Sharmine Narwani, an Assad apologist who can be found on Twitter denouncing British universities and the western mainstream media, managed to cast off enough of her principles last month to write an article for the mainstream media while citing Oxford University in her author's credentials.

Her article (for the Guardian) sought to downplay the number of civilian casualties in Syria and a biographical note described her as "a political analyst and commentator on Mideast geopolitics and a senior associate at St Antony's College, Oxford University".

The title of "senior associate" may sound rather grand but in reality it's just a loose association with the university rather than an academic post. The college website explains that senior associates "are usually academics on sabbatical leave, who wish to come to the college to work within the regional centres and/or with particular fellows for varying periods of time from one term to one academic year".

For reasons that are still unclear, Ms Narwani has been allowed to retain her "senior associate" tag at Oxford for well over two years – more than twice the normal time limit – and even though she disapproves of such institutions.

Last December, in one of her frequent outbursts on Twitter, shecondemned Arab parents who send their children to British universities to learn from the "old colonials". 

Narwani herself does not appear to have succumbed to what she calls the "westoxifying" influence of British universities and she advertises her Oxford connection at every opportunity. The effect of this is to give her published articles an aura of academic credibility they don't deserve, especially when they are simply spinning the Assad regime's line on Syria.

In the meantime, she continues to post vitriolic and offensive remarks on Twitter. This, for example, was her comment on the murder of the American ambassador and three others in Libya last September:

100s of 1,000s of Arabs & Muslims slaughtered by American troops. Tell me again why I should care about whatshisname-plus-three? #Libya

In addition to the Oxford connection, she advertises herself on her Twitter feed as a blogger for Huffington Post and the Lebanese al-Akhbar – though ex-blogger would be more accurate. Huffington dumped her well over a year ago and she doesn't appear to have written for al-Akhbar since last May.

Criticising Huffington's decision to "censor" her by refusting any more of her articles, Narwani claimed she had been offering material which had "an edge on the competition" and contained "exclusive information". Others have suggested she was dropped when Huffington's editors realised, rather belatedly, that her articles were mostly rubbish. (Readers can judge for themselveshere.)

Bizarrely, Narwani's last article for Huffington praised Stratfor, the Texas-based commercially-run "intelligence" outfit, for challenging the "existing narrative" on Syria. This referred to a Stratfor reportsaying (on the basis of very flimsy evidence) that "most of the opposition's more serious claims have turned out to be grossly exaggerated or simply untrue". 

The same Stratfor report also challenged "existing narratives" in another way by describing Assad's brother-in-law, the late Assef Shawkat, as a Sunni Muslim – an obvious error that Narwani repeated in her Huffington article without noticing. 

In any case, no serious Middle East analyst cites Stratfor's "intelligence" to advance an argument since it's widely regarded asnot very credible and a bit of a joke.

While trumpeting her work for Huffington and al-Akhbar, Narwani seems less eager to publicise other media activities such as her appearances on Press TV (the Iranian propaganda channel), Russia Today and the Voice of Russia. Some of them can be found here:

• Disarming foreign-backed insurgents will lead to ceasefire in Syria: Analyst (Press TV, 30 October 2012)

• 'Russia, China standing firmly behind Syrian gov't' (Press TV, 20 July 2012)

• US against UN mission in Syria (Press TV, 17 June 2012)

• Turkey's chest thumping (Russia Today, 4 October 2012)

• Syria's sorrier situation (Voice of Russia, 24 July 2012)

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 1 March 2013.