India, June 21 -- 'It's signed . this was not easy,' US President Donald Trump said after signing a 14-point "memorandum of understanding" to end America and Israel's war against Iran.Primarily mediated by Pakistan along with Qatar, the crux of this agreement is that Iran will not build or procure nuclear weapons in return for status quo ante atthe Strait of Hormuz, Tehran will get "at least $300 billion" for its "reconstruction and development", the US will lift "all types of sanctions", and Israel will halt military operations in Lebanon. The final deal is yet to be signed, and the agreement's endurance is questionable. But there is no mistaking that Iran has won the war and the US, along with Israel and its Gulf partners, has lost it. The termination of military operations is good for India's economic and strategic stability. But it raises a question: Was New Delhi's partiality towards the losing side worth it? This question is not about the false worship of concepts like strategic autonomy, nor about singularly burdening India with the weight of international norms that other States are unwilling to uphold even though common sense dictates they should. It is neither a debate about India's ability, desirability, or suitability to mediate. There is a deeper issue: India's strategic partners started a war that worsened its regional security environment, torpedoed itseconomy, cost Indian lives, empowered Pakistan, and cemented China's big power status. And New Delhi didn't - or couldn't - shape the war's outcome. There are five lessons for India here. The first is simple: India must not base its foreign-policy decisions on optical illusions. There is no doubting the earnestness with which India invested in the UAE, its attempts to improve ties with Saudi Arabia, its participation in the I2U2 (India, Israel, UAE, US) grouping, or its ambition to build maritime connectivity to Europe via West Asia. These moves occurred in tandem with a downtick in ties with an insular, hardline, and ungiving Iran. But these peacetime initiatives collapsed during the war. The problem is not what India built with Israel, the US, and the UAE, but what it lost in the process - Iran. To lose Iran was neither India's active choice nor truly a fait accompli; the US coerced and co-opted India into doing so over the years. To be sure, Iran's nuclear programme, proxy wars across West Asia, criticism of India on Kashmir, and dispensability as an energy supplier made it easy for New Delhi to look the other way. This war has undone all that. Iran is now setting the terms and the price of peace for the US and its allies. Such is the depth of its win that even American vice-president J D Vance is now castigating Israel for its reckless, violent excesses. In just over three months, Iran wrecked the Saudi-UAE partnership and the US-Israel alliance. Therein lies the second lesson: India must not confuse military dominance with strategic effects. Israel is unquestionably the most powerful military actor in West Asia today. But it is also more insecure, isolated, and traumatised than ever before, and it has failed to contain Iran beyond its nuclear programme. If anything, this war has laid bare the horrors and limitations of Israel's unchecked military power. India must undertake a dispassionate analysis of Tel Aviv's shrunken positionality in West Asia, and what a post-Benjamin Netanyahu Israel would look like, however important a security partner it might be for New Delhi. Much has been said about Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi's ill-timed visit to Israel days before the war. That the two countries' security partnership has been lubricated by an ideological crossover between Zionism and Hindutva is now a mainstream view. Though valid, this view risks undervaluing counter-currents such as New Delhi's fast-evaporating patience for Israel's penchant for war. Even the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has internally been more nuanced about how India should have handled this war and its ties with Iran, despite its affinity for Israel. All this is to say that India retains the capability to re-establish its long-held position of a natural balancing force in West Asia if it so wishes. The third lesson is: Don't let emotions cloud the mind. India's apprehension about Pakistan exploiting this war to resurrect its global image and punch above its weight is understandable. For the US and Europe, Pakistan's double-game during the Afghanistan war is no longer a limiting factor in rebuilding ties with Islamabad. Such sense of hurt ended with the Joe Biden administration. That Islamabad will use its newfound confidence to reshape global opinion on Kashmir is obvious. It is already improving its defence capabilities in terms of pace, scale, and quality with China's support. But the Pakistani establishment's current thinking suggests that as it fights fires elsewhere, it is not keen to spend this hard-earned diplomatic and military capital, and even a modicum of economic stability, on hostilities with India. This brings us to the fourth lesson: This war dislocated the structure of India's equities and leverage, from Iran through Afghanistan to Pakistan. New Delhi's engagement with the Taliban in Kabul, though tactically sound, is of limited strategic value thanks to Pakistan's campaign of airstrikes and drone attacks that occurred in parallel to the US-Israel-Iran war. India's initial failure to condole the death of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cost it much. Led by Khamenei's son, Mojtaba, Tehran is unlikely to forget this insult; just as it will not forget the debt of gratitude it owes to Pakistan for mediating its win. With Pakistan itself, stonewalling a diplomatic dialogue worked for a while for India, but such stonewalling is now way past its due date and will bring diminishing returns for India moving forward. Then, has siding with the US and Israel in West Asia been worth it? In fairness, India cannot suddenly tilt towards the Iran-Russia-China axis. But it has ended up paying a steep price for siding tacitly with the losers. That's the fifth lesson. India boxed itself into false binaries, even though alternative pathways were available. For instance, if the PM could not have avoided the Israel visit, he could have tried using his leverage to restrain a friend. And India could have criticised the Iranian regime's mass killing of civilians in January, while urging external powers not to escalate their interference. With the US, it could have taken a firmer stand when IRIS Dena, the Iranian warship, was torpedoed by the US off Sri Lanka in February. With Pakistan, it could have opted for silence over using uncharitable terms for a country whose actions served India's interests. If India wants to be respected as a big power and credibly protect its interests, it will need to step up to the responsibilities that come with it....