Andrew Roberts: The former war correspondent, Con Coughlin, is the defense and foreign affairs editor of The Daily Telegraph, and has been since 2006. Con, you're the, I think it's fair to say, veteran defense and foreign affairs editor of The Daily Telegraph because you've been holding those roles since 2006, and you followed the great, much lamented Sir John Keegan. What was it like working with John? Con Coughlin:
John was wonderful. John was my mentor. I got to know John, John joined The Telegraph in the sort of late '80s, when I was a foreign correspondent working mainly in the Middle East, but I really got to know him covering the First Gulf War, when I was embedded with the Desert Rats in Saudi Arabia. Andrew Roberts: You might just remind our listeners, many of whom are American, who the Desert Rats are.
Con Coughlin: The Desert Rats is an elite British brigade which fought with distinction in the Second World War in North Africa, and were deployed as part of the US-led coalition to remove Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis from Kuwait in the summer of 1990. So the Desert Rats worked under General Norman Schwarzkopf, the coalition leader,
and as a young journalist, I was embedded with them. I was a fully accredited war correspondent with the Desert Rats, and during that time, John was back in London doing the commentary and the analysis, and we worked quite closely and we became friends. And after the war, I sat down with him over lunch and talked him through what I'd seen, which was useful to him. And of course, I had the benefits of his great analysis and his ability to put what had just happened, what I'd
seen up close-and-personal, he put it into the proper historical context. And from that moment we became friends, and I worked very closely with him. And when I started writing books, he was very supportive and encouraged me and supported me, and that friendship lasted until he died. Andrew Roberts: And you've actually already, by that stage, had encountered famous historians. You were taught history at Oxford by Simon Schama,
weren't you? What was that like? Con Coughlin: Well, that was an interesting experience because back in the early 1970s, when I was studying history at Oxford, the syllabus was rather dry and boring. And Simon Schama appeared at my college, Brasenose. He'd just won the sort of biggest first in the history of firsts at your old university, Cambridge, and he came in with quite a reputation. He was very demanding as a tutor. He made us write
our essays the night before and read them, and so we were grilled. But even then I could see that his interpretation of history came from a sort of rather leftist orientation, and I'm afraid I had a more traditional view. I studied the Industrial Revolution, which is a very good way of exposing all the myths of Marxism and how Karl Marx just invented history,
so that's where I was coming from. Andrew Roberts: Oh no, but haven't you seen the latest there, where everything to do with capitalism and the Industrial Revolution and so on had nothing to do with Western advances? It was all down to slavery and colonialism. You are not keeping up with the latest woke trends in historical analysis. Con Coughlin: Well, by the time the Industrial Revolution really got underway, we'd helped to abolish slavery, so that's all I'd say
on that one. Read a history book. Andrew Roberts: So right. Con, you joined The Telegraph in 1980, but by 1983 you had taken part as a war correspondent in the invasion of Grenada and also covered the Lebanese Civil War, where you were nearly kidnapped by Hezbollah. Tell us about that. Con Coughlin: Well, that was one of the more scary of the experiences I've had. I should say, Andrew, that from the moment I joined The Telegraph, I was determined to be a foreign correspondent
or stroke war correspondent. That's what I wanted to do, I wanted to be on the front line of modern conflict and be writing the first draft of history, as we say. Andrew Roberts: Can I just butt in there? Because without being too sort of in the psychologist's chair, being a war correspondent is a particular sort of form of psychological commitment, isn't it? They're a breed apart in journalism, the war correspondents.
Tell us a bit about, A, why you wanted to be one, and B, about the other war correspondents and how they're different, essentially. Con Coughlin: Well, that's a fascinating subject. Why did I want to do it? Well, the formative events of my youth were the Six-Day War, actually, no, the assassination of Kennedy, the Six-Day War,
which came soon afterwards, the Yom Kippur War. And as a schoolboy, I just remember being told that these were seismic events and the world could end, and that is what generated my interest in journalism. My father was a journalist, so I grew up in a journalistic household, but I just remember very clearly those moments. And as I grew up and went to university, I maintained my fascination with these issues. The Vietnam War, of course, was a defining moment
of the late '60s, early '70s. And I read newspapers avidly, coming from a journalistic background family, and I particularly like reading the great dispatches from Vietnam of the period, so when I got into journalism, I was determined to do that kind of journalism. I suppose I had a sense of adventure, but back in those days, nobody trained you for this. You didn't have hostile environment courses, you didn't have helmets and flak jackets.
