Writer
John Tulloh
John Tulloh had a 40-year career in foreign news.
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The unlikely despot of Damascus
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. Continue reading »
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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? Continue reading »
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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? Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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’. Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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’. Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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). Continue reading »
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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’. Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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JOHN TULLOH. Through the Iron Curtain to Moscow and across Siberia 50 years ago.
Earlier this year, Pearls and Irritations ran an account of the 50th anniversary of my first major foreign news assignment, the Six-Day War. This is about another 50th anniversary assignment, the Russian Revolution. The centenary is next month. Continue reading »
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JOHN TULLOH. The female revolution at ABC News.
‘But the women (foreign correspondents) were (likelier than men) to be more thoughtful in looking at the wider context or human side of stories. In short, they were inclined to be nosier and would go the extra mile to pin down or dig deeper into an aspect of a story’. Continue reading »
