:00:09. > :00:19.advised to leave their homes. There will be a full news bulletin at one
:00:19. > :00:24.
:00:24. > :00:27.o'clock. Now it's time for Dateline Hello and welcome to Dateline
:00:27. > :00:32.London. The war in Afghanistan has been a success - is the official
:00:32. > :00:34.British and American version of history. Does anyone believe them?
:00:34. > :00:38.France tries to cleanse away the sour taste of colonialism in
:00:38. > :00:41.Algeria. And what is it that propels Iran to want nuclear
:00:41. > :00:44.weapons? My guests today are David Patrikarakos, journalist and author
:00:44. > :00:54.of Nuclear Iran, Agnes Poirier of Marianne, Mustapha Karkouti, the
:00:54. > :00:56.Gulf-based writer, and Donald McIntyre of the Independent.
:00:56. > :00:59.Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron has been doing what prime
:00:59. > :01:01.ministers and presidents have been doing for years - visiting the
:01:01. > :01:04.troops in Afghanistan. The announcement that British
:01:04. > :01:07.withdrawal from the country is to be speeded up is, at least in the
:01:07. > :01:11.official version, a sign of the overall success of operations over
:01:11. > :01:21.more than a decade. But despite all the lives lost, in what sense can
:01:21. > :01:28.
:01:28. > :01:33.the war be seen to have succeeded? I sat through the Commons
:01:33. > :01:41.announcement of the withdrawal and it seemed Becker ferry the moment
:01:41. > :01:46.after all this time and expenditure. I think even Hammond, who is a
:01:46. > :01:54.reassuring, confident Minister was not able to put much of a brave
:01:54. > :01:59.face on it. Yes, there had been some improvements in security, lots
:01:59. > :02:05.of British lives lost, a heavy price paid for it, and no sense in
:02:05. > :02:12.the Commons that this was a great triumph. Not much talk about the
:02:12. > :02:17.future, but enthusiasm for pulling the troops out. A have talked to
:02:17. > :02:24.British soldiers who say Afghanistan is a better place now,
:02:24. > :02:30.but the worry is how long will it last? It depends where in
:02:30. > :02:36.Afghanistan you're talking about. If it is the capital, may be it is
:02:36. > :02:46.a better place, but is all the country a better place? We still
:02:46. > :02:47.
:02:47. > :02:52.have Taleban authorities in Helmand and other parts. IT not think the
:02:52. > :03:02.waste's contribution over the past years has necessarily transformed
:03:02. > :03:03.
:03:03. > :03:09.the country into a promising future. It is a far from it. As if the
:03:09. > :03:15.British, who better than anyone else it understand Afghanistan it
:03:15. > :03:21.very well. They went there first. Russia when 10, so they went in
:03:21. > :03:26.again. They know Afghanistan is impossible to control and transform,
:03:26. > :03:34.but they still make the same mistake, spend a lot of money, lose
:03:34. > :03:40.a lot of lives and never learned the lesson. He could you clean the
:03:40. > :03:43.region is in some ways worse off? We have seen Pakistani health
:03:43. > :03:47.workers been murdered by eight Taleban because they're giving
:03:47. > :03:54.polio injections in one of the few areas of the world where polio is
:03:54. > :04:00.still endemic. So you could see the country is not on the right track?
:04:00. > :04:06.I'm would agree with you. 12 years and so many lives lost, so much
:04:06. > :04:13.money spent and for what result? I would love to be a historian in 50
:04:14. > :04:23.years' time with access to the archives. Even with very little
:04:24. > :04:25.
:04:25. > :04:34.distance, what is there to rejoice about? France has now withdrawn its
:04:34. > :04:41.troops, although we still have some soldiers there. But what are the
:04:41. > :04:46.results? 2014 is going to be very scary, because now all we can do is
:04:47. > :04:51.try to get Pakistan to talk to Afghanistan and the town a ban, but
:04:52. > :04:59.even the colour band do not want to sit down with Campbell. They want
:04:59. > :05:06.to have direct Top's with American officials. As for women's rights in
:05:07. > :05:11.Afghanistan, or you want to cry. Seen from their perspective of Iran,
:05:11. > :05:21.if you look at the past 20 or 30 years, one of the strange things
:05:21. > :05:22.
