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You can. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome back to the Middle East Centre for the second of our two big events.

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Tuesdays are a day where we get to take advantage of what's fresh in the air, usually fresh books in the air.

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And I'm delighted to be able to say that this week's fresh book comes from one of the most experienced journalists in our area of common interest.

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Jeremy Bowen, BBC's Middle East Editor. As you will learn from reading this book, Jeremy is a survivor of over 20 wars.

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Yes. And that since he started his career in 1989.

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Jeremy is no stranger to our community. You've addressed a very widely subscribed webinar when we are in the Gap.

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I remember very well. Yes, it was a very, very interesting one.

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Yeah. Yeah. Well you would say that. Well, not my bit. The other one, the other people.

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Sorry, but I would stress that in 2011, Jeremy Bowen was actually invited to give our prestigious George Antonius annual lecture,

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the culminating event of our academic year and the most prestigious lecture that we have on the calendar.

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And then he blew us all off. Sorry, very short notice to go out and cover the Arab uprisings that happened to be going on in 2011.

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That summer it was in Libya and Syria was a busy old time.

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Yes, it was. Yeah, Syria was started. I'm still introducing you.

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You're not allowed to talk. You just have to look a little bit embarrassed that you blew off our George Antonius lecture.

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But we will all agree that still more still mortified.

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But I thought it was a good excuse. Didn't you think that worked in. Well, you know the introduction.

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Yeah. Guilt tripping. You were glad to have triggered my guilt to discuss.

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To discuss his fourth and latest book. At this rate, we can just about give you tenure here.

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Four books to your name. We'll give you the title of professor. Thank you.

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So this follows on the Arab uprisings war stories, six days, Jeremy's book on the June 67 war.

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And now we have the making of the modern Middle East.

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What Jeremy rightly brands a very personal history tracking over 30 years of his coverage of the Middle East for the BBC,

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where he has had encounters that those of us confined to the halls of Oxford can only envy.

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You've talked about how we get to go deeper in our scholarship to you,

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but you are more timely in respect for deadlines and in that we get to enjoy the benefit of your research far quicker than you get to enjoy ours.

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So I'm going to say that the wannabe journalist in me is in or being in your company.

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Jeremy. Welcome back to the Middle East Centre. Now I'm blushing. Thank you so much, Eugene.

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Thank you for the welcome and thank you very much for coming here today and to the invitation.

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I'm always a bit nervous about what I've come to St Anthony's because you guys know so much and and you know,

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as a journalist, we always, you know, we have to do things and see things and and report them quite quickly.

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I mean, hopefully over the years, you know,

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one builds up a certain modicum of experience and knowledge so that it's not all based on what you see that day,

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that there's some hinterland but one can drawn.

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So it's usually my my son is just starting his second year as an undergraduate studying history at Cambridge,

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and he's extremely sniffy about the whole prospect of an amateur historian,

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especially one who works on television daring to put pen to paper and to call it a history.

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But the reason why it's a personal history is the genesis of it is in I did some shared DNA with a radio series.

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I did, but still available as a podcast on BBC. Sounds called Out of Mind in the Middle East,

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and it was 25 programmes looking at different aspects of what's happened in the last 30 years or so and the,

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you know, the target audience for that and in a sense for the book.

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So I'll come on to that.

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Are people who really are not like you that people though I hope those who got the books will enjoy it and there are several more.

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So if you've neglected to pick one up all the way through, I've found over many years that a lot of people,

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a lot of viewers and listeners, some people look at the website, they are interested, they're intelligent, but they're not knowledgeable.

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And when you're a journalist, you especially in the broadcast media, you have to be aware that all kinds of people listen to what you say.

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Now, for example, if you work for the for the people, you know, your audience, and if you write for the sun, you know your audience.

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If you work for the BBC, then there are people who might see what we do, who knows everything about the story.

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But the subjects must loads and there are people who are interested but don't have much grasp of the detail or the background.

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And so the mantra always has to be never underestimate people's intelligence, but never overestimate their their knowledge.