If you wanted to do it, you did it. And I cut my teeth doing the Brixton riots in 1981 in London, which was actually more dangerous than a lot of the experiences I had later on. But I suppose a sense of adventure, intellectual curiosity, I think's really important, which is why I've
written so many books because it opens the way to do this. I don't think, if I'm honest now looking back, I was really prepared for the kinetic side of things, being shot at, being shelled, being in the midst of a war zone when you've got no training, I mean, apart from some cadet training at school, no serious military training. But I adapt to it very quickly, you learn very quickly, sort of self-preservation kicks in. And war correspondents are a rather exceptional breed.
I think there's a lot of ego involved. You want to be, I always thought of myself as the center forward for The Telegraph team. I have to get the scoops, I have to get to the front line, I have to beat my rivals, get the stories. So it's very much a young man's game. You've got to have lots of energy, resourcefulness, relationships disappear, which is not surprising, given that you're never there, but you do want to do it, but it is a young man's game.
And I think one of the reflections I have of that very intense period of my life is when I got to about 40, after the First Gulf War, I realized, and then I went to Bosnia, and Bosnia was dreadful, I thought, I can't do this much longer. I'm going to get myself killed. And a lot of my colleagues have been killed, when I look back. Famously, Marie Colvin, who's a direct contemporary of mine, my book on the Assad regime is dedicated to Marie, and she was killed in Syria
in 2012, deliberately by the Assad regime, but she was still doing it. She was doing something that I, in all honesty, had a look at myself and said, "You can't do this, and I've got to do a sort of more grown-up kind of journalism," which is basically how I sort of ended up being the defense editor and having a more considered view of global conflict, rather than getting down and dirty and being shot at all the time. Andrew Roberts:
Let's go back to that day that you were nearly kidnapped by Hezbollah. It was within 24 hours of John McCarthy being kidnapped, wasn't it? Con Coughlin: It was, and it was a very dangerous time. I mean, I'd been in Beirut for three years by
then and I'd seen a lot of action, so to speak. And in fact, the first time I was evacuated from Beirut was in 1984, when a new militia called Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shia militia, suddenly appeared on the streets of West Beirut in February 1984, and with banners of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. It quickly became clear that this was going to be a very different kind of war once they emerged, and so we had
to become a lot more cautious with what we did. And I wrote a book about the hostage crisis and, to start with, the Westerners that were kidnapped on behalf of Iran, because Iran ran the whole hostage crisis in Lebanon, by Hezbollah that many Americans, because the Americans still had a big military presence and then diplomatic presence in support of Israel, which was involved in the Lebanese Civil War. It's a very complex environment. And by 1986, to cut a long story
short, there weren't any Americans left to kidnap. Then they started with the French. When they ran out of French people, they started kidnapping Brits. And in the run-up to that period, I think about a dozen Brits had been kidnapped in Beirut. And I had actually sent a cable to my then-editor, Sir Max Hastings, saying, "This is getting very dangerous, and I should leave." And also, it looked like Reagan was about to bomb Libya because the Libyans were supporting terrorism
throughout the world. A bomber gone off in a German nightclub, Gaddafi was blamed, and it looked like Reagan was going to take retaliatory action. And I got the message back that Reagan wouldn't be so stupid to bomb Libya. The hostage crisis was really fascinating. Please stay put. As a consequence, the only two British Germans left in Beirut in April 1986, the day before Reagan bombed Libya, this is important, this is all connected, were me and John McCarthy. And John had
been there for only 10 days, and he was having the time in his life. Like me, he wanted to be abroad. Andrew Roberts: Which paper was he from? Con Coughlin: He was working for a news agency called UPI, and he was a TV producer and he was full of enthusiasm, and he is a lovely guy, good company. But I remember, we had the most forlorn dinner imaginable on the Sunday night. Everybody had gone, the hotel was empty. Most of my colleagues, my rivals, had gone to Libya,
and we were stuck there. And I just remember saying to John, "If this goes off in Libya, this place is going to blow up," because I'd had three years of experience. And sure enough, we woke up the next morning, turned on our little transistor radios to hear the World Service. The Americans had bombed Libya, and Hezbollah and their associates really were out for revenge.