:05:22. > :05:30.America has done in pursuit of its own aims, was to knock off regimes
:05:30. > :05:38.that were unsympathetic. Yes, the Americans removed security
:05:38. > :05:43.concerns. They believe they gave America a lot of help in 2001. They
:05:43. > :05:48.promise to pass on intelligence, the promised to search for any
:05:48. > :05:53.American fighter pilot shot down. Their reward was one year later
:05:53. > :05:59.been called a member of the access of evil.
:05:59. > :06:03.Did they see that what has become a war or which has embroiled Nieto,
:06:03. > :06:11.as something that is fundamentally in their interests, because both
:06:11. > :06:17.their enemies, the Taliban and the Americans are, are scuppered.
:06:17. > :06:20.Absolute glee. Anything that bogs down America is good for Iran. I
:06:20. > :06:24.think you're absolutely right, this has been good for Iran in any way
:06:24. > :06:33.you looked at it. Do you think we have learned
:06:33. > :06:43.anything? The lessons of 120 years ago are still valid. I think it has
:06:43. > :06:47.been a kick in the teeth for this grandiose doctrine for which
:06:47. > :06:51.Blair's famous Chicago speech was the high point. I do not think that
:06:52. > :06:57.means you should never intervene anywhere at all, but I think it
:06:57. > :07:05.does mean this confidence that some higher western countries can sort
:07:05. > :07:14.things out, this omnipotence that informs the operation in
:07:14. > :07:24.Afghanistan, be he needs questioning. It does not mean that
:07:24. > :07:25.
:07:25. > :07:34.you do not intervene, yes you do. No troops on the ground, you get
:07:34. > :07:41.the illegality, without which it would have been totally different.
:07:41. > :07:51.United Nations backing, but in case of Iraq and Afghanistan, nothing of
:07:51. > :07:51.
:07:52. > :07:59.the sort. In fact, in Kofi Annan's recent biography, he made it clear
:07:59. > :08:05.insinuation that had Tony Blair not gone through that and refrained
:08:05. > :08:13.from interfering in Iraq, George W Bush would have thought twice
:08:13. > :08:23.before going in. So he thinks Blair could have put a stop to it.
:08:23. > :08:24.
:08:24. > :08:26.Absolutely. France's President Hollande visited the former French
:08:26. > :08:29.colony of Algeria and confronted some uneasy facts about French
:08:29. > :08:33.colonial history. The French and British carved up much of the Arab
:08:33. > :08:35.world between them in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 21st
:08:35. > :08:38.century, is a new post-colonial and more positive relationship now
:08:38. > :08:42.possible? Yd think he went and said what he get? He stopped short from
:08:42. > :08:49.the apology that has been asked for by Algeria, the Algerian Government,
:08:49. > :08:58.for 50 years. He went quite fire, compared to his predecessors. First
:08:58. > :09:08.of all, he was the first French president to a dress the state
:09:08. > :09:08.
:09:08. > :09:18.parliament in Algeria. He stayed for two days. He talked at length
:09:18. > :09:19.
:09:19. > :09:27.about and the brutal, unjust and French behaviour it during the 132
:09:27. > :09:34.years of colonial history. He had some very harsh words for what
:09:34. > :09:39.France debt in Algeria, sold to some level, it did bridge a gap, if
:09:39. > :09:46.you want, but it is quite strange, because on the other hand, if you
:09:46. > :09:53.look at the Algerian Government, it is one that has absolute power and
:09:53. > :10:03.a thoroughly corrupt. It is a concrete Arab Spring Government, to
:10:03. > :10:04.
:10:04. > :10:13.put it mildly. Maybe he doesn't want democracy in Algeria, because
:10:13. > :10:20.it would bring in people he doesn't like. Perhaps, but there was some
:10:20. > :10:27.sense that he find the right tone, but didn't ask any important
:10:27. > :10:36.questions. At a lot has been written in the French media and the
:10:36. > :10:42.Algerian media about the apology, but the issue is not that. The
:10:42. > :10:46.business delegation where there for business and contracts. I am
:10:46. > :10:53.shocked. You would never get British prime ministers deem the
:10:54. > :11:03.same thing, selling fighter jets, for example! Going back to the
:11:03. > :11:09.point of apology, I think, not only France, Britain should also
:11:09. > :11:19.apologise, especially to the Palestinians. They sold off
:11:19. > :11:19.