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So in the way that you've put together that I would put together a story would be in a way with sort of layers,

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if you like, like a layer cake where there's always a layer that someone hopefully will get something out of.

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And the way you do that is having the right words, the right pictures, putting it together in the right way.

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You say a lot through allusion, as well as being very, you know, descriptive.

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And so I hope the book is something that people who are interested.

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But to be honest, as many of you will know,

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if you a lot of people a lot of people in this country are quite put off by the complexities that they perceive in what's going on in the Middle East.

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I think they know that it's something they ought to care about and then they worry about the project sometimes when they try to ignore it.

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But even when they're interested, the misperception of the complexities is is there.

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So I hope that that will help decode it somewhat.

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It's called personal history, because I was asked to do this series, as I mentioned, and I thought to myself, Well,

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it so happens that the time I've spent reporting in the Middle East, you could say,

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started at a kind of a turning point or the beginning anyway, of of a new, new period.

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And that was the time when the Soviet Union collapsed, when with the invasion of Kuwait,

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the Americans in a much more active way entered the region in terms of their military footprint,

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in terms of the way that they, of course, have been politically influential for a long time.

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But they didn't have a permanent military base apart from their naval base in Bahrain until that first Gulf War.

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And so they tried to do that. There is is look at various incidents in that that are from then, you know,

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from that time that started in Afghanistan with the departure of the Soviets.

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So that people are happy to hear that about the United States, not in Kabul, because, you know, it's a funny story,

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but I when I was writing it well, when I was finished my book last year, Afghanistan was very much in the news.

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But it wasn't just that. It was the fact that I would argue that, you know,

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the absence of the Soviet Union gave the Americans impressive it for a short time, gave them unprecedented freedom of action.

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The things they wanted were authorised in Security Council.

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You know, the Soviets in the last couple of months or years, they didn't just stay there really for what the Americans wanted,

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but at the same time as well, observing what had happened and observing the consequences of the invasion of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia,

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there were those people who'd gone to fight, to fight the Soviets, the most famous of all, the notorious Osama bin Laden,

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who then that ideology was from that point, you could argue, I'd say, turbocharged by the feeling that they achieved something quite remarkable.

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The process that taken since well after the invasion of Kuwait, bin Laden went to the event Defence Minister and said this causes,

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you know, it's very connected and said don't allow the Americans and the Americans into the car, you know, the Holy Land that you live in.

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We can do it with people who have returned from the jihad.

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The veterans will do it for you.

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We've thrown was here and the Americans came in and, you know, I was in Saudi Arabia at the time and there was it was,

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you know, extraordinary, incongruous sights, these huge American convoys,

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women, truck drivers, women wearing clothes in an era when the country was very much in the grip of the religious orthodoxy,

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which had been there double down on after the after 1979.

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So I thought it's a good place to start because those strands that American involvement in the region,

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the consequences that came from it, you know, I've spent most of the last.

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As a reporter, I probably spent most of the last seven years well, most of my time as Middle East editor.

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I got the job in 2005 dealing with a lot of the consequences of the 2003 invasion, which was catastrophic in its consequences.

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And having spent a great deal of time in Iraq and Syria seeing the activities of the likes of ISIS, you can, of course,

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is you know, you can trace it all back to the opportunities that were opened up by the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

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So, yeah, so I saw a certain continuum that I could write about.

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And so what I've tried to do is it's personal because the things I wasn't that I hadn't written about,

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to be honest, because I first thing I had to bring to the policy was having seen stuff myself,

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you know, having been in, in Mosul with the Iraqi special forces when they were fighting street to street fighting ISIS.

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And, you know, having interviewed Assad and Gadhafi, not all of them aside, at the height of the war in 2015, we talked a bit more about ISIS.

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You like using. But I was completely amazed by the way I'd met him before the war in Iraq.

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And I thought that, you know, by that time, God knows what the death toll was in Syria, but it was way hundreds of thousands,

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half the population of the country displaced, half of that called refugees and brought the country broken.

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So one family and it's a regime to succeed.

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I tell the story in the book. I was chatting to a he didn't.

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I asked him if he didn't like it, if he minded me quoting, and he didn't mind at all.

