India may now find it even more difficult to retain Iran's Chabahar port on its terms. The strongest backer of the Iranian port from India’s point of view was the Afghanistan government, which needed the facility and the associated railway line to its border town of Zahedan to import LPG, diesel, food and medicines.

       Those requirements still exist but the government there has melted away. While India describes Chabahar port in its internal documents as the “Country's first overseas port project with strategic objectives”, if it has to retain its immediate ...