A lot of these things I've forgotten now, but that morning, from memory, six British hostages were killed, two of them friends of mine from the American University in Beirut who were killed. They'd been taken hostage, they were killed. There was a UN worker called Alec Collett, he was killed down in Sidon. And, of course, having killed the hostages, they needed more. And that's when they came looking for me and John, and I'm afraid I'd already left. The moment I heard the news,
I just disappeared because I knew the score. Andrew Roberts: Caught the next plane home, as it were? Con Coughlin: Yeah. I didn't even check out of the hotel. I just said, "I'm just going." But I then went down to Reuters to cable the office, and while I was there, I was buying some batteries for my battery-powered computer, which we all used in those days, the trusty Tandy, which someone
described as the AK-47 of home computers. While I was coming out of the shop with my batteries, because I was then going to Libya, somebody put a gun in my face and said, "You British, kidnap." And I started remonstrating with him and he cocked the gun, said, "Well, I'll shoot you." And fortunately, somebody came into the shop who knew this kid and said, "You're not taking this man because I know your father, and you'll be in deep trouble if you do anything to him."
So we got out of this, but it was very hairy. And immediately after that, I went back into Reuters, I phoned John and said, "John, you've got to get out. This is really serious." And he said, "I'm thinking about it, but I've got to do some stuff," for his company, and I said, "Well, I'm going. I'm out of here." And I left on the back seat of a car under a blanket with a lady journalist driving me because she said Hezbollah would not stop us. And they did stop
us and she said, "You call yourself people of Islam, and you are harassing a woman. Let me through," and we got out. Andrew Roberts: But John was there for how long? Con Coughlin: John was kidnapped the next day, and was in captivity for five years. And I saw John when he was released and I gave him a hug, and he said, "Con, I've been thinking about what you said," in that very wry way of his, because he's a real old-fashioned English gentleman. And of course,
I'd known his father, who died while John was in captivity. The whole thing was really miserable. Andrew Roberts: Horrific. Con Coughlin: And I've always thought, what a lucky escape I had. Andrew Roberts: You have also written a book with probably the best title of any book I've ever heard, which is about Jerusalem, and it's called A Golden Basin Full of Scorpions. Tell us about that. Con Coughlin: Well, Jerusalem is one
of my big loves. When Beirut became too dangerous and after my experience, The Telegraph decided, since the Second World War, The Telegraph office had been in Beirut, the Paris of the Middle East and Nest of Spies, Kim Philby, all the rest of it, but Beirut became impossible after 1986. And so we had new owners, Conrad Black had just bought The Telegraph. Max Hastings had just become the editor. I'd sort of inherited the job as Middle East correspondent. We had
a discussion and I said, "Well, we should open the bureau in Jerusalem. That's the epicenter of the Middle East conflict. It's down in the Temple Mount, you look down, and you are standing on the divide between the Arabs and the Israelis." And there was some resistance from the old sort of Arabists of The Telegraph, who said we should be in Cairo, but I persisted. So I developed this love of Jerusalem and its intricacies, and I got to know people
of all persuasions on a very personal level. And then fast-forward to the Oslo Accords, which is probably the last time that there's been a significant effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue. So they were announced in September 1993, and PLO leader Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, signed those accords on the White House lawn in front
of Bill Clinton in 1993. And I went back to Jerusalem to cover all this, and at that time, and it's still relevant today, Jerusalem was a big issue within the framework of the peace process, such as it is. And even now, you hear people saying, "Well, there's a plan to resolve the Gaza crisis, give the Palestinians some kind of state with East Jerusalem as the capital."
I mean, this issue hasn't gone away. So I then spent three years researching the issue of Jerusalem and put it in a historical context, and during that period, the whole Oslo Accords unraveled. First of all, Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish fanatic, and then the PLO was replaced by a new movement called Hamas, which undermined the attempts to implement the peace accords by blowing up lots of Israelis. When I was living in Jerusalem, it just wasn't possible to get on a bus
down to Tel Aviv anymore, just Hamas was blowing them all up. And when people look at what is going on today, let us never forget that the people who really blew up the peace process were Hamas. And just to answer your question quickly, so I'm writing the book in the midst of all this, and I had a very good friend of mine who's no longer with us, Father Jerry Murphy O'Connor,
who's a cousin of the then-Cardinal, and he helped me with the Christian research. And I said to Jerry one day, who's from Cork, and I said, "Jerry, I'm struggling for a title of the book." He said, "Well, in the 10th century an Arab chronicler passed through Jerusalem, and he took one look at it and he described it as a golden basin full of scorpions," and I thought, that. Andrew Roberts: You knew that immediately. Con Coughlin: I thought, this is where I am.
