India has recognised that West Asia is not a single contest, but a tangle of rivalries, bargains and anxieties. Comment. (Answer in 250 words)

- India has recognised that West Asia is not a single contest, but a tangle of rivalries, bargains and anxieties. Comment. (Answer in 250 words)
Introduction
India no longer reads West Asia as a single contest between Israel and the Arabs, or Iran and the Gulf. It treats the region as overlapping rivalries and works each relationship separately — de-hyphenation applied to a whole neighbourhood.

Body
1. Israel and Palestine held apart: relations with Israel since 1992 and the 2017 prime ministerial visit sit alongside a separate visit to Ramallah, continued UNRWA funding and support for Palestinian UN membership in 2024.
2. Gulf and Iran simultaneously: India develops Chabahar under the ten-year contract of May 2024 while building the Saudi Strategic Partnership Council (2019) and the UAE partnership (2022) — though it cut Iranian crude to zero after 2019, the clearest case of American pressure changing Indian behaviour.
3. The Gulf as economic anchor: trade with the UAE alone exceeds a hundred billion dollars, rupee-dirham settlement and UPI acceptance are in place, and nine million Indians in the Gulf send the largest share of India's remittances.
4. The Abraham Accords aftermath: I2U2 (2022) and the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor announced in September 2023 were built on normalisation and stalled by the Gaza war — one rivalry freezing an unrelated bargain.
5. Maritime security on its own account: after Houthi attacks began in November 2023, India deployed independently under Operation Sankalp rather than joining Prosperity Guardian — the tangle thesis in action.
6. Turkey as the exception: Ankara's Kashmir positions and its support to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor in May 2025 drew an economic rather than a diplomatic response.

Conclusion
India runs a portfolio, not a posture: its assets — energy demand, diaspora, a non-colonial record — fit every camp. The weakness is that a portfolio has no answer when one party demands exclusivity.