Iran

Thursday

Christopher DeGroot

Making gay rights great again

Dark days these are, but still the good Lord provides hope—not that we wretches deserve it! On Tuesday, Josh Lederman of NBC News reported: ‘The Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it’s still illegal to be gay…a bid aimed in part at denouncing Iran over its human rights record. ‘US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump administration, is leading the effort, which kicks off Tuesday evening in Berlin.

richard grenell gay rights

Tuesday

John R. Bradley

Is a hanged child rapist part of the persecuted LGBT minority in 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.

child rapist

Monday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Will nothing sate John Bolton’s lust for war?

Will the Trump administration embrace the Bolton doctrine? John Bolton, whom Donald Trump appointed in April to replace the stolid H.R. McMaster, has been trying to tailor administration foreign policy to match his hawkish views. Among his initiatives, the Wall Street Journal reported, is to make a move to do what he has long wanted done, which is to wage war against the mullahs in Tehran. The result is a schism in the administration.With the resignation of Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, Pentagon officials are now starting to fight back publicly against the National Security Council, especially as Bolton tries to install his former deputy Mira Ricardel, who was fired from the National Security Council, after Melania Trump denounced her, at the Pentagon.

john bolton lust

Thursday

John R. Bradley

Ignore the hawks, Trump’s Syria withdrawal is bold and brave

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.

syria

Thursday

Owen Matthews

Putin says he’s making Russia great again. In reality, it’s crumbling

This is Putin’s time. Next week, the Fifa World Cup kicks off in Moscow, and the Kremlin has spared no expense to showcase Vladimir Putin’s new Russia as a vibrant, safe and strong nation. Half a million visitors will be welcomed — with the Russian press reporting that the notorious ‘Ultra’ hooligans have been officially warned to behave themselves or face the full wrath of the state. Despite four years of rock-bottom oil prices, Putin has nonetheless found the cash to build or refurbish a dozen new stadiums. Moscow has undergone a two-year city-wide facelift that has left it looking cleaner, fresher and more prosperous than any European capital I have seen.

Thursday

Dominic Green

Europe’s leaders need Trump more than they wish to admit

America, meet your European allies in the effort to contain Iran: Emmanuel Macron of France, Theresa May of Britain, and Angela Merkel of Germany. Think of them as the Three M’s. Or perhaps the Three Wise Monkeys. Or even, as the Wise Monkeys are sometimes known, and would probably prefer to be called, the Three Mystic Apes. For each of these three European leaders is affecting a posture of simian ignorance about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and presenting this unwillingness to accept reality as philosophical wisdom.Emmanuel Macron sees no evil in the Iranian regime’s anti-Western, terrorist-sponsoring Islamist millenarianism, because global security must come second to getting the French economy into gear.