:11:19. > :11:28.Palestine to the Jewish people. You're from Syria originally, they
:11:28. > :11:38.also carved up Iran. So many countries, the colonial power.
:11:38. > :11:40.
:11:40. > :11:45.Where do we go from there? Bill Clinton apologised for slavery. He
:11:45. > :11:53.was not directly responsible for it, so it is easy to apologise for
:11:53. > :12:01.something you never did. I am sure people like something else, not
:12:01. > :12:11.necessarily a Fairport apology. Support human rights, there are no
:12:11. > :12:11.
:12:12. > :12:19.contracts unless human rights are protected. At an Algerian newspaper
:12:19. > :12:24.suggested this was potentially an event by France and Germany. I
:12:24. > :12:29.think you have a point, I do not think we should get too smug about
:12:29. > :12:33.France's past in Algeria. In Britain, we have a pretty bad
:12:34. > :12:42.record, not only as a colonial power, but as the departing
:12:42. > :12:52.colonial power in India, Pakistan, Palestine, Cyprus. It is a pretty
:12:52. > :12:59.long list. Obviously, for France, Algeria remains a big trauma. I was
:12:59. > :13:04.very struck recently, it sounds different, but I think it is
:13:04. > :13:10.similar. The apology made by the Prime Minister here for the killing
:13:10. > :13:15.off at the Belfast solicitor. One of the points of this is the past
:13:15. > :13:21.always does come back to hit you. The question is whether we learn
:13:21. > :13:31.any lessons from it. That went down well with most people in Northern
:13:31. > :13:36.Ireland. Or on the business of apologies, do you think the
:13:36. > :13:42.Iranians would particularly welcome an apology from the British and
:13:42. > :13:50.Americans for their attack in 1953? It is not quite happen, but it
:13:50. > :13:54.lives on in the Iranian memory. Iran is the only country in the
:13:54. > :14:04.world where they still think Britain is on top of the world.
:14:04. > :14:04.
:14:04. > :14:09.They think Britain also strings and I was told when I was phoning in
:14:10. > :14:19.Tehran that Jack Straw was running Iran! Very flattering if you're
:14:20. > :14:19.
:14:20. > :14:26.Jack Straw! There to suggest that you are omnipotent! What could be
:14:26. > :14:36.seen as irrelevant, an apology? Madeleine Albright did not quite
:14:36. > :14:38.
:14:38. > :14:41.apologise, but she suggested regret. The Iranians need a scapegoat, so
:14:41. > :14:46.they've talked about the great British, great American bogeyman.
:14:46. > :14:54.There are many things around good apologise for like holding
:14:54. > :15:00.Americans hostage. I'm interested in the psychology of it, about use
:15:00. > :15:06.said the regime needs the bogey man, it is good to have an energy and
:15:06. > :15:10.have an enemy. It bases a lot of legitimacy on at the great state,
:15:10. > :15:14.this is why eight George Bush was such a godsend, he would talk about
:15:14. > :15:21.read Jean changed and he would have people saying I do not like my
:15:21. > :15:26.regime, but we will fight if we are attacked. Barack Obama is very good,
:15:26. > :15:31.be removed a lot of legitimacy, and then many people say they have
:15:31. > :15:38.gained a lot of succour from the overtures of Barack Obama. A Barack
:15:38. > :15:42.Obama made a specific apology in his famous Cairo's speech. Let's
:15:42. > :15:47.move on directly to Iran, because there was a prediction that their
:15:47. > :15:52.nuclear programme will be a huge news story in 2013. Before Sunday
:15:52. > :15:54.bullied into ideas of further sanctions at a military strike
:15:54. > :15:58.against a regional superpower, maybe we should understand more
:15:58. > :16:05.about why Iran feels threatened and why it is seeking a nuclear bomb.
