An Open Letter To Alex Berenson

Dear Alex,

I wasn’t planning to write this. But then I saw your latest tweet—using the Iran-Israel war to plug one of your thrillers—and I couldn’t let it slide.¹

Your warning to American Jews the other day was disgraceful.

But what you did today was worse. To leverage a crisis for sales is abysmal.²

I’m honestly disappointed. You’re smarter than Matt Walsh (to whom I’ve also written an open letter). I thought you could see past the headlines. But since you can’t—or won’t—let me offer a some historical background.

Forget the noise about Iran and Israel. The real stakes are in the Gulf. That’s the fulcrum of global energy, and where the balance of power between the US, Russia, and China, lies.

Back in 1980, before you aced your first standardized test, an old British Empire hand, historian, and Arabist named J.B. Kelly ³ warned that the West was looking at the Middle East through the wrong end of the telescope. In Arabia, the Gulf and the West, he argued that the real center of gravity wasn’t the Levant—it was the Gulf monarchies: oil-rich, politically brittle, and held together by tribal authority. Britain had kept that order intact for a century with diplomacy and naval power. Then the U.S. stepped in, muscled Britain aside, and took over without fully grasping what it had inherited.

Yes, the U.S. had been in the Gulf since the 1930s with Aramco. But the real shift came in the 1960s, when Britain began its withdrawal and the U.S. filled the vacuum.

Kelly didn’t get distracted by the ideological theatrics of the Islamic Republic. He focused on Iran’s long-standing ambition to dominate the Gulf, just with a new (and dangerously irrational) revolutionary script. He was especially worried about Iran’s ability to stir unrest among Shia populations in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. And he was right. That’s all that they’ve done since.

To Kelly, Iran wasn’t just a rogue actor, it was a wrecking ball that had the capacity to bring the whole system down. A nuclear-armed Iran wouldn’t just defend itself—it would dictate terms, bully its neighbors, and make life a lot harder for Washington. Do you really want Iranian drones shadowing U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz knowing that they’re backed by 15 nukes? What do you think those thousands of centrifuges in Fordow were doing, Alex?

Seen through the Kelly lens, U.S. airstrikes aren’t about Israel. They’re about drawing a red line in the world’s most strategically vital corridor. They say: we’re the authority here, not Iran, not Russia, not China. The United States of America.

Your inability to see that is puzzling. Or maybe you do, and you don’t like it because that’s how adolescents are. I’ve always sensed an immaturity about you.

Well, tough. Your nice and easy way of life depends on the US Navy patrolling the Persian Gulf.

It takes a big man to admit when he’s wrong. You don’t have to say it out loud. But at least read, learn, pivot, and stop misinforming people.

I don’t expect credit. I just want you to stop making a fool of yourself and slandering Israel.

Sincerely,

DM

1. Pinned, no less.

2. Actually, I discovered he has a whole bunch of rotten tweets about the subject. I just don’t have the space to screenshot them all.

3. The Brits write the best obits. “But his robust belief that the Gulf benefited greatly from a stabilising British military and political presence ensured that he would exercise less and less influence over British policy as London relinquished its role east of Suez in the 1970s. For their part, however, local emirates continued to seek his advice and support and to relish his deep knowledge of their own histories.”