Friday 20th March, 2026

US President Donald Trump, driven by his MAGA dream, may have expected the bombing of Iran to scare the rival world powers, but the explosions in the Gulf have apparently shaken Washington instead. The Pentagon has asked for more than USD 200 billion from the White House for its war on Iran. Trump is now left with no alternative but to keep on pouring tax money into an endless war, much to the consternation of the public at home, with the midterm elections due in November 2026. What the Pentagon has asked for amounts to approximately 10 percent of funds the US government annually spends on healthcare, according to some media reports.

The US is reported to have already spent about USD 18 billion on the Iran war. This shows how costly the conflict will be for the US citizens economically. The predicament of Iran is far worse; it has had to bear huge human and social costs of the war besides the staggering economic losses. Israel has also suffered considerable damage despite its leaders’ claims to the contrary. It is reported to have allocated about USD 10 billion for the war so far.

The Pentagon’s request for more funds is expected to trigger a bipartisan battle on Capitol Hill when it is presented to the Congress. Some analysts have said Trump will have his work cut out to secure the allocation of funds as many Congress members are against his war.

Meanwhile, a hidden cost of the Iran war has come to light. The World Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has issued a dire warning. The FAO report on the Gulf conflict, released yesterday, has pointed out that the ongoing war is likely to lead to a major global food scarcity due to a crippling fertiliser shortage caused by the Iran war, especially the closure of the Hormuz Strait. The Persian Gulf is usually known for its energy exports, but it is also a major hub for global fertiliser production and exports.

Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Oman are among the world’s leading exporters of nitrogen fertilisers, including urea and ammonia, accounting for roughly 30–35 percent of global urea exports and around 20–30 percent of ammonia exports, according to FAO. Overall, up to 30 percent of global fertiliser exports is channelled through the Strait of Hormuz, the closure of which has severely affected international fertiliser supply chains. Production cuts and shipping constraints have stalled an estimated 3–4 million tonnes of fertiliser trade per month, and global fertiliser prices could average 15–20 percent higher during the first half of 2026 if the crisis continues, FAO says. This is a frightening proposition.

Developing countries will be the worst affected by the Gulf conflict as their governments have no way of absorbing the fertiliser price shocks, which will lead to higher production costs and an increase in food inflation. The paddy harvesting season is currently on in this country, and farmers are complaining that they have no fuel for crop-gathering machines. Fuel is likely to be the least of their problems. They will need fertiliser when the next cultivation season commences. The cultivators of other crops also need fertiliser to help maintain the domestic food supply and exports. One can only hope that the government will formulate a strategy to face such an eventuality.

FAO has also warned that “lower fertiliser applications can reduce crop yields and increase food security risks directly and indirectly in vulnerable regions through local supply changes and future reduction of outputs in global breadbaskets, with higher fuel prices also increasing transport and logistics costs, raising the cost of food imports and further pressuring domestic food prices”.

Trump’s allies in the Gulf region will also face structural food security vulnerabilities, according to FAO. They are reportedly dependent on imports for between 70 and 90 percent of their food supply. Their food reserves will run out if the conflict drags on for a long time. Thus, they will face attacks by Iran on their oil fields and critical infrastructure, a drop in their revenue, and a possible food scarcity. Washington will have to factor in this situation when it decides whether to continue attacks on Iran.

Thursday 19th March, 2026

Whenever the JVP-NPP government gets into hot water, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake rushes to Parliament and makes special statements; the CID and the national anti-graft commission try to pull a rabbit out of the hat to distract the public. While the government is drawing heavy flak for mismanaging the current fuel quota system, with long queues of vehicles persisting near filling stations, the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption has recorded a statement from former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on an allegation that during President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government, he, as the Secretary to the Ministry of Urban Development, had a house allocated to a maid of the then Chief Justice (CJ) Mohan Peiris, in an Urban Development Authority housing scheme.

There is no gainsaying that an investigation needs to be conducted to find out whether there were irregularities in the allocation of the aforesaid house and the state suffered any losses therefrom, but there are far bigger issues that need to be addressed. The Rajapaksa government earned notoriety for cronyism, corruption, misuse of state assets, etc., but most of its questionable deals have not been probed. Similarly, the destruction of hundreds of state-owned buildings by the JVP in the late 1980s has gone uninvestigated despite the staggering losses those crimes caused to the state coffers. Maithripala Sirisena, whom the JVP helped secure the executive presidency in 2015, once revealed that the JVP had torched as many as 240 Agrarian Service Centres with paddy storage facilities countrywide during its second reign of terror (1987-89). Now that action has reportedly been taken to reinvestigate crimes, such as abductions, torture and extrajudicial killings in the Batalanda torture chamber in the late 1980s, why the arson attacks on the Agrarian Service Centres, more than 700 state-owned buses, about 14 trains, countless transformers, etc., have not been probed defies comprehension. They were clear violations of the Offences against Public Property Act and must be investigated.

Let the focus now shift from the maid’s house to her employer, Peiris, and some unresolved issues concerning his tenure as the head of the judiciary. One of the first few things that the UNP-led Yahapalana government did after the 2015 regime change was to remove Peiris as CJ. President Sirisena declared the appointment of Peiris as CJ null and void ab initio, and reinstated Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake, claiming that her impeachment had no legal validity. Interestingly, Sirisena himself had spoken and voted in favour of her ‘impeachment’ as a minister in the Rajapaksa government in 2013. Dr. Bandaranayake retired soon after her reinstatement, and Sri Lanka had three CJs on three consecutive days—Peiris, Bandaranayake and her successor K. Sripavan!