:16:05. > :16:13.Can you explain the world as seen from Tehran now? The Iranians, they
:16:13. > :16:16.view the modern world as perennially of a hostile. Iran has
:16:16. > :16:22.lost territories, its last Azerbaijan, it has been divided up
:16:22. > :16:25.between the British and the Russians during the Great Game, and
:16:25. > :16:29.there were many things in the 1953 coup that overthrew the President.
:16:29. > :16:32.They believe the world is hostile and there is a narrative that
:16:32. > :16:36.wrecked that essentially goes like Iran is a wee country that has to
:16:36. > :16:40.do what it can against stronger and more powerful countries that wished
:16:40. > :16:43.to meddle in its affairs, and because it has a strategic location
:16:43. > :16:46.and because they have oil, they believe they will always be a
:16:46. > :16:52.target and had to deal with this. The nuclear programme is one of the
:16:52. > :16:59.ways they have chosen to do this. Is it because it is associated from
:16:59. > :17:04.a different regime? The nuclear programme began in earnest in 1974
:17:04. > :17:09.when they rang got a lot if while money from the 1970s oil boom. It
:17:09. > :17:13.is not an Islamic programme at all, it is 60 years old, the programme.
:17:13. > :17:23.It is something that was supported by certain Americans at the time
:17:23. > :17:25.
:17:25. > :17:32.including doldrums Wells? Yes, from the beginning, the United States
:17:32. > :17:35.has been pretty consistent on proliferation. Even when they were
:17:35. > :17:41.great allies with the USA, they were still very robust and
:17:41. > :17:45.proliferation. I think it has become an international issue. I do
:17:45. > :17:52.not think in our view of this historic background, definitely,
:17:52. > :18:00.that there is always the pro-Israel lobby in America that have turned
:18:00. > :18:05.the whole issue into an international game in a way. If
:18:05. > :18:11.they had not been such pressure on the American administration's,
:18:11. > :18:15.George Bush before, Barack Obama now, I do not think the nuclear
:18:15. > :18:22.issue in Iran would have become, would have gathered that Clare
:18:22. > :18:25.internationally. I would have to take issue with that slightly.
:18:25. > :18:33.lot of this, I lot of the opposition comes with a hostage
:18:33. > :18:37.crisis when the Americans took them. They decided in Washington
:18:37. > :18:43.independent of Israeli pressure about Iran was not to be trusted
:18:43. > :18:48.with nuclear technology, and that is when America got very robust.
:18:48. > :18:55.Jacques Chirac thought Iran was not to be trusted with anything! I was
:18:55. > :19:03.reminded of one of his apparently uncouth remarks, but if you think
:19:03. > :19:06.about it quite profound. When he said years back, left Iran have
:19:06. > :19:15.nuclear-power, because once it has it, what is it going to do that? Is
:19:15. > :19:20.it going to use it? No. And actually, it will be a massive
:19:20. > :19:25.problem for Iran. Once they have the nuclear bomb. They will also
:19:25. > :19:33.have it in an earthquake zone. You talked about the Israeli lobby, I
:19:33. > :19:37.am thinking about the Arab bloody, but Turkish lobby. -- the Arab
:19:37. > :19:41.lobby. You know friends in the Gulf, Arab friends that are very worried
:19:41. > :19:50.about what they called a Persian bomb. They are worried because of
:19:50. > :19:56.Iran itself with a bomb or without a ban, so it is not really. Iran is
:19:56. > :20:01.a huge regional power. It has that policies, views, concerning its
:20:01. > :20:06.security, as they rightly said. And the security of the region. Iran
:20:06. > :20:11.would like to be the main partner to the west, in particular to the
:20:11. > :20:21.USA, in securing the region. Regardless of what the other small
:20:21. > :20:24.
