Letters | US has succeeded in plunging Middle East into dangerous conflict

On February 6, Oman mediated the resumption of high-level US-Iran talks that had been suspended since June 2025. Three rounds of negotiations yielded progress. However, the diplomatic process collapsed abruptly on February 28, when Israel launched a precise strike in Tehran, killing supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian officials including the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces. Tactically, the strike achieved its immediate goal: removing Iran’s long-serving supreme leader. But if the United States and Israel had expected the strike to be followed by large-scale public unrest, a…