Iran faces a lonely fight


A huge cloud of black smoke covering the sky after US-Israel airstrikes in Teheran. — Arash Khamooshi/The New York Times

DESPITE long being treated as a pariah by the West and isolated by US sanctions, Iran’s revolutionary Islamic government maintained diplomatic, commercial and military ties with a range of countries.

Turkiye and India engaged with it on trade and security. China looked to it for cheap oil.

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