Hardly any other topic has moved the world in recent weeks as much as the escalating conflict between Iran and the United States. After the USA killed the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani with a drone, Iran reacted and sent missiles to an American military base in Iraq. That night, the Iranian government also fired on a Ukrainian airliner (Iran Government claims to have done this without intent), killing 176 civilians. Many experts were concerned about a further escalation of this conflict. But this escalation has not happened until today.

Of course, this conflict is not limited to Iran and the region but has global implications. These effects and the question of how things will continue in the future were the topics of the discussion around "Post Qassem Soleimani", which took place on 17 January in the Nehru Memorial Museum.  The event was organized by the Foreign Office of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in India together with "SAISA" and the "Nehru Memorial Museum".

After Peter Rimmele, Head of the India Office of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung summarized what happened in the last weeks and opened the event, the Member of the Indian Parliament Shri MJ Abkar, the Executive Director of "SAISA" Ms. Prabha Rao, a Strategic Analyst Dr. Waiel Awwad, a Senior Fellow of "IDSA" Dr. Rajiv Nayan and the Director of the "India Foundation" Capt Alok Bansal spoke.

 "Assassinations have never helped anything in history," said the Indian Member of Parliament with regard to the killing of Soleimani, pointing out that economic interests are at the heart of the conflict.

The Executive Director of SAISA Ms. Prabha Rao set a different focus in her speech and explained the complexity in the region of West Asia. There would, in fact, be several conflicts with different parties. One of these would be the conflict between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Skiitic Iran. But also within the Sunni religious community, there is a line of conflict between Turkey and Qatar vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In addition, there is the long-lasting Israel-Palestine conflict and many other conflicts of smaller groups in the region. In these many conflicts and different interests within the region, there are also the interests of "global players" such as the USA, Russia, and India. It was precisely this role of India that moved further into focus in the course of the discussion.  Dr. Rajiv Nayan, a Senior Fellow at IDSA, spoke mainly about economic interests in West Asia. India gets almost all its oil supplies from Iran, which is why a worsening of the crisis could hit India particularly hard. This applies to all Southeast Asian states, while the USA and Russia are almost independent of oil from West Asia.

India could also play a decisive political role in the conflict between the USA and Iran. India is one of the few states with good diplomatic connections to both Tehran and Washington and could act as a neutral mediator in this conflict. India has a great interest in calming the conflict not only because of the oil but also because several million Indians work in West Asia and regularly send valuable foreign currency to their home country.

Irrespective of whether it is for economic, political or humanitarian reasons, everyone agreed in the final discussion round at the Nehru Memorial Museum: After the phase of escalation, there must now be a phase of de-escalation.