India, March 24 -- The escalation of hostilities between Israel, the US and Iran represents more than a regional flare-up; it is a systemic crisis that signals the definitive sunset of the unipolar moment and the painful birth of a fragmented, multipolar world order. To understand the gravity of the current situation, one must apply an academic lens to the structural realism that governs these State actors. The triple entente of friction, the ideological messianism of the Iranian regime, the existential security imperatives of the Israeli State, and the declining but still formidable hegemonic maintenance of the US has created a Thucydides trap within a sub-regional context. For decades, the US has acted as the offshore balancer in West A...