Over the past two weeks, our Devil’s Advocate has weighed in on the unfolding, unofficial campaign to (secularly) canonize a fallen hero, American right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. In the age of mass surveillance and social media, achieving public recognition as a saint has never been more challenging. Devil’s advocates are hiding in every corner of the Internet. You can be sure that even your random or joking words of the past will always be held against you. 

There is, however, one fast track to sainthood: martyrdom. But merely getting knocked off is never sufficient. In Saint Charlie’s case, as I acknowledged last week, identifying him as the “man of steel” was crucial. God apparently equipped him with bones capable of stopping a speeding bullet that would certainly have killed many others. That may have been the crucial miracle required to confirm canonization.

With the canonization debate out of the way, the public’s focus has moved towards identifying the elusive diabolical figure that did the deed. A few photographs, closed-circuit television footage and a reported (but not reproduced) text exchange enabled the media to identify the usual type of suspect, with a profile of “lone gunman.” His name: Tyler Robinson.

Thanks to this identification and the repetitive publication of Robinson’s portrait in the media, order appeared quickly restored. Alas, a host of improvised YouTube sleuths — some of them with strong professional credentials — immediately denied the official narrative, offering multiple forms of readily available evidence. Before the era of social media, the media dutifully followed the government’s lead in virtually convicting the assassins of JFK, RFK and Reverend MLK (two Kennedys and a King). Though flawed, contradictory, incomplete and even absurd (the “magic bullet” theory), the initial narrative managed to stand as orthodoxy for decades, largely due to a constitutionally supine media. 

In other words, the latest “lone gunman theory,” a formula that has worked so well in the past to establish an official narrative all right-thinking people will embrace and conspiracy theorists will deny, has emerged. Key evidence is being withheld, ignored or obscured, notably the autopsy required by law that may or may not have taken place. This leaves many wondering whether Robinson’s jury can be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. And no reasonable person aware of cases such as Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby and Jeffrey Epstein can ignore a nagging question: Will the accused live long enough to face trial?

The other inevitable question the media has to deal with is this: If Robinson didn’t kill the saint, what devil or diabolical conspiracy managed to carry it out? American society is, as expected, radically divided in its speculation. The Trumpian establishment believes there is a vast left-wing conspiracy at work, a thesis they are likely to maintain even if it can be proven that Robinson acted alone. The US commander-in-chief, Donald Trump, just this week instructed the nation’s generals and admirals that they would soon be busy cleaning up US cities, presumably to undo the conspiratorial work carried out by the woke left of which Robinson is a member. 

But it isn’t only nebulous ideological movements that may be to blame. Some on both the left and right suspect that it was just another Israeli assassination. Then there’s the “Groypers” theory, attributing it to a white nationalist movement that blamed Kirk for being too moderate and conventional. Others have cited an apparently apocryphal fact — that Kirk was on Ukraine’s fabled Myrotvorets kill list — to impugn Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his henchmen.

After the saint, the devil

If the case against Robinson does implode for lack of evidence or judicial incoherence, which devils will the media then call to account? Maybe the FBI itself, at least for its role in what might appear to be a coverup. As we await new revelations and allow the suspense to build, it’s nevertheless worth noting that one confirmed devil has now become prominent in the news cycle, totally unrelated to the Kirk story. This time the plot concerns Israel, but the devil in question is British and a former prime minister.

To be fair, an article in The Tehran Times refers to Sir Tony Blair, who has been asked to head the administration of a new Gaza, not as the devil himself, but only as the “partner of the devil.” That could imply that, in the Iranians’ eyes, the devil is one of two people: either Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Trump. The former clearly seeks to control the entire future not just of Gaza but also of anything that the rest of the world continues to refer to as Palestine. The latter sees the outcome of the ongoing genocide as a once-in-a-lifetime real estate opportunity.

We know that the Iranians refer to the US as “the Great Satan.” But as their legal representative, I can assure readers that there are plenty of devils in the lower ranks, some with names like Beelzebub and Mephistopheles, others with more common names like Miller and Bolton. Many of them happen to be in government. But Blair’s case is special. Hamas’s spokesperson, Husam Badran, may be guilty of excessive courtesy in referring to the former British PM as the devil’s partner.

All this is taking place in the context of the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu in which, according to The Telegraph, the US president promised “to bring ‘eternal peace to Middle East’ as head of governing board alongside former prime minister.” The key word there is “eternal.” It gives the game away. Humans are mortal, devils inhabit eternity. Only someone of the devil’s party could make such promises.

Would anyone be surprised to learn, as reported by Le Monde, that the diabolical Blair, “whose consulting firm is working on a development plan for the Gaza Strip” has been “reportedly offered to head a provisional government for the enclave in the event of a peace agreement?” Blair, like Trump today, has always confounded foreign policy with his own ambitious global business interests, something diabolical figures tend to do. (And as I mentioned above, many of them are in government, especially in high places).

Blair earned his stripes as a promoter of hellish activities when, poodle-like, he followed George W. Bush into the never-ending cauldron of Iraq in 2003. This produced more than a million deaths, massive displacement (ultimately provoking Brexit and chaos throughout Europe because of the immigration it spawned) and permanently disfigured the Middle East. Not only did “Bliar” (as he has been called) follow the US lead, the poodle barked even louder than Bush about the deeply moral goal he believed he was pursuing.

Thinking human beings have every reason to deem warmongers villains, especially those who seek ways of turning war into a source of personal profit. But vocal war crusaders, stirred up by their trumpeted belief in a higher moral purpose, belong in a lower rung of hell. What seems particularly diabolical in today’s even more violent Middle East as Israel wages war against seven countries, is the idea of coming back years later to milk the catastrophe one previously contributed to for more cash. Al Jazeera features an article by author Belén Fernández that sums up the latest “peace plan:” “Trump’s Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ promises Tony Blair yet another payday.”

Faust or Mephistopheles: choose your role

Comparing Blair with the devil is not something Hamas or Iran invented in 2025. The Globalist pointed out six months after the 2003 invasion of Iraq that “he is increasingly viewed by the British public as a Mephistopheles who actually convinced his nation to plunge itself into a military campaign — for dubious reasons and with an uncertain exit strategy.” In playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s classic play, Faust, Mephistopheles appears first as a poodle and then morphs into the evil tempter who convinces the alchemist to sell his soul. Bush’s poodle is still reaping the profits from his deal. As Fernandez explains it, the “UK’s leading war criminal-turned-consultant is now lined up to head Trump’s Gaza plan, where colonialism doubles as investment.”

In 1995, The New York Times sensed that Blair might become the next prime minister, which is precisely what happened in the election two years later. “He is a lionized dinner guest, a hot item in the columns, a favorite of profile writers. They depict him as high-minded but also a bit ruthless — like a young Faust. Rupert Murdoch is Britain’s most powerful non-Briton. His media outlets here, built as a waystation between his homeboy start in Australia and his worldwide empire run from the United States, are so influential that critics charge him with single-handedly destabilizing the monarchy and snatching elections. To old-timers in Labor, he is nothing less than Mephistopheles.”

The 30-year-old NYT article cast Murdoch, whose newspapers helped elect Blair, in the role of Mephisto and Blair in that of Faust. But nearly 20 years later, in 2014, Vanity Fair revealed why the attribution of roles deserved to be reversed. The man the magazine describes as Murdoch’s “trusted companion and powerful political ally” had become the old man’s young wife’s adulterous lover, which once discovered led to the couple’s divorce. The evidence of diabolical shenanigans presented was steamy, apparently discovered in third wife Wendi Murdoch’s diary, where she praised his successively “his clothes… good body … really good legs,” but also his “Butt . . . good skin… blue eyes,” and, of course, “his power on the stage.”

When presenting his plan for eternal peace, Trump highlighted the saintliness of his new partner in an exciting project of what may be called “real estate neocolonialism.” “Good man, very good man” are the words the president uses to describe the former prime minister. Given Trump’s taste for adultery, the flattery seems sincere. US Diplomat David Satterfield reassures the NYT reporter that all will be well because Blair “believes in the possibility of a resolution, and he’s never been far away from the issue.”

I have no choice but to concur, but with a proviso. If the devil, an eternal being, believes something, we need to take it seriously. However, because it’s all about belief, all we know is what Satterfield believes Blair believes. For 20 years, how many of Blair’s beliefs did Murdoch take seriously?

*[The Devil’s Advocate pursues the tradition Fair Observer began in 2017 with the launch of our “Devil’s Dictionary.” It does so with a slight change of focus, moving from language itself — political and journalistic rhetoric — to the substantial issues in the news. Read more of The Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary. The news we consume deserves to be seen from an outsider’s point of view. And who could be more outside official discourse than Old Nick himself?]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.