Newsweek Discovers 'Axis of Resistance' Only When Trump's Involved
Newsweek's 'Uncommon Knowledge' piece hypes an 'axis' of Iran, Russia, and Venezuela against Donald Trump, framing their alignment as a novel threat unique to a potential Trump presidency. What goes unmentioned, of course, are the decades of US-led sanctions, coups (see 1953 Iran, 2002 Venezuela), and military interventions that might predate Trump's election by, say, fifty years. This "new" axis,
then, appears less like a spontaneous anti-Trump alliance and more like a predictable continuity of nations resisting US dominance, irrespective of who occupies the White House. It takes particular journalistic dexterity to depict countries defending their sovereignty against perceived foreign interference as an 'axis of resistance' only when a politician you're currently scrutinizing is involved.
One might wonder if Newsweek considers nations having foreign policy interests divergent from Washington's to be a stunning new development or if such 'resistance' only becomes newsworthy when it can be framed as a domestic political bludgeon.