone strikes and missile hits, and then keeping 'score' via social media shares. Everyone is suddenly fluent in a new set of acronyms - IRGC, CENTCOM, JCPOA, ICBM - though most may not be able to find Tehran on a map without Google. 'Operation Roaring Lion,' 'Operation Epic Fury,' and 'Operation True Promise 4' are being cited as potential franchise titles for a spin-off of Aditya Dhar's Dhurandhar movies. Frankly, the only thing more dangerous than war itself seems to be the spectacle of civilians cosplaying Clausewitz. In the theatre of war, the loudest voices are those farthest away.