New Delhi, March 3 -- THE WAR in Iran is spreading, fast. In the first 48 hours of the conflict America and Israel have dropped thousands of bombs on Iran, the very first ones killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader. In response, Iran has fired hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at nine countries. On March 2nd General Dan Caine, the chairman of America's joint chiefs of staff, said that it would take "some time" to meet war aims, which he and Pete Hegseth, America's defence secretary, defined largely in terms of Iran's missile force, rather than regime change. How might the war escalate further?

Iran has not held back. It has already killed six American troops and came close to inflicting casualties on British...