John R. Bradley

What a difference a week makes when it comes to the western media narrative on the Middle East. When countless millions were mourning Gen. Qasem Soleimani in what was possibly the biggest funeral in history, we were told that Iran and its leadership had never been more united. Now, amid smaller protests inside the country against the mistaken downing of a Ukrainian airliner with mostly Iranian students on board, we are told that the Iranian people are rising up en masse to overthrow their hated leaders. Have the famously sophisticated Iranian people really become so absurdly fickle overnight? There is another explanation for the self-contradictory nonsense we are being told. Whatever happens in the Middle East, there is only one constant.

Observing the rocky relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia is like watching two men balancing on a log in the middle of a fast-flowing river. Even when both manage to get what appears to be a secure foothold, you know it is only a matter of time before they go hurtling back into the water. The latest fall out between the two countries centers on the Saudi Air Force's Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, who last week murdered three sailors and wounded eight others at Pensacola navy base before being shot dead himself. Amid initial reports that he may have acted in conjunction with a number of other Saudis, wild analogies were quickly drawn with the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, carried out by mostly Saudi hijackers.

The other evening, Fox News host Tucker Carlson appeared to be on the point of literally tearing out his hair as he railed against the relentless and near-universal negative reaction to President Donald Trump’s decision to relocate a few hundred US troops in northeastern Syria. At first glance, it is indeed baffling, even perhaps hinting at a kind of mass psychosis. On the ground in Syria, after all, the fallout thus far has been anything but catastrophic. The Kurds are now protected by the Syrian and Russian armed forces. These countries’ leaders, on the back of US sanctions against Ankara, are negotiating a ceasefire with Turkey.

This article is in The Spectator’s November 2019 US edition. Subscribe here. Whenever neoconservatives and liberals chant in unison about American policy in the Middle East — as when they championed the Iraq invasion, for example, or the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, or the thwarted attempt to topple the Assad regime in Syria — it means we are being told a pack of lies. Par for the course is the hysterical response to President Donald Trump’s ‘betrayal’ of the Kurds in the wake of Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria. Turkey’s goal was to repatriate at least two million of 3.6 million Syrian refugees inside Turkey in a border zone controlled, until the invasion began, by the US-allied, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

It is no mere coincidence that Donald Trump turned his attention to Venezuela straight after announcing the withdrawal of US troops from Syria. Nicolás Maduro, fighting for his survival on so many fronts at home and abroad, probably hasn't had much time to think about the man who thus inadvertently created the political quagmire engulfing him: Syrian leader Bashar Al Assad. Maduro would do well, though, to brush up on how Assad survived against all the odds, as would Trump. The knowledge could prove invaluable for averting another reckless US push for regime change abroad. Trump's decision last month to accept Assad remaining in power in Syria enraged many Middle East hawks, who long saw Assad's removal as the springboard for war against Iran.

I’ve written repeatedly for The Spectator about how the Western media has a track record of misreporting on the plight of homosexuals in the Middle East. However, an outrageous article by Benjamin Wenthal for the Jerusalem Post on the hanging of a child kidnapper and rapist in Iran, which was picked up by dozens of major news outlets, has introduced new depths of inaccuracy and sensationalism to the coverage. Published under the headline ‘Iran Publicly Hangs Man on Homosexuality Charges’, the article quotes Iranian student media as saying a 33-year-old man was executed in the southwestern city of Kazeroon ‘based on his criminal violations of “lavat-e be onf” – sexual intercourse between two men.

Warmongers on the Left and Right are united in their fury at President Donald Trump’s extraordinarily bold and brave decision immediately to begin withdrawing all US troops from Syria. For those of us who prefer peace, it is a sure sign that Trump deserves our unconditional support and gratitude, no matter how we view the rest of his presidency. After all, the only other time Trump united the neocons and liberal hawks was when he launched a futile cruise missile barrage last year at an empty Syrian airfield in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack against civilians.