War in Iran has turned the INSTC, India’s most promising trade shortcut, into a strategic liability. The fog of war in the Middle East has obscured more than battle lines. It has also hidden the quiet unravelling of one of Eurasia’s most ambitious trade experiments: the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). Conceived at the turn of the millennium as a faster, cheaper artery linking South Asia to Europe, the corridor now finds itself a casualty as collateral da