:20:24. > :20:27.apostates say or a cat. -- small Gulf states. The deal with other
:20:28. > :20:34.regions with a great deal of aggressiveness on the one hand,
:20:34. > :20:38.also, arrogance. It is not really the nuclear issue itself. That is
:20:38. > :20:42.an interesting point, because David is right and a sense of being
:20:42. > :20:50.threatened, but there was also a sense of being a great country and
:20:50. > :20:54.a great culture. That sense of a chip on their shoulder. It is very
:20:54. > :20:57.similar to the Israeli mentality, there is the persecution complex
:20:57. > :21:02.and a sense of superiority and 20 married at two of them, it is a
:21:02. > :21:12.toxic combination. I was strapless into David Dent before his book was
:21:12. > :21:19.published, going in about 2007 on Israeli military intelligence. -- I
:21:19. > :21:23.was struck by David's book before it was published. People are
:21:23. > :21:33.wondering if Iran is bent a nuclear weapons and people are still unsure
:21:33. > :21:33.
:21:33. > :21:37.about that. He laid out why Iran actually felt so threatened. I left
:21:37. > :21:43.this briefing obviously realising that Israel was unhappy about it,
:21:43. > :21:49.but having heard in a sense, the clearest case, Pakistan, India,
:21:50. > :21:53.Israel, Russia, surrounded by nuclear powers. In the more
:21:54. > :21:59.sophisticated thinking, that has been well understood. The problem
:21:59. > :22:05.is, most of the debate, particularly as led by Benjamin
:22:05. > :22:13.Netanyahu in Israel takes level account of the kind of things that
:22:13. > :22:19.they're talking about. It is for public consumption but it also
:22:19. > :22:22.means that this is read the electoral votes tend to be. What I
:22:22. > :22:27.find interesting about Israeli thinking is what you said, if you
:22:27. > :22:37.look at the military guys, three had soccer-mad saying attacking
:22:37. > :22:42.
:22:42. > :22:46.Iran was a stupid idea. -- three heads have come at saying. We had
:22:46. > :22:52.been told the about psychology with the economy for three or four years,
:22:52. > :22:56.what is the way out of this? Looking in another way, you could
:22:56. > :23:00.say that the United States should have good relations with Iran and
:23:00. > :23:08.there are many, many good reasons for that, that is the biggest
:23:08. > :23:13.picture, and so should and could Israel. They did. And they did well.
:23:13. > :23:17.Is there a way out of this without military force? I hope so. I do not
:23:17. > :23:22.think military force would work anyway. We have a window, Iran is
:23:22. > :23:26.suffering with sanctions. The country is spiralling, inflation is
:23:26. > :23:30.spiralling. People cannot afford chicken and rice. History shows
:23:30. > :23:37.that Iran compromises when it is weak. When the Americans are taken
:23:37. > :23:40.as Saddam Hussein a 2003, the Iranians were very scared and they
:23:40. > :23:45.subsequently suspended uranium enrichment for two years, so they
:23:46. > :23:48.did compromise. In October 2009 when the Americans that the
:23:48. > :23:52.Iranians at Geneva that, the President wanted the deal was on
:23:52. > :23:55.the table, but domestic circumstances predators him
:23:55. > :24:02.accepting it, so I think that history shows that the Iranians to
:24:02. > :24:05.compromise. We have got a window. Of the coalition put something good
:24:05. > :24:12.on the table that the Iranians can take that they can save their face,
:24:12. > :24:16.I think it is possible. It is all down to John Kerry now. It may be
:24:16. > :24:23.if he is a trusted interlocutor. One thing that is being talked
:24:23. > :24:29.about in the States is some kind of bargaining in which you have 20 %
:24:29. > :24:39.in Richmond in a return for some lifting of sanctions. This is a
:24:39. > :24:42.very important process. They have been sitting down, there were talks
:24:42. > :24:52.from the American administration and that they were going to start
:24:52. > :24:53.
:24:53. > :24:58.negotiations on that basis. I want to talk about that point she made
:24:58. > :25:03.earlier, despite the mistrust between the US and Iran, they have
:25:03. > :25:08.co-operated with the Iranians over strategically important issues in
:25:08. > :25:13.Afghanistan and Iraq, now, they gave Iraq on a golden plates to the
:25:13. > :25:16.Iranians, what does can you expect? Talking about mistrust. There is a
:25:16. > :25:23.degree of co-operation that we cannot get into. They do all very