Strangely, the Yahapalana government, which claimed that Peiris had functioned as the CJ ‘unlawfully’, stopped short of taking any action against him for having held that position for two years. If it is true that Peiris’ appointment was invalid, as Sirisena and the UNP claimed, then it follows that everything he did as the CJ was unlawful. Peiris drew the CJ’s salary, enjoyed the perks of office, functioned as the Chairman of the Judges’ Institute of Sri Lanka, heard cases, gave judgments and signed vital documents and perhaps even cheques. Why didn’t the Yahapalana government take any action against Peiris and/or the person who appointed him CJ ‘unlawfully’? Sirisena and his erstwhile Yahapalana chums owe an explanation. Shouldn’t the JVP-NPP government probe these issues as well? In fact, it is duty bound to do so because the JVP was an ally of the Yahapalana government.

The UNP’s arguments against the ‘impeachment’ of CJ Bandaranayake were tenable and compelling. The Parliamentary Select Committee, which probed her, was biased; it allegedly refused to allow some witnesses to testify and failed to specify what the due process was. Most of all, the UNP said the resolution passed in a hurry to impeach CJ Bandaranayake had not specifically sought parliamentary approval for her removal. However, if the impeachment process had been flawed, as argued by the UNP and some legal experts, a proper way to right the wrong would have been for President Sirisena to have Parliament undo what it had done. The Yahapalana government, which mustered a two-thirds majority for the 19th Amendment, could have accomplished that task easily. Instead, President Sirisena chose to override Parliament. Sadly, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka egged him on to do what he did, unmindful of the politico-legal consequences of his arbitrary action. The unresolved constitutional imbroglio that arose from glaring violations of due process, high-handed executive action, etc., is certainly far more serious than the allocation of a house for Peiris’ maid and therefore needs to be addressed urgently.

Wednesday 18th March, 2026

Long lines of vehicles are still seen outside filling stations despite the introduction of the QR-based fuel quota system. They show no signs of going away any time soon. Teething problems associated with the QR-controlled fuel rationing have persisted longer than usual for three reasons—some system flaws, difficulties faced by filling station workers in scanning some QR codes, especially the old ones issued in 2022, and a supply shortfall that has made many pumps run dry. The JVP-NPP government came to power promising a digital economy, among other things, and unveiled an ambitious digital policy in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. But it has not been able to ensure the smooth reimplementation of the QR-based fuel quota system, which was successfully used in 2022 to resolve a fuel crisis. So much for the government’s digital capability.

Some fillings stations have remained closed during the past several days for want of supplies, causing long queues near the ones where fuel is available albeit in insufficient quantities. The government must find out why these filling stations have not received fuel or whether they are hiding stocks. Its leaders know how the distribution of Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) fuel stocks was delayed in 2022 as part of a strategy to unsettle the then government. Complaints abound that many foreign-run filling stations do not receive supplies regularly. This is something the government must look into. It is not difficult to imagine how bad the situation would have been if all CPC-owned filling stations had been privatised.

The current fuel shortage is different from what we experienced in 2022, as we argued in a previous comment in response to some false claims made by the Opposition. Today, the country has dollars for oil imports, but the Iran conflict has disrupted global oil supplies, unlike in 2022, when it had no forex to pay for oil, which was readily available in the world market. So, the Opposition should stop comparing apples and oranges, and trying to gain political mileage out of the current fuel crisis.

However, the SLPP-UNP government managed to bring fuel queues to an end by introducing the QR-controlled fuel sales though it had neither dollars nor sufficient petroleum reserves at the time; the country was running on fumes, so to speak. Today, the government says the existing fuel reserves are sufficient for more than one month, and oil shipments are arriving on schedule, but it cannot manage the fuel stocks to ensure a reliable petroleum supply with the help of the QR-based rationing. It also claims that there are sufficient LPG stocks, but it has pathetically failed to resolve the countrywide LPG shortage. It may be recalled that the SLPP-UNP government sorted out a LPG shortage as well in 2022. It managed to do so despite the country’s forex woes and severely depleted gas stocks. The JVP-NPP government has no such problems. Sri Lanka’s Gross Official Reserves amounted to USD 6.0 bn (including a swap facility) at the time of the 2024 regime change. The current government has substantial reserves of foreign currency and fuel, but it cannot do away with the fuel queues, which are reportedly getting longer. Is it that the SLPP-UNP administration, which the JVP/NPP condemned as a failed regime, was more efficient and competent than the incumbent government in meeting the energy needs of the public amidst a crisis?

The biggest problem with the JVP-NPP government is that its leaders try to talk problems away instead of knuckling down to them. They let the grass grow under their feet, and when they begin to act, it is late. The manner in which they have sought to address the current fuel crisis is a case in point. They are in overdrive, doing what they should have done at least two weeks ago. They also had ample time to do a dry run of the QR-based fuel rationing system to prevent technical issues. They have endless meetings and nothing seems to come of them if the persistence of the problems they are intended to address is any indication.

As for long queues of vehicles near filling stations, the solution, in our view, is to replenish stocks expeditiously and couple the QR-based fuel quota system with last-digit or odd-even rationing.