Cover Story: Bombs Do Not Liberate Women

“Bombs will be dropping everywhere"

It’s 2026. To imagine that a US President of the free world would utter these words, in a concocted tone of superiority, pomp and seriousness without an iota of jest or irony, to warn the world of violent strikes in the heart of another sovereign country, is probably the closest we could get to silver screen apocalypse. A jarring interlude on a Pink Floyd number? Or an episode of The Simpsons, perhaps.

However, it is crude reality, crude as it could get with Donald Trump leading America head-first into another war that was never theirs to fight, digging out the innards of another sovereign country for its own interests or as they put it, ‘in the general interest of the world.’ As Israel, backed by the US, struck Iran killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, other leaders and multiple civilians, the world wondered in loud silence, again, Whose War Is It Anyway?

Immediately after casually cautioning Iranian people of bombs that could drop into their land, he said, "When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations.”

According to Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu, the rationale behind launching an operation that has brought West Asia to a standstill, claiming multiple lives including children, and paralyzing geoeconomic movement, was an apparent historic threat posed by Iran, an apprehension shared by the US. “Standing before us is an extremist, evil regime that for 47 years has called for 'Death to Israel,' 'Death to America' and which plots to destroy us with atomic bombs and tens of thousands of ballistic missiles. President Trump understood the magnitude of the danger to the US and the entire world long ago,” he wrote in an official statement. Trump, on the other hand, was just suspicious.

Suspicious, like the US was of Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, and countless other sovereign states across the world, which dared to pursue a political stand away from the US’ idea of capitalism and unrestrained lust of hegemony. The USA and Israel have stated the attacks and elimination of Khamenei was motivated by the sheer desire to uproot an ‘evil terrorist regime’ and liberate the people of Iran. People around the world highlighted the irony when an operation claiming to liberate women from an oppressive regime ends up striking a girls’ school in southern Iran, killing at least 150, according to Iranian state media

In Outlook’s March 21 issue ,Bombs Do Not Liberate Women, we look at the conflict in West Asia following US and Israel’s attacks on Iran leading to the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and how it falls in the cycle of endless wars and US’ imperialist projects, analysing the human cost beyond political aftermath and asking the necessary questions when most of the global north refuses to do so.

Amir Ali, who teaches at the Centre of Political Studies, JNU, looks at the US and Israel’s attempt at reconfiguring West Asia’s political map, the world’s response to the conflict, the futility of the aggressors’ imperialist projects and other geopolitical layers around it. Mohammad Sajjad, Professor at the Centre for Advanced Studies in History, AMU dissects America’s lust for hegemony and examines how they have constantly kept West Asia in a state of unrest to keep its energy interests and geopolitical anchors unperturbed. 

Outlook’s reporters Mrinalini Dhyani and Zenaira Baksh write on America’s twisted pursuit of liberating countries, decade after decade, President after President, and the psychic numbing and compassion fatigue as mental cost of consuming violence and war on mass media, respectively. In his column, Vijay Prasad, Director at the Tricontinental Institute, writes on the spillage of the war into Lebanon, a country already bearing the brunt of decades-long unrest.