Andrew Roberts: That's fabulous, and such a great title. Your biography of Saddam Hussein came out in 2002. It was a New York Times bestseller and, of course, only months before the coalition invasion of Iraq. Tell us about that. Con Coughlin: Well, Andrew, as an author of yourself, you'll know that timing is everything. I'd been working on my biography of Saddam for four or five years, I think, and initially, nobody wants to publish it. They thought Saddam wasn't really
very interesting. But having covered the First Gulf War and witnessed the peace agreement, the ceasefire agreement, that Saddam signed to end the war in the spring of 1991, UN Resolution 687, I took a very close interest in the West's failure to implement that agreement. And it's now sort of lost to history that throughout the 1990s, we in the UK, the US, and others were at war with Saddam. Throughout the whole 1990s, we had no fly zones up in the north over Kurdistan, we had
no fly zones in the south. They were patrolled by primarily the US and the UK. Occasionally, the Iraqis would fire at them, we'd reply, and this went on throughout the whole 1990s. And now and again, Clinton would send cruise missiles in in 1998 because Saddam was not complying with the UN weapons inspectors. And I just took a very close interest in this. And I was also interested in the dynamics of Saddam's family, the fact that you had this sort of mafia
clan who'd taken the country hostage. And you see there's a lot of autocratic states. You'd get a powerful figure brings in family members, it's happened in Syria, for example, and they control the country. They have these very dedicated loyalist groups around them, the Republican Guard, the intelligence services which sustained themselves in power. So this is how I came at the
biography of Saddam Hussein. And I also had quite a big, demanding day job so it took me some time to write the book, so it was just happenstance that the book came to be published just before the invasion, and as you said, it did very well. Andrew Roberts: Brilliant timing, Con Coughlin: Timing is everything. Andrew Roberts: And then your next book was American Ally about Tony Blair's personal and obviously military
alliance with George W. Bush and America. You're a believer in the special relationship. You, like me, actually think that it has got an important part to play in defending civilization. Tell us about that book. Con Coughlin: Well, again, I suppose that book was motivated by almost my sort of horror at the way the Iraq War, the Second Gulf War, as it's known, was politicized to the detriment of the Bush administration and the Blair government here in the UK, because as I said, there
were genuine reasons for confronting Saddam in the aftermath of September the 11th. And for example, I remember talking to the then-head of the British Army, General Sir Mike Jackson, about whether he was fully behind getting rid of Saddam. And he said, "Yeah, just 687. UN Security Resolution 687 gives us a clear mandate. He never complied with the ceasefire terms. We have every right
to sort this out once and for all." Now, we know that the intelligence is flawed, et cetera, but the way that the left just piled in on both sides of the Atlantic and posed a genuine threat to the survival of the transatlantic relationship, which I do support, and I thought, well, I need to explain what really went on. And the great joy of writing that book is I had the most fantastic access to both the Bush administration, at all levels, State Department,
Pentagon, White House, and the same here. And I had an hour-and-a-half with President Bush in the White House an hour-and-a-half with Tony Blair in Downing Street, and I did my best to really delve into how this all came about. My reflections of that period, I mean, Bush was completely comfortable in his skin about what had happened. Tony Blair, on the other hand, was a little bit more uneasy when I saw him at Downing Street. Bush said something very
interesting to me. He said, "Tony Blair didn't do this," i.e. Get involved in the Iraq invasion, "To boost his domestic popularity. He did it because he actually believed in it." And I think having the courage of your convictions is quite an important thing for a politician. And I think, and I know it's a subject you follow very closely, Andrew, if you are trying to analyze the true qualities of a statesman, obviously you think of Churchill and people like that, is having
the courage of your convictions. Everybody might say you're wrong. Everybody might find arguments to say this is misguided or whatever. But if you truly believe in something and you do it for the right reasons, I think that demands respect. And I personally think, when the history of this is all written in 50 years hence, people will be less judgmental about this, and probably a lot more critical of the failures of intelligence which led these people to believe that Saddam did have WMD.
