One can only hope Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, who trained for a life as an ophthalmologist, is regretting his self-inflicted myopia 10 years ago this month. When al-Assad decided to crush the widespread protests demanding political reforms, including a new leader, the ramifications for Syria were disastrous.
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John Tulloh
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The unlikely despot of Damascus
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A lament for the passing of the Trump era
Turning on the ABC radio news each morning over the past four years was one of anticipation. While we slept, what had President Trump been up to? Would the latest be something daring, unusual, unorthodox, audacious, provocative, laudable, outrageous, nasty, hilarious, sensible, absurd, ignorant or a combination of all of them?
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West Bank annexation – ‘Another glorious chapter in the history of Zionism ’?
It is an anxious time for an unlikely combination of Benjamin Netanyahu and the publishers of world atlases and gazetteers. Will they have to pulp existing supplies because of his intentions? Or will he fail for a change and save them the trouble – at least, for now?
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An understated and yet a most influential and famous Australian.
Rupert Murdoch aside, which Australian has had the greatest impact on US political and public thinking in recent decades? He comes from Adelaide, is unfailingly modest, was once in the news all the time, despises most politicians and has both incensed and stimulated people with his work. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Uncle Sam makes it an unhappy Persian new year in Iran.
One can only surmise at the quiet satisfaction among members of the Trump administration at the current distress of Iran regarding the coronavirus sweeping the country. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. The agonising slow death of Syria.
An imminent anniversary will be a painful reminder for a man who grew up as a quiet and studious person and who once had looked forward to a comfortable life as an ophthalmologist. Instead he finds himself a reviled figure soaked in the blood of tens of thousands of his victims and the cause of ‘the biggest humanitarian horror story of the 21st century’, as the UN put it.
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JOHN TULLOH. Beware of whom you threaten, Mr Trump.
There is no tougher nut to crack in the Middle East than Iran. It is ferocious in its Shia Islamic nationalism. It has a proud historical heritage going back 2500 years to Cyrus the Great and the fabled Persian empire. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Troubling times for Saudi Arabia
It is an unsettling time for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s effective leader, or MBS, as he is often referred to. The unchallenged attack on the kingdom’s oil industry made a mockery of the billions it spends to defend it. MBS faces growing international opprobrium about the harrowing war in Yemen which he has presided over since its inception more than four years ago.
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JOHN TULLOH. Time for reflection for Turkey’s humiliated Erdogan
The electoral invincibility of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is officially no longer. When his party’s candidate lost the Istanbul mayoral race in March, he cried foul. After all, Istanbul was Turkey’s biggest city and the mayoralty was once the job which propelled Erdogan himself to political power. He demanded a recount, hoping the original poll was as tainted as he claimed. The tame electoral authorities obliged him. The result was an overwhelming defeat and a humiliation for the autocratic Erdogan. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF US MIDEAST POLICY
The US ‘well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom’.
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JOHN TULLOH. The vanishing international interest in the Mideast
How curious that the US fought on the same side as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards last year to defeat ISIS in Syria and then, once the job was done, denounced them as a terrorist organisation and applied sanctions. How curious that the US had been considering all this ‘for months’, but only decided to go ahead on the eve of the Israel general election when Benjamin Netanyahu, whose nemesis is Iran, was fighting for his political life. How curious the US is willing to hold discreet talks with the Taliban, the perpetrator of endless terrorist atrocities, but would recoil at the very idea of such a discussion with Iran. And how curious that Saudi Arabia, the banker of many an atrocity against the West, in Yemen and Shia targets, gets away with what it has, never mind last year’s extra-judicial killing in Istanbul. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Uncertainty on the Bosphorous as Erdoğan deals with a humiliating setback.
These are interesting times for Turkey, particularly for its president, Recep Tayyap Erdoğan. For a man accustomed to a Winx-like winning run in elections, the recent municipal polls gave him a rare poke in the eye. His AKP coalition won the majority of votes, but lost the two biggest cities, Ankara and Istanbul – the latter subject to a recount. This is not a loss which can be shrugged off. They and other major cities won by the opposition represent two-thirds of Turkey’s GDP as well as reflecting popular sentiment about the state of the country under Erdoğan. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Shalom! Farewell to the Palestinian state.
When it comes to audacious political chutzpah, few can match Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister, desperate for re-election this week and anything but assured in the polls, frantically tossed a grenade into the campaign at the last minute. If he keeps his job, he said he would annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank. It would effectively mean the end of the prospect of any meaningful Palestinian state. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. The ties that bind – the US and Saudi Arabia.
If an international criminal like ‘El Chapo’, the Mexican drug baron, can be tried (and convicted) in the US within two years of falling into American hands, why can’t the surviving alleged perpetrators of the 9/11 atrocity? Why is it that relatives of the 9/11 victims suing for damages have yet to see a day in court? Could it be the Saudi Arabia connection, given that the majority of the terrorists were from there?
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JOHN TULLOH. The mirage of great expectations in Saudi Arabia.
Perhaps the most masterful PR campaign of international diplomacy this year was the visit to the US of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman commonly known as MBS. He was feted on a two-week coast-to-coast tour by politicians, big business, oil tycoons and the tech industry. President Trump fawned over him with a photographic display of the billions of dollars of American weaponry the Saudis were buying. ‘Just peanuts to you’, said Trump with some admiration. The media lined up like drooling supplicants. The main reason was that they all thought the new ruler of Saudi Arabia in all but name was a reformist who would steer the theocratic kingdom into the sunlit world of freedom and democracy. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. The non-great expectations in Saudi Arabia
Perhaps the most masterful PR campaign of international diplomacy this year was the visit to the US of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman commonly known as MBS. He was feted on a two-week coast-to-coast tour by politicians, big business, oil tycoons and the tech industry. President Trump fawned over him with a photographic display of the billions of dollars of American weaponry the Saudis were buying. ‘Just peanuts to you’, said Trump with some admiration. The media lined up like drooling supplicants. The main reason was that they all thought the new ruler of Saudi Arabia in all but name was a reformist who would steer the theocratic kingdom into the sunlit world of freedom and democracy. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. The death by stealth of an independent Palestine.
Not long ago Prince William visited a Palestinian refugee camp on the West Bank and solemnly told a gathering: ‘My message tonight is that you have not been forgotten’. HRH was mistaken. The Palestinians have been forgotten. A once sympathetic world has moved on. Their once fervent Arab supporters have enough problems of their own without wanting to worry about them. Washington is apathetic. Israel has marginalised them. They are helpless. They are destined to yearn for an independent state forevermore just like the Kurds. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Sorry, Rupert, the ABC is more trusted than you are.
As keen as the local Murdoch media are in reporting opinion polls, a recent survey* probably was not one of them. It declared that their avowed nemesis remained by far the most trusted media organisation in Australia. That is the ABC or, as Rupert Murdoch famously muttered in 2002, ‘Fucking ABC’. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Turkey – Erdogan faces his toughest test.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would have been pleased when a recent edition of Time had him on the cover as one of the ‘Strongmen Era’. The Turkish president is indeed and he hopes the election this weekend will make him even stronger – a kind of 21st century sultan in the style of the Ottoman rulers he admires so much. But he has run into unexpected resistance: an opposition alliance gathering popular support and led by someone who can match Erdoğan himself for firebrand rhetoric. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Count Australia out on Iran, Uncle Sam.
A U.S. presidential executive order makes it illegal for America to target a foreign leader for assassination. But it seems it is perfectly acceptable to try to throttle another country’s struggling economy as a means of getting rid of its leader through regime change. This appears to be the raison d’être of President Trump in dealing with Iran. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH: Be careful what you say about Malaysia.
Perhaps it is time for DFAT to issue a travel advisory about Malaysia, namely be very careful what you say about the country. Uttering anything amounting to ‘fake news’ is now a criminal offence. Offenders can be fined up to $166,000 or be jailed for as long as six years – even if you’ve never been to the country. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Egypt – The rise of an Erdoğan on the Nile.
These are sensitive times in Egypt. A leading singer was sentenced to six months in prison for joking about a song she was asked to sing ‘Have you drunk from the Nile’. Drinking from the Nile, she said, ‘will get me schistosomiasis’ (aka bilharzia, a most unpleasant illness caused by parasites from contaminated fresh water). Meanwhile, the host of a state tv talk show has been detained for allegedly defaming the police. He noted their low salaries. This was not a good idea when the country’s president says insulting the security forces amounts to treason. (more…)
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John Tulloh. Macedonia – What’s in a name?
‘I experienced the most beautiful thing that any Greek soul can offer, by just doing my duty’, said an exhausted Melbourne woman, Zoi Petalidou. ‘Because this is how I see it: as my duty and what my soul needed’. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Israel’s Manus/Nauru solution – Rwanda.
How incongruous that a country born of the worst genocide in history should want to deport asylum-seekers seeking shelter to a nation synonymous with another genocide. That is the intention of Israel – send their unwanted visitors to Rwanda. Virtually all of them are Eritreans and Sudanese, both their countries ruled by harsh despots. Israel says they are not genuine refugees, but ‘infiltrators’ and mostly economic migrants. More to the point, the underlying rationale is that their numbers threaten Israel’s Jewish character. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. The torment of the impossible Kurdish dream.
For all the promises, for all the sterling work they have willingly done in the fight against evil, for all the sympathy they have engendered, the Kurds will never achieve their greatest aspiration: their own homeland. The fact is the world doesn’t care. They are a people on their own to be exploited when it suits interests of the Middle East. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Time for the ayatollah’s of Iran to reflect.
‘Every year thousands of students graduate, but there are no jobs for them. Fathers are also exhausted because they don’t earn enough to provide for their family’. Iranian protester.
As unpalatable as it may be to the ayatollahs of Iran, increasing numbers of their countrymen are becoming unhappy after nearly four decades of theocratic rule. The BBC says the average Iranian has become 15% poorer in the past 10 years. Youth unemployment stands at 40%. Three million Iranians are jobless. The prices of some basic food items, such as poultry and eggs, have gone up by 50%. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Onward Christian Soldiers – but not all of them.
Communities throughout the world are torn by religious divides. Persecution of Christians, concentrated in but not unique to the Middle East, is commanding relatively little attention. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. The potholed U.S. road to Jerusalem
It was a bizarre move earlier this year when a New York real estate investor, with no experience in politics, diplomacy or foreign affairs, was appointed to broker an Israeli/Palestinian settlement. He would follow in the footsteps of a succession of seasoned diplomatic hagglers who all departed empty handed. Now his task is likely to be more impossible than ever thanks to his father-in-law. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Seven days in Peking, 40 years ago.
Pearls and Irritations has printed memoirs of mine to mark the 50th anniversary of two notable news assignments: one was the Six-Day War, the other was a trip across the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. This one marks the 40th anniversary of my first trip to China – to Peking, as Beijing was still known in 1977. It was a couple of years before the great transformation into modern China began. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. The paranoia of the US/Iran relationship.
If North Korea were willing to sign much the same kind of nuclear agreement as Iran did in 2015, President Donald Trump would exult in the ultimate deal and there would be international relief far and wide. Yet now there is talk that he wants to ‘decertify’ the arrangement and thus risk giving Iran the excuse to revert to its nuclear ambitions just like Kim Jung-un. (more…)