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Son Polis, whose assignment called us his last job as a British diplomat, was ambassador in Saudi Arabia.

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He was in Syria. He was the last British ambassador to Syria when the war started, when they pulled out.

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And I said I remember saying to him at the time, you know, Simon,

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how would you to understand for our viewers to understand the Assad family, how do you what's the best way to reach them?

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He said, well, it's very difficult, you know, for us, as well as guesswork here a lot of the time because, you know, it goes on within the family.

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So he said, my advice is to watch The Godfather or Goodfellas or one of those Mafia movies, because that's what I like.

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You know, it's a family business and you have to give the boss respect.

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You don't give him respect. You suffer the consequences. You do as you're told.

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Maybe you'll be okay and so forth.

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But that was that was a very neat analogy. But anyway, think about Bashar al-Assad.

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Is that because we look slightly nerdy and rather unassuming as opposed to his, you know, rather dynamic,

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square jawed equestrian late brother who is intended to be the the son of that entity to have an untimely death in a car crash.

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Because Bashar looks a little unassuming. People sometimes think, well, it can't help you.

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We can tell it must be other people pulling the strings, certainly beginning, because if you remember,

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he had this extraordinary publicity that was just gushing piece of notoriously

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gushing piece in vogue about the Assads and particularly about his wife.

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But actually, it was yes, whoever leaked out of magazines by the time he got on the phone, a desert rose or something,

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the headline was gushing copy of the revival of Poppies and hope that yeah the and I think

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the woman who wrote it never wrote a poem again but she she gave them what they wanted,

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which was his gushing thing about this elegant, beautiful, sassy, intelligent woman who married into this extraordinary family.

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And they were modernising their country and a lot of people for what it was.

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But anyway, so when I saw it in 2015,

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I thought it might be some science face at the very least about what he'd done to his country, done to his people.

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You look just the same. You know, I'd aged to God sake, is exhausted in front of a reporter and the place to look like that was before the Syrian war.

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And what was his fault, by the way? It's nothing to do with me having this old picture.

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I think about Assad is he is extraordinarily polite in the most you know, I'm sure in the olden days you didn't know he was.

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And so you go took him back to meet some of these delightfully rude flowers.

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He you know, he when you have private time with him before the on camera interview and and he's waiting in L.A.

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room and this little is rather grand in fact guest house in a big palace on the hill in Damascus.

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And and he said, I'm going. Do you think Curtis offers you tea and then starts talking about what he thinks?

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I mean, I think that he's tries to be like his dad.

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He wants to be the spider in the centre of the world. He wants to be the man who understands power and manipulates power and who people respect.

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And I think part of his problem was he you know, his father was a extremely formidable man.

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Bashar is enough of a chip off the old block to be able to replicate his dad.

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You know, he has a strained relationship with his brother in the way that his father had a strange relationship with his brother.

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And anyway, so Assad, by the end, he's yes,

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he's extremely courteous and practically breaks his back to try and make sure that you walk through the door ahead of him.

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And it's a bit of a it's a bit mind blowing, too.

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I mean, I don't think he's the kind of guy to turn torture chamber or anything like that.

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I'm sure he never sees the call, but he's clearly very relaxed about what happens.

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So he's a full partner. Anyway, that's enough for me for the time being.

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On the contrary. Questions. I want to pick up where you left off with your sons.

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So yesterday a lot of us were treated to the spectacle of Chris Mason interviewing Liz Truss.

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Yes. Wow. Now, God, I mean, who needs foreign correspondents when you've got this built in entertainment?

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Who needs political drama when you've got Westminster? I mean, there's not a better scripted programme on TV than the 10:00 news.

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But the question is, is it that it's you look at the kind of questions that Chris Mason puts to a British prime minister.

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Now, the interview I'd like you to go back to is yours with Khadafi.

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Oh, yeah. Yeah. Which was a huge scoop. It was, you know, and it took a lot of your fixers time to make it happen.

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Well, when you go to speak to an Arab dictator, you have to suspend the rules of British journalism.

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You can't put the questions to them the way you do it back home.

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That's and, you know, maybe you reflect a little bit on what you have to do to your principles as a

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journalist to survive as a middle East editor when interviewing dictators.

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Well, to start with, maybe the question is we should be maybe we are a little too softly,

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softly and too respectful to people in the system in which we live.

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I think I think Chris did a good job. I don't think Liz Truss felt that way last night after that.

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I think. Well, I think I think he he sort of held back a bit.

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And that's when we got the interview. Everyone wanted the interview.

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When the uprising started in what was it just after Mubarak went?

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So was talking about February. Yeah, I think it's when it started Benghazi, February of that year.

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Everyone to start with, no one could get in the foreign journalists.

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They wouldn't let people in. And then the word went out and it came from Gadhafi's son in that safe that we offer visas.

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So we all heard this. And the person who he was communicating with quite a lot was my late, lamented dear friend Marie Colvin,

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who worked for the Sunday Times, was killed a year later in Homs and Basic Marie.

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We were all we all thought we had our own connections, okay? But Marie had the best connections because they were with safe.

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And so finally she came to me.

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I'd known her for many years, many, many years.

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I was in Baghdad in the 1991 war with her and before that in different places in Bosnia and God knows where else anyway.

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So they said, Look, it's going to happen. She said, it's going to happen. I've been speaking to said we fixed it all.

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But, you know, she worked for the Sunday Times, so he needs TV.

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So he said he wants an American TV company and he wants a global TV company in the sky with and CNN with that.

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And so I said, you know, the global stuff for the BBC.

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And at the time, Christiane Amanpour was not with CNN.

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She was with ABC News in the States. So she considers the American the I've got to remember his name offhand.

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His name is in the book. The son of one of Gadhafi's oldest collaborators.

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And intelligence chief was the guy who was I was dealing with who was this designer urban guerrilla.

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I mean, he he we were we were all walled up in the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli,

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which is a fabulous hotel, if you ever want to spend, you know, in terms of the amenities.

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The main thing was it had some of the best isolated moments. Hotels have some of the best bathrooms I've ever been in.

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But this guy walked around as if. You know, he'd just been living in a cave for this double, and he had.

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But it was beautifully done because he had a commando type black hat he always wore.

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But it was cashmere. And the he had a sort of combat jacket, but it was one of those ones that Italian tourists were.

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And beautiful boots, but they were blue suede.

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And, you know, the thing about the whole Gadhafi coterie is they loved dressing up because as did the main man himself,

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the leader, as they always call. And the leader was the leader with whom you designed his own uniforms.

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He invented orders of chivalry and awarded them to himself.

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He had a fantastic array of medals. So, you know, the look was quite a things in the Gadhafi period.

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And so anyway, we rushed he said, come now, the leader awaits you.

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And we went down to this absolutely fantastic BMW,

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but we got in and it had suede everything inside really good suede lining armoured and my could use have put have

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recording equipment in the boot and there was a gun rack in the boot and we got in and this gun my hand and he,

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he turned around from the front seat and he was loving it and he said, it's a James Bond car isn't it.

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Since you were going to interview Gadhafi and and he was right from what are the the royal families effectively of the country.

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So anyway, to answer your question in more serious manner, you have to show that you're holding them to account.

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And also because they are all powerful in their own environment, you have to really ram it home.

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I mean, with because Assad was so polite always.

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I said to him at the beginning when I interviewed him that thing in 2015, I said, you know, I'm going to ask the hardest questions I can think of.

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He said, Ask away. Ask whatever you want. Gaddafi There was nothing like that.

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He was, he was somewhat out of it. But the thing was what I liked about my questions to him,

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which were the bits that everybody used and is that because I he was saying My people love me.

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And I said, well, I've seen people demonstrating against you today because and he was he was saying, no, it's impossible.

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My people love me. And he went into English from Arabic and he said, My people love me.

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They all love me, they love me. And I said, I've seen them demonstrating, saying, you need to go.

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No, he was dismissing it. I think he believed his own propaganda.

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Yeah, he'd been in power since 1969.

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Wherever he went, he was surrounