Across five full decades, Melanie has contributed to almost every British news institution, from beginning her career as a writer for The Guardian and the New Statesmen, to winning the Orwell Prize for her work at The Observer, to becoming a regular panellist on The Moral Maze and Question Time.
Today, Melanie’s work can be found in the likes of The Times, The Telegraph, the Jewish News Syndicate, and The Jewish Chronicle.
Why did we invite her on?
The last twelve months have seen Trump haemorrhage his coalition. Between the baffling handling of the Epstein scandal and the questionable wars with Iran, he’s lost the libertarians, the paleocons, and the disenfranchised liberals that accounted for his votership in 2024. Even some of his most ardent proponents - Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, etc. - have withdrawn support, the pair having recently gone as far as to leave the Republican Party.
For a time, it seemed his only defenders left were, outside of the ride-or-die ‘MAGA Republicans’, the pro-Israel right. In the wake of the prospective deal between the warring nations, he may have lost them too.
With the likes of Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin publicly scolding the President for ‘kowtowing’ to Iran, Trump is enduring a fresh wave of criticism from his last line of defence. At the least, he’s been accused of fumbling a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to quash a long-time rival once and for all. At most, he’s been labelled a traitor.
What’s the truth? Is he, as the deal’s advocates claim, finally putting America first, even if only far too late? Or is he surrendering the world’s greatest superpower to one of the most evil regimes of modern times?
We have our view, we want to have it challenged and Melanie is the perfect candidate for the task.
What did we learn?
Whether this MOA holds remains to be seen, but America and Iran find themselves as close to peace as they’ve been in months. Trump’s 40-odd claims of victory aside, it now looks like a possibility.
If you can call it “victory”, that is. To almost everyone, this looks like defeat.
”Trump goes to war with Iran and enjoys tremendous successes. But much to obvious his horror, the Iranian regime, having taken this great punishment … they didn’t [surrender]. Trump wanted a war done in weeks.”
So, what happened? If Trump was enjoying such ‘tremendous success’, why is he throwing in the towel?
To Melanie, Trump is responding to the worst actors in his party, giving in to the most shallow demands of his base. They don’t want war, so Trump’s not pursuing it. What it leaves us with is an incoherent narrative.
”From what I’ve been reading, the Israeli government went to Trump and told him that the only way to change the regime was to take the existing one out. The only way to do that was a war that would last a year. Trump [refused], so Israel adapted to what America wanted … Later, Iran has America by the throat. What do you do? Well, if you’re Trump, you say ‘We’ve won! Let’s now negotiate the terms of their surrender!’ None of it makes sense. If they’ve surrendered, it’s not a deal. If they’ve surrendered, what is there to negotiate? It was all total rubbish.”
Facing mid-term defeat, evacuating support and an economic hit at home, Trump found himself in an inexcusable, irreconcilable position. The America First President launched a war thousands of miles away and Americans are paying the price. How does he squirm free from that?
”He had to find a scapegoat, and that scapegoat is Israel.”
The last few weeks have seen various reports published of a souring relationship between the US and Israel. Most of it was, allegedly, going on behind closed doors. Now, that rift appears to be going public, with the likes of VP J.D. Vance warning Israel not to jeopardise the negotiations.
To Melanie, as the global perception of the Jewish state worsens, it becomes easier to ascribe one’s failings to them. Trump is merely taking advantage of that truth.
”In my view, this is wicked stuff. It contributes to this idea held by an unpleasant number of British people that Israel is somehow the aggressor in the region. They just don’t know what’s going on. He’s using the Israelis to explain why Iran isn’t cooperating. [If it weren’t for the Israelis], they’d all be friends. This is ludicrous, and tremendously dangerous.”
What is Melanie prescribing? Should Trump not negotiate for fear of emboldening a few keffiyah-draped protestors in London?
Melanie is not merely against this deal; she’s against any deal. Full stop. End of story. In her mind, negotiation itself is a form of surrender. The Iranian regime can and will endure much more pain for its mission than the West, and so will always win. There is nothing America or Israel can offer them that will veer them off course.
”The Iranian regime will never resile from its aim; firstly, to destroy the state of Israel, as a precursor to destroy America. The longer [the regime] goes on, the worse the eventual war will be for all of us.”
We disagree.