Andrew Roberts: I couldn't agree more. I think that's absolutely right. You mentioned Churchill. You've written a book called Churchill's First War, about his time in Afghanistan. Did you see parallels from his fighting up in the North-West Frontier in Afghanistan in the late 1890s and the war that we fought there after 2001?
Con Coughlin: I saw some very strong parallels, Andrew. The genesis of this book, actually, was a conversation with your friend, General David Petraeus, who was then commanding the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, and he was about to launch his third strategy in Afghanistan, having had success with a similar strategy in Iraq. And I interviewed him in Kabul at the time this is all being formulated, and as a throwaway line, he said, "Well, Con,
what we're doing in Afghanistan is no different to what the Brits did in the 19th century. And by the way, it's all in Winston Churchill's book." I said, "Oh, really, General? That's interesting." So of course, I came back and had a look at The Story Of The Malakand Field Force. Andrew Roberts: Wonderful book.
Con Coughlin: Wonderful book. And I thought it would be very interesting to compare what the Brits did and what we were doing, and in particular, the activities of this rather bumptious second [inaudible 00:26:28] who was out to make a name for himself. You know the story better than I, Andrew, but... So, with any book, you need a narrative structure, and Churchill inevitably emerged as the center point of the book.
But if I tell you in the course of my research, and I went up to the North-West Frontier, I traveled around Malakand, I looked at the graves of other young subatoms who fought alongside Winston Churchill and now are buried in neglected graves. I mean, there's a lot of pathos
to this. But if I tell you that when I was up there looking at where Churchill fought in 1897, if you've got a map of the CIA drone strikes on the North-West Frontier when I was out there in 2012, they were exactly the same tribes, the same valleys, the same villages, that were causing trouble for the British in the late 19th century that were causing us problems in the early 21st. Andrew Roberts: You are known to be
a prominent critic of Iran, the Iranian regime. You wrote the book Khomeini's Ghost, and you've already mentioned in this interview how Iran backs terrorist organizations, the classic example being Hezbollah, the one that nearly kidnapped you. Where are we with regard to Iran at the moment? What's the Western strategy like? Con Coughlin:
The Western strategy is very confused, I think, Andrew, would be how I best described it. I think we have these moments where we realize that Iran is a hostile state and threatens our own interests here in the UK, in America, in Europe. And for example, there's been a wave of Iranian-backed
terrorist attacks throughout Europe in the last decade. But the Western policymakers in London, in Washington, still seem committed to this idea that just by talking to the regime, you will encourage better behavior, you will get a more constructive dialogue, you will get them to drop their antagonism towards the West. This is a conversation I've been having
with Western policymakers for coming on 40 years. I mean, I remember talking to our then-foreign secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, when they were trying to get the hostages released from Lebanon, and he said, "Well, if you can just talk to the moderates in Tehran,
we'll be fine." There are no moderates in Tehran. And in my book, Khomeini's Ghost, I explain in detail how the genesis of Iran's nuclear weapons program, the CIA admits until 2003 and the invasion of Iraq, there was an active program to develop nuclear weapons in Tehran, which the Ayatollahs very quickly put on hold once we'd invaded Iraq. I mean, the invasion of Iraq had a whole range of implications for these rogue regimes. Gaddafi gave up his nuclear weapons. But
the Ayatollahs are still obsessed with this. I mean, when things go badly for them in the current conflict, the first thing they do is say, "Right, now we're going to get our nuclear weapons out."
So this represents to my mind a complete failure of Western policy, and the Biden administration, since it came into power, has focused very heavily on reviving the Obama administration's flawed nuclear deal, which Donald Trump pulled out of. But since then, the Iranians have advanced their nuclear technology to a level where it's now academic whether we have a deal because
they've got everything they need to build nuclear weapons. So this is a total failure, and I can only hope that, with all the other things going on in the world, Iran is working with Russia to support the Russians in the Ukraine, the Iranians and the Chinese are doing business. I mean, the Chinese keep the Iranian economy afloat by buying all their oil at a discount. You've got the North Koreans involved in what people have described as a new axis of evil.
It's time we woke up and saw Iran for what it is, and no more pussy-footing around trying to deal with moderates. The moderates built the nuclear weapons program when they were in power,
[inaudible 00:31:16] and all that crowd. They are now getting very close to having the ability to use those weapons, and we need to focus our minds on how we deal with that threat and how are we going to get rid of this regime which, let us not forget, the majority of the Iranian people would love to see the back of. Andrew Roberts: Well, they are the moderates, aren't they, the Iranian people?
