The war in its 12th day seems to have no immediate end, as realpolitik is at work in Washington and Tehran. Despite President Trump hinting at an early end to a war which, he says, has "devastated" Iran beyond recognition, the Islamic Republic is defiant to fight it out. In a categorical stance, Iran's new supreme leader has vowed to "end the war on its own terms", as Iranian drones and missiles played havoc in many of the Gulf states, specifically hitting energy installations.

A spokesperson for Syed Mojtaba Khamenei has made it clear that "diplomacy is not on the cards" and it is "time to defend the homeland", by penalising the aggressors. Thus, it was a free-for-all as both Tel Aviv and Tehran treated each other with airstrikes and missile attacks, respectively, leaving little room for saner elements to intervene and cajole a way out of the crisis.

A telephonic conversation between Trump and Putin merely exposed the fault-lines, with the Kremlin lecturing the White House on the adverse costs of escalation. Moscow stopped short of assuring Washington that it would try to prevail over its ally, Iran, for silencing the guns. In a rejoinder, Trump rather thought it wise to advise Putin to bring the war on Ukraine to an end. Putin, however, believes a thaw could set in, if Europe and the US agree to work with Russia on a "long-term cooperation" by lifting sanctions on oil.

Oil, meanwhile, continued to surge as it hit $119 a barrel, only to nosedive on the hopeful premise that Trump is contemplating halting the strikes over Iran. That was, however, an unfounded assumption as Netanyahu apparently is not listening to Trump. The Jewish state's obsession to make use of the nuclear option is at the cost of collective annihilation.

Life in the Middle East, nonetheless, was on a razor-edge as Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have tales to tell of the dozens of sorties that came their way, and a very few of them were intercepted. The cost of destruction is getting paramount with each passing day as the once hubs of serenity are in a faux pas of their own security miscalculations.