Jeremy Bowen

Well, first let me say that from the outset, the idea of this rules-based order, not everybody accepted it was going to be a great idea. As European empires decolonized in the 50s and 60s into the 70s, countries became independent. They didn't necessarily want to be told what to do by Europe.

The old colonial powers plus the United States and the other superpowers, Soviet Union or whatever. There was something called the non-aligned movement in that period where countries said, we're not going to be part of the East or the West. We're going to try and do things for ourselves.

But yes, certainly in terms of the security of Western countries. And you asked for a specific example. Now this isn't actually about European security. At the time it was seen as something about global security. And that was the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.

Kuwait, major of course.

oil producing country and at the time the United States and the West very much depended on oil coming from the Arabian Gulf. And as a fairly young reporter, I was part of the BBC reporting of that. I went to Saudi Arabia just after the invasion of Kuwait in August of 1990.

On the road to the border through the sandstorms. American convoys are bringing more men and more equipment to confront the armies of Saddam Hussein. Drove up to the border with Kuwait. This is where the Americans say they've drawn a line in the sand against Iraqi aggression. The Americans have started deploying troops to Saudi Arabia. There was an enormous military build-up. Saudi intelligence told us that the Iraqis are dug in about 25 miles inside Kuwait.

Luulen, että kun sanoit, että tämä toimii, niin järjestelmä toimii, koska sitten presidentti George H.W. Bush meni Yhdysvalloille. Viikkoa sitten Yhdysvaltojen alueet aloittivat virallisia tavoitteita Irakissa ja Kuwaitissa. Jos jokainen oli perusasiantuntijana, se oli varmasti ensimmäinen presidentti Bush. Tämä virallinen toiminta, joka on otettu yhdessä Yhdysvaltojen päätöksiin,

and with the consent of the United States Congress, follows months of constant and virtually endless diplomatic activity. And he did it all through various UN resolutions, and the UN resolutions passed, and they were enforceable resolutions. President Bush took really big steps to deploy a vast army

With a lot of help from allies to the Gulf area, particularly to Saudi Arabia. But he did it with the authorization of United Nations resolutions. So there was international legality on its side.

If a country is invited by a state to fight for them, that would be one. And also if there is authorization through a resolution through the Security Council. So there has to be one of these Chapter 7 resolutions that is voted through that can authorize the legal use of military force. And they got one of those through.

Ja sillä tavalla he tekevät sitä. Aloitamme uudestaan. Jeremie Bowen, BBC-ryhmä. Olin Bagdadissa, kun amerikkalaiset pysyivät Kuuteen. He menivät myös Irakkaan. Joulu alkoi sydäntäksi ja jatkoi melkein viisi tuntia. Yli 20 isoja explosioita kuului keskustelussa Bagdadissa. Olemme kaikki ymmärtäneet Bagdadissa, onko amerikkalaiset tullut.

The walls and windows of the Rashid Hotel, where Western journalists are staying, were shaken by a number of the attacks. And certainly the Iraqis of the Saddam Hussein regime, they really believed it was going to happen. And try to overthrow, you're saying, the Saddam regime at that time. Yeah, well, they thought their days were numbered. But then one morning I was woken up by gunfire. Early. In the hotel where we all were staying, the Hotel Rashid.

Ja ajattelin, että amerikkalaiset ovat täällä. Voisi olla amerikkalaiset. Sitten kuuntelin enemmän ja ajattelin, että se ei ole kauheaa. Ei ole mitään vahvaa. Ei ole tankkeja, ei ole moottoria, ei ole kohtaa, ei ole kohtaa. Tämä tuntuu kuin järjestelmää. Sitten menin ylös ja katsoin ulkopuolelta. Voin nähdä Irakkalaiset kaupungilla ja kaupungilla. He heittivät Kalashnikovia kymmenistä ja kymmenistä kerroksista. Sitten menin kotiin ja menin sinne.

Se, mitä tapahtui, oli se, että Amerikkalaiset, Irakkalaiset ja Amerikkalaisen järjestö tehtävä koalitiikka tehtiin nopeasti keskustelua, ja sieltä tuli järjestelmä. Kuwait on vahvistettu. Irakkalaisen armeija on vahvistettu. Meidän sotilastamme on saavutettu. Kuwait on yhä enemmän Kuwaitien kohdalla ja käsittelemällä oman suunnitelman.

They could not believe that the American-led forces had stopped. The justification they gave was that they only had authorization to go as far as they went. They also realized... Authorization from the UN? Yeah. It was more complicated than that, of course. But also they didn't have a resolution saying you can remove the government of Iraq. They had a resolution...

ja sanoi, että voidaan poistaa Irakkalaiset Kuwaitista. Se oli erilainen asia, joten he pysyivät sieltä. Nämä asiat ovat aina väärät, eikä mitään ole täydellistä. Mutta siinä tapauksessa voidaan sanoa, että järjestelmä toimii. Mitä sanoisit, että se oli esimerkki kertomisesta, jossa niin sanottu ulkoministeriö ei toimittanut?

There have been numbers of examples where it didn't work. For example, let's just get on to the next Gulf War, 2003, when another American-led coalition removed Saddam Hussein. And

opened up a Pandora's box of killing and violence. Catastrophic consequences over a couple of decades. Frankly, they still feel the consequences of that invasion, one of which was the rise of jihadi groups, which in the end morphed into Islamic State, ISIS.

But one of the big issues about that invasion was they couldn't get a second UN resolution authorizing specific action. Because famously the French vetoed it, right? Well, the French were against it. This was the period when in the US capital French fries were renamed Freedom Fries. Because that was...

very good way of getting back at the French for being, you know, such, what they used to say at the time, cheese-eating. Oh, cheese-eating surrender monkeys, wasn't it? Cheese-eating surrender monkeys, yeah. So they couldn't get the same sort of consensus that George Bush senior had, but they went ahead anyway. And not long after that, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said, well, yeah, they broke international law, this is an illegal invasion. He said that in a BBC interview, but it was a year or two afterwards.