Con Coughlin: Unfortunately. And you only have to look at the way they are oppressed whenever they raise their hands in protest against this dictatorial regime. Andrew Roberts: So, Saddam Hussein, you've written about, Ayatollah Khomeini, and now your latest book, Assad: The Triumph of Tyranny. Excellent book, by the way. But what is it that attracts you to these monsters? These are three of the most terrible people in modern history, and you've written about all three of them.
Con Coughlin: Well, because I think there is a naivety around the threat they pose. Saddam Hussein was a monster, and yet when good people said, "We should get rid of him," the wave of criticism and protest, some of the biggest demonstrations we've seen here on the streets of London, protesting against the very idea of getting rid of Saddam Hussein. People again with the Ayatollahs, with Khomeini, the founder of the
Islamic Revolution. I mean, President Raisi, who recently died in a helicopter crash, in the final days of Khomeini's reign personally supervised the slaughter of around 10,000 political prisoners, because the prisons were getting overcrowded, Khomeini was on his deathbed, and they thought, well, let's have a clean sweep for the new regime. This is what we're up against. And my particular interest with the Assad regime was my personal disgust that he survived the civil
war. I mean, the civil war technically is still going on. I think if you looked at the picture of modern-day Syria, the Assad regime only controls about 60% of the land, but he is personally responsible, like Saddam, it's a clan thing. The Assad family, the minority Alawite clan he comes from, the Baathist loyalists, these are the people that sustain the regime in power,
with the support of Iran and Russia. And I just thought, there's a lot of naivety around these issues, and it's my job, as best as I can, to actually set out what is really going on so that Western policymakers don't make same mistakes. And our neglect of the Syrian civil war ultimately allowed Iran, first of all, because Iran's had a very long-standing relationship with
Damascus, which dates back to the Soviet era. The Russians have also had a long-standing relationship with Damascus, which enabled them to open some military bases in the Eastern Mediterranean, the only bases they had in that part of the world, so they're quite important for Moscow. But Iran and Moscow came together and helped the Assad regime survive in power,
and we allowed that to happen. And when you look, fast-forward to February 2022, at the invasion of the Ukraine, the same Russian generals that supervised the campaign to keep Assad in power in Syria from 2015 onwards were charged with supervising the Russian invasion of
Ukraine. So we might think the civil war in Syria is over, we might think Assad's a busted flush, but what happened in Syria is so important today, and the policy failings that allowed that to happen should be studied and reflected upon so looking to the challenges of the future, we don't make the same mistakes. Andrew Roberts: You mentioned Ukraine. If we carry on with the present levels of help from the United States and NATO, can Ukraine win? Con Coughlin:
I think it's very difficult for Ukraine to win at the moment. I think there have been so many missteps by the West, particularly the US. I do hold the Biden administration accountable. I think here in the UK, our own response, particularly when Boris Johnson was prime minister, was laudable. The great thing about Boris is he gets it and he immediately saw what was going on when Russia invaded Ukraine and saw the imperative of Britain standing firm,
and it's a long time since we had a prime minister take that kind of position. You can't say the same of the Americans, I'm afraid. And I think the first criticism I would have of the Biden administration is they entered this conflict, if that's the right verb, with their main objective was not to upset Vladimir Putin. So Vladimir Putin is the aggressor, he invades a sovereign nation,
and President Joe Biden's first instinct is, let's not upset Putin. Let's tailor our response and measure our response so that whatever we do to support Ukraine does not escalate the conflict. It's only now that that policy is being revised because the Biden administration realizes that they've been making the Ukrainians fight with their arms tied behind their backs. The Russians regularly attack Ukrainian territory from Russian territory, but the Ukrainians are not allowed or
haven't been allowed to attack Russian targets. That is changing. So that's the first thing. And of course, the other thing, and the Europeans have also been very equivocal about their support for Ukraine because they don't upset Russia. They want to sort of keep the gas pipes flowing. They want to do business in Moscow. And so the supply of weapons to Ukraine has been limited, and that has put the Ukrainians in a difficult position. The third other point I would point out about the
Ukraine conflict is it has exposed the paucity of Europe's defenses. When we did decide to give Ukraine weapons to defend itself, we'd quickly run down our stockpiles. This will be noted in the Kremlin that, for all the talk about NATO being a strong, resilient alliance, we've got a big NATO Summit in Washington next month celebrating 75 years of the alliance, is NATO really fit for purpose? And I think from the Kremlin's point of view and Beijing's point of view, they will see
that actually, it's a bit of a paper tiger. Andrew Roberts: You've criticized Joe Biden, but isn't it going to get worse under Trump if he were to win the election? He has been threatening, essentially, to cut off all help altogether. Con Coughlin: I think American
support for Ukraine is very much in the balance. And the problem with Trump, and I obviously worked very closely with the Trump administration when he was in office and I had good relations with Mike Pompeo, et cetera, so I know the Trump people very well, and a lot of these people are very closely involved in Trump's re-election campaign. And what Trump says and what Trump does can often be very different things. I think Trump believes because it's his mindset that all that needs to happen
is to get together with Putin for a private chat, and they'll sort it all out. The problem with that is I think Trump would be prepared to sacrifice large tracts of occupied Ukrainian territory, which would set a dreadful precedent, both for Western security and in terms of Putin's self-belief that by using military aggression, he can achieve his goals of recreating this new imperial Russian empire that he dreams of. Andrew Roberts:
Do you think it might also send the message to the CCP that aggression pays, ultimately, and might encourage them to attack Taiwan? Con Coughlin: I think that's very much a possibility. I think the moment you let aggressors get away with this kind of behavior, the more they are encouraged to do so. The Chinese, I think, are far smarter than the Russians. I think the way Putin behaves is very analog.
He sees something he doesn't like and he acts and biffs them, and it is very one-dimensional. The Chinese a lot more subtle. Their ways of undermining the democratic foundations of Taiwan will be one option, as they did in Hong Kong, of getting their way of reclaiming sovereignty over
Taiwan. But Beijing is keeping a very close eye on this. As Antony Blinken said when he recently went to Beijing, without China's support, the Russian war effort would be much diminished, and they would not be making the advances they are currently making at the moment up around Tarkov. So I think that if Putin is allowed to get away with his annexation and occupation of Ukrainian territory, that is setting a very dangerous precedent for all of us that believe
in liberal democracy. Andrew Roberts: Turning to Gaza, there have been lots of calls for a ceasefire, but is there any hope of a meaningful ceasefire while Hamas is still in control of anywhere in Gaza? Con Coughlin: Not in my book. I said earlier in this conversation, when you look at the recent history of the so-called peace process, the one organization that contributed most to destroying it was Hamas with all their terrorist
attacks. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hamas has committed the greatest acts of terrorism in the history of Israel. Hamas cannot be allowed to remain, in any shape or form, in Gaza. Now, a very straightforward way to end the war would be for Hamas to just pack up and go home, but I'm sure the Taliban would look after them. They would find a refuge somewhere else. But in my view,
they cannot survive as a military/terrorist entity, even as a political entity. And in fact, even the Qataris, who financed them and gave them safe haven in Doha, are getting tired of them because of their uncompromising policies and attitude towards the ceasefire talks. And then you look at people like Sinwar, the head of the Hamas group in Gaza. I mean, his main aim is that it doesn't matter how long it takes, but if they emerge from the rubble of
Gaza as a force and can fire one rocket at Tel Aviv, that will be victory. That's what we're up against. That's what the Israelis are up against. So I fully support what the Israelis are doing, and I also think that the idea that the Israelis are willfully committing acts of genocide, deliberately killing civilians. I mean, I spent a lot of time with the IDF, the Israeli Defense
Forces, in Southern Lebanon and elsewhere over the years, that's not how they work. So let's just hope they can get the job done, because that's the easiest way to get peace in Gaza. Andrew Roberts: And the other defense, I suppose, to the argument about genocide is that this war has, very sadly, killed about 1% of the people of Gaza. If Israel genuinely was carrying out an act of genocide, it would be a much higher number than 1%, wouldn't it? Con Coughlin:
Yeah. Well, the casualty figures are problematic. I mean, we as journalists can't get into Gaza, right? Not least because Hamas would kidnap us. I mean, that's what happens to the likes of you and me if we go anywhere near Hamas. A lot of the casual figures are, they're all compiled by Hamas. But if you look at the intelligence estimates of how many Hamas fighters have been killed, which are in excess of 10,000, so that will account for some of the
population. Civilians get killed in war. It's the tragedy of war. The reason I'm a defense editor and not a war editor is defense is the best way to prevent war. And I do think that the Western world needs to be a little bit more questioning of some of the tragedy rates we get out of Gaza, and when they say there's mass starvation. Again, a lot of these accusations are politically charged. Andrew Roberts: And they've been saying that now for six months. Con Coughlin:
They've been saying that for six months. They're rarely challenged by anybody. You don't hear the British government challenging them. You don't hear the American government challenging them or anybody else. They are just taken as fact. And of course, this plays into the left-wing agenda, which is very active in support of Hamas. I mean, probably the most ludicrous movement that's
appeared in recent times is this organization called Queers for Palestine. You laugh, but I mean, if they understood what Islamist terrorists do to people of that persuasion, an LBGT persuasion, chucking them off buildings, brutalizing them, they are not their allies. Andrew Roberts: What's the history book or the biography that you are reading at the moment? Con Coughlin: I'm reading a fascinating study of King Charles III, our new monarch, by Robert Hardman.
Andrew Roberts: Who has been on the show, in fact, in the past. He's a really good writer. Con Coughlin: Robert is a former colleague at The Telegraph, and a friend, I should say, but he does have the most fantastic access to our royal court, and he's a trusted and chronicler of the modern royal family. And his book, Charles III, really does have some brilliant insights into the making of our new
king. But one element, as I'm wearing my sort of journalistic hat, that I find really intriguing, Robert is a great fan of the Commonwealth, which is a much-derided institution. And at a time when Western democracy, liberal democracy, is under threat from these autocratic powers like China, like Russia, where we are in competition in parts of Africa and elsewhere with these new emerging powers, the role of the Commonwealth and the role of the king
in keeping the Commonwealth together, I think are vitally important. And what comes out loud and clear from Robert Hardman's biography of King Charles III is just how invested, like just as his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, is deeply invested in the Commonwealth, and while it is the woke community said it was just a relic of empire, what's surprising about the Commonwealth is how many countries want to join it. If it really was a relic, people would be leaving it.
Andrew Roberts: Including ones that were never in the empire at all, like Mozambique and other things. Con Coughlin: Exactly. Andrew Roberts: And how about what if, your counterfactual? Con Coughlin: My counterfactual is going back to the Syrian Civil War, and in August 2013, the Assad regime used chemical weapons against its own people. The Obama administration had said the previous August, August 2012, President Obama himself stated at a White House press conference, "If the Assad
regime used chemical weapons, it is a red line, and we will respond." Fast-forward a year later, the Assad regime does use chemical weapons. First of all, the Obama administration think that they will wait and see whether David Cameron will join them. David Cameron has a vote in the House of Commons on launching military action. He makes a very poor argument defending this kind of military intervention. He loses the vote. That gave Obama the excuse he was looking for, because he never
wanted to follow through on this, not to take any action. Obama's sophistry was to say, "When I spoke about a red line, it was red line for the world, not for the US," which I think is... But the reason this is a what if moment is I do believe it was possible for us to take some kind of military action. We did subsequently, actually, under Theresa May and Trump,
we did launch missiles when the Assad regime did again use chemical weapons. But by not acting in 2013, by not standing up and supporting our declarations, we showed that the West was weak. And it is no surprise, Andrew, that within 18 months, the Russians had launched their first ever major overseas military intervention, something they had never done before. It's all linked, and there's a strong link from the red line of 2013 in Syria to Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Andrew Roberts: I remember that time very well indeed, and I wrote articles denouncing the Obama administration for taking that stance and that debate in the House of Commons was shaming. Con, Con Coughlin, veteran defense and foreign affairs editor of The Daily Telegraph, thank you very much for coming on Secrets of Statecraft. Con Coughlin: Well, thank you for having me, Andrew. It's been a pleasure. Andrew Roberts:
Thank you, Con. On the next episode of Secrets of Statecraft, my guest is Dan Hannan. Lord Hannan of Kingsclere is an author, journalist, and politician. He's the vice chairman of the Conservative Party in Britain and was a member of the European Parliament for over 20 years. Voice Over: This podcast is a production of the Hoover Institution, where we advance ideas that
define a free society and improve the human condition. For more information about our work, or to listen to more of our podcasts or watch our videos, please visit hoover.org.