A united front

Sticking with Radio 4's Correspondents Look Ahead and the BBC World Service's BBC Correspondents Look Ahead, I noted Lyse Doucet talking on the former about the "fear" that the Iran nuclear deal would collapse and talking on the latter about how "while it wasn't perfect...it was certainly better than it is now". 

That takes me back to February last year when the BBC's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen took to From Our Own Correspondent and sang the praises of the Iran nuclear deal and sounded off on how wrong it was that Donald Trump took the US out of it, telling Joe Biden what he needed to do: 

President Biden's big Middle Eastern challenge is to amend some of the damage done when Donald Trump pulled America out of the agreement to restrict Iran's nuclear activities. Iran has always denied that it wants a bomb but since President Trump made his move the Iranians have intensified their enrichment of uranium and are now closer to being able to create a weapon. He needs to avoid repeating the terrible mistakes of the last 30 years and that starts with restoring the agreement with Iran. It was far from perfect but it stopped a slide towards another Middle East war. Nobody wants one, but it's a possibility if the problem is left to fester. 

 I said at the time, "This is advocacy journalism, isn't it?"

John Simpson also took to Today in 2018 to outline his opposition to Donald Trump taking the US out of the deal.

All three of them think the same way about it, and have the opportunity to give their shared point of view from the BBC's bully pulpit , unchallenged.

This blog has several fine pieces from Sue putting the other side of the argument - that the Iran nuclear deal was worse that just 'not perfect' and that it was a bad and dangerous deal that Donald Trump was right to take the US out of:

Is the BBC biased?: Search results for iran nuclear