THE US-Israel war against Iran is a continuation of a war that the US and Israel have launched in West Asia against any country or organised resistance to their neo-colonial policies. However, Iran’s resistance, along with Hezbollah’s ability to fight Israel’s “expansion” into Lebanon, has created a new dynamic in the region for the first time. It has not only challenged US global hegemony but also shown that smaller military powers can resist much larger ones through asymmetric warfare. The US hegemony over the global economy and technology was underpinned by its military dominance. That has now been called into question. It has also weakened Israel’s military dominance over West Asia, backed economically and militarily by the US and other major West European powers. The Iran war has also called into question the value of the US military umbrella over its West Asian allies. The US bases in the region, instead of protecting the West Asian oil and natural gas monarchies, became the target of Iran’s attacks. According to BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2l2yl7r8r2o) and Washington Posthttps://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/05/06/iran-us-bases-satellite-images/, the US bases in the region suffered extensive damage, including their THAAD radars and batteries.

While Trump’s Iran war may appear to be only a regional event, that would be a misreading of the situation. Iran did not merely defend itself; it has also established a new doctrine of resistance. We had talked about the birth of asymmetric war—West Asia: Cheap Drones and the Shifting Strategic Balance (PD, September 1, 2019). The Houthis, with Iran’s support, had pioneered the use of drones in the Red Sea and blockaded Israel’s trade through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Clearly, Iran has taken the use of drones and other missiles to the next level. They have launched repeated strikes on major US military bases in the region and Israel’s military installations. It also forced the US naval forces to move away from Iran’s coast to a safe distance of 700-1000 kilometres. Neither did the US Navy prove to be of any major significance except when Trump announced a counter-blockade of the Straits of Hormuz that Iran had already blocked!

The second critical rupture was in trade, particularly the oil and gas trade. The global trading system, built over 75 years, first as GATT and later WTO, has been under attack, with the US blocking the functioning of its Dispute Settlement Body since 2019. It refused to allow any appointment to the Dispute Settlement Body, leaving it with fewer than the 3 members required to hear any dispute. Without an agreed Dispute Settlement mechanism, trade agreements cannot resolve trade disputes. While we may blame Trump for his tariff wars, the blocking of the Dispute Settlement body was a bipartisan decision.

The demise of the WTO marked the beginning of the US declaring that it would henceforth unilaterally set tariffs on its trade with other countries. The US has also demanded that while it could protect its own market through higher tariffs, all other countries would have no such rights. They would have to either lower their tariffs or impose none on US exports to their countries. With “special love” that the US has for Latin America, Trump has virtually proclaimed a revival of the infamous Monroe Doctrine for the Americas in his National Security Strategy document released in November 2025, nicknamed the Donroe Doctrine.

The third rupture is the financial one: the world of finance wants an easy flow of capital and easy convertibility, underpinning larger trade flows. Easy financial flows, not just trade flows, also underpin the share and bond markets. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) system provides an easy way for banks and other institutions to connect across borders to exchange payment instructions and transaction data.

Though the SWIFT system is headquartered in Europe, it is technically run by the central Banks of 10 European countries. The US claims extraterritorial rights over the SWIFT system,, as most international transactions on it are denominated in dollars. The weaponisation of the SWIFT system started in 2012, first against Iran, and then against Russia in 2022 during the Ukraine war. The US sanctions have led to the seizure of Iran’s and Russia’s dollar assets, running into the hundreds of billions. Apart from seizure of their dollar reserves, Russia and Iran both have problems when they sell, for example, their oil to other countries. In trading oil with India, they have to either accept Indian rupees to buy only Indian goods or “store surplus rupees” in their banks, which cannot be converted to other currencies.

The flexibility of any trading platform/system lies in its ability to handle a variety of cross-border transactions involving different currencies. For most global transactions, the dollar's convertibility into other currencies enables trade between countries, as it is convenient for both parties. As the rupee and the Chinese yuan are not convertible, the dollar is most convenient for most countries. However, the flip side of the US dollar being the global currency and the US weaponising this power is that the US can then seize any money in any bank as long as the transaction is in dollars. It can also enforce a ban on a country’s trade through the SWIFT system and effectively push that country out of international trade.

Not only does the US dollar's status as the world’s reserve currency give it the power to sanction any country or specific entity, but it also allows it to buy any commodity in the world by simply writing a cheque in dollars. The US can therefore finance itself, including its wars, by running such a current account deficit, its debt to the rest of the world. Currently, the US debt stands at $31.3 trillion and exceeds its GDP, a feat no other country can match. This is the consequence of the dollar's unique privilege. As long as other countries are willing to fund the US deficit, the US dollar retains its hegemony over global trade.

The US coupling of its dollar being the world’s reserve currency with weaponising the dollar in waging financial wars against countries, companies, institutions and even individuals. For example, 11 judges and prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have been sanctioned by the US government for “daring” to indict Israeli leaders complicit in Gaza genocide (https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/156847-living-with-us-sanctions-means-living-in-constant-uncertainty.html). This is the extraordinary privilege of the dollar. Underlying this privilege is also the petrodollar: oil from West Asia is priced in dollars and recycled back into the US banks and financial institutions, making it possible for the US to run huge current account deficits.

Though the US has certainly lost significant ground in West Asia, how much of this will be reflected in West Asian oil being priced not only in dollars but also in other currencies,, including the yuan, is a key question. Neither will the West Asian monarchies in the future bank entirely on the US for their security. The US-Iran war has made clear that the US “defence” architecture in West Asia was more to project US power in the region and protect Israel, not their Gulf allies.

Coupled with these crises is also the inability of the US defence contractors to manufacture and deliver ships, tanks, guns and ammunition at the rate any shooting war will require. As we have noted in these columns, both the US missile stockpile and its ammunition are low, with deliveries projected to take years, not months. This is particularly true for interceptors such as the Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD), and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSMs). In these, not only has the US-Israeli axis exhausted 50-90% of its stock, but, more concerning for the US-Israeli axis, is the replacement time of 3-5 years!https://www.csis.org/analysis/last-rounds-status-key-munitions-iran-war-ceasefire

With the triple crisis described above, not simply military but simultaneously spilling over into technology and finance, are we seeing the end of an era that attempted to integrate the global economy, with clear trade rules and allow building a global system of trade and finance. It has also meant gutting all major international organisations such as the WTO, IMF, World Bank, and even the WHO. As we are seeing with the Ebola epidemic raging in Africa, the global health system that endured during COVID no longer functions.

The US has taken a sledgehammer to all these institutions in the belief that, as the world’s sole hegemon and the pre-eminent military power, it can convert this military advantage to control the global economy and extract surplus from others: a medieval model of colonialism. The US believes it can use its military and dollar hegemony to extract surplus from all other countries. Even if it is no longer an industrial power capable of building new ships and submarines for its navy, it was once its basic instrument of coercing the rest of the world.

The challenge for the world, including India, is how this US vision of recolonisation mesh with global reality or the self-interest of the rest of the world as independent countries? Are we prepared to face the global challenge of remaking a global order in which each country can trade with others on an equal basis and with self-respect? The neocolonial pushback began after the fall of the Soviet Union, in the belief that neocolonialism could be reestablished with the US as the sole global hegemon. This was the elite consensus in the US, not only under Trump but also under the Bush, Obama, and Biden administrations. The Bush administration’s Iraq War had broad bipartisan support, as did the various wars that the US has fought after World War 2 including the Vietnam War.

Trump’s vision of the future is neocolonising the world and the belief that this global system will function at the dictates of the US. His trade policy is demanding tribute in the guise of trade. The Iran War was to be the iron fist inside a not-so-velvet US glove. It is the failure of this war, and Iran’s control over an oil and natural gas chokepoint, the Straits of Hormuz, that has brought Trump to the negotiating table. Israel is still the tail that seeks to wag the much bigger US dog. With the Hezbollah fighting back in Lebanon and the international revulsion of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, only the US support of money and arms prevents the collapse of the bankrupt Netanyahu regime.

(For those who want to know how the Israeli genocide in Palestine is continuing, I would ask all our readers to see the Film Voice of Hind Rajab, which is finally available in India. It is the voice of a six-year-old girl, alone in a car in Gaza, with her aunt, uncle and 4 cousins, all of whom have been shot dead. Her voice, recorded by the Red Crescent (the Arab world's equivalent of the Red Cross) and calling for help and rescue, is the basis of the film. It ends not only in her death but also in the death of the two Red Crescent volunteers, who were very close to picking her up after coordinating with the Israeli Armed Forces. Her voice lasted for three and a half hours; most of this time was spent “coordinating” with the Israeli Armed Forces, before it ended in gunfire, also recorded on the soundtrack. Also read the UN Commission’s Report headed by Justice S Muralidhar (https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/06/1167790), which says, “The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces.”)

Ebola’s Forgotten Frontline

The world is turning its back on the Ebola outbreak that is spiraling out of control. A month and more after declaring an outbreak of Ebola in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the virus is outpacing the response. As of 17 June 2026, there have been 896 confirmed cases and 232 deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a further 19 confirmed cases and two deaths in Uganda. Ituri Province remains the epicenter, accounting for more than 91% of confirmed cases, but the virus has now spread to 33 health zones in three provinces. Officials are warning of a “brutal geographic expansion” as the outbreak reaches Bunia, a city of more than a million.

The World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern on 17 May 2026. However, despite this designation, WHO risk assessment for the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains “very high” given ongoing transmission and upsurge into new areas. Cross-border spread has confirmed the risk for Uganda is assessed as "high." And the rest of the world? The risk is assessed as "low."

This outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, one of six species in the Ebola genus. There are no approved vaccines or specific treatments for Bundibugyo, unlike Zaire ebolavirus, which ravaged West Africa in 2014–2016. Unlike Hantavirus, which can spread by inhalation, Ebola can be spread through direct contact with bodily fluids. It has an incubation period of 2 to 21 days and a case fatality ratio that has varied from 30 to 50% in previous outbreaks. Early symptoms of fever, fatigue, and muscle pain are non-specific, making clinical diagnosis difficult and detection delayed.

Healthcare workers lack personal protective equipment, and in rural clinics, nurses have “nothing” to protect themselves. Outbreak control is based on contact tracing, but it’s imperfect. Aid workers say only about 40% of contacts are being traced, not 72% as claimed by the government. Suspected Ebola patients are being treated in facilities with no isolation capacity, sometimes sharing toilets with patients suffering other conditions. Many health workers have already been infected, and some have died.

But the world's response has been at best lukewarm. The United States has quit the WHO, decimated its scientific agencies, and put a muzzle on science. It has banned key researchers from talking directly to the WHO without approval from senior staff. The US has barred green card holders returning from the affected areas. US citizens who have been exposed to Ebola in the DRC are being flown to Germany for treatment. This is apartheid in medicine. A policy that stigmatizes disease as an alien threat, not as a shared vulnerability.

War exacerbates the politics of neglect. In the eastern DRC, the conflict is frozen, with armed groups controlling huge swaths of territory and displacing millions. The same roads used by armed fighters are used by sick people fleeing violence. You can't quarantine a virus when you're blocked from reaching the patient by a militia checkpoint. But the Western press is more interested in border closures and evacuation plans than the fact that conflict is the virus’s best friend.

Ebola isn’t cruel. It’s just RNA in a protein coat, doing what viruses do. The cruelty is in our response, a response that assumes a crisis in Africa is not quite a crisis until it crosses the Global North.