Zahar Shafei, cultural researcher
From Baghdad to Kabul, and now Tehran, the story of Western arrogance’s devilish schemes has stayed the same: Governments that defy imperialism are demonized. Nations that resist colonial policies are dehumanized. And their women and daughters are suddenly recast as helpless victims in desperate need of American missiles for salvation as if freedom is born from the fire of invading bombs. This is how nations are reduced to blood and ashes under the false banner of "liberation."
The exploitation of women’s rights in war propaganda is a recurring tactic in the bloody history of Western colonial regimes. History has proven that the true concern of Western empires has never been freedom or justice; only the expansion of influence and the preservation of their economic and geopolitical interests. The media, hand in hand with the bloodthirsty leaders of these regimes, whitewash these criminal policies, framing war and sanctions as "humanitarian intervention" for a noble cause: To set women free.
As explored in Weaponizing women's rights: How imperialists justify invasions, the West’s claim of defending Muslim women’s rights stems from a colonial mindset that portrays these women as powerless victims of patriarchal oppression, awaiting rescue by the "enlightened" Western man. For decades, powers like the US, Britain, and France have weaponized "women’s rights" to justify military occupation, economic sanctions, and political domination over independent nations. Slogans like "freeing women" are not driven by compassion but serve as tools to manipulate public opinion, legitimize aggression, and mask imperialist intervention. The occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, launched with promises of women’s liberation, brought nothing but slaughter, poverty, shattered infrastructure, and multiplied suffering for women.
Western media perpetuate this narrative, convincing audiences that slaughtering innocents, starving children, bombing cities, toppling governments, and installing puppet regimes are all in service of a "humanitarian" goal under the banner of “setting women free.”
The Iranian case: Decades of demonization
The same script has been imposed on Iran for years. Western media relentlessly push the false image of Iranian women as oppressed, passive victims, silenced by mandatory hijab and desperate for rescue by the "free world." But is this "free world" not the same force that denies Iranian mothers’ life-saving, rare medicines? The same power that tried to strangle woman-headed households with crippling sanctions?
The recent attacks on Iran’s sovereignty are just another chapter in the West’s cursed legacy of war. For over 40 years, Iranians have resisted foreign domination, choosing dignity and self-determination over subjugation. Yet Western propaganda relentlessly centers "Iranian women’s freedom" as a justification for overthrowing the Islamic Republic. Headlines obsess over hijab laws, framing veiled women either as brainwashed extremists or silent victims of a theocratic regime. When it’s time to justify regime change, feminist slogans suddenly pour from the mouths of think tanks tied to military-industrial complexes — the very architects of millions of innocent deaths.
Imam Khamenei’s words in his third televised message after the Zionist attack on Iran laid bare this hypocrisy: “The US has been actively opposing and trying to harm Islamic Iran from the very beginning of the Revolution. And each time, they come up with a new pretext. One time, it’s human rights. Another time, it’s defending democracy. Then, it’s women's rights. Sometimes it’s uranium enrichment, and at other times it’s the nuclear issue itself. Or it’s the matter of missile development. They bring up all kinds of pretexts. But at the core, it all boils down to one thing, which is that they want Iran to surrender.”
Meanwhile, the media’s role is clear: Distort reality, sanitize the bloodshed of war, stand atop the charred bodies of bombed children, and congratulate themselves for "defeating patriarchy."
The Iranian woman as a colonial fantasy
This colonial narrative that Muslim women must be "saved" by Western bombs has gone so far that any dissenting voice is branded as complicit in oppression. These so-called defenders of women’s rights are the same voices cheering on the Zionist regime as Palestinian women are torn apart by airstrikes. They turn a blind eye to the suffering of Yemeni and Lebanese women because their pain doesn’t serve Western interests.
During the Zionist regime’s brutal attack on Iranian cities, as social media users condemned the violence, Western commentators, cloaked in feminist concern, claimed that we must condemn the Islamic Republic’s treatment of women!" The response from Iranians was fierce: "I condemn your white saviour syndrome.”
You arrogantly believe freedom lies in your hands; yet we’ve seen the ruin your hollow promises brought to Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve watched your silence as Palestinian women were massacred. We’ve seen you prop up dictators who served your interests. History proves your hands bring only destruction. And it is we who will shatter your illusions."
Who will listen to the Muslim woman who defends her people’s resistance with her life? When every platform amplifies regime-change enthusiasts’ fabricated narratives, which outlet will let her speak truth, uncensored, while her newsroom is under bombardment? The smallest crack in this wall of lies will bring it crashing down, which is why Western media will never reflect this reality. It shatters their myth of the "helpless Iranian woman."
What never makes headlines is the “conscious, dignified resistance” of Iranian women against colonialism. The West censors this truth because its war machine thrives on deceptive representations. An Iranian woman who resists, who stands firm against foreign intervention, who declares "No to humiliation, no to occupation, no to colonialism!" cannot be used as an excuse for sanctions or invasion. So they must paint her as voiceless, oppressed, surrounded, and as victims, waiting for Western salvation.
This erasure is deliberate. A woman who teaches at universities, defends her country, withstands sanctions, and exposes Western lies has no place in BBC, VOA, or The New York Times. Why? Because she destroys their narrative—the fairy tale that freedom comes from war and liberation falls from the sky.
(The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Khamenei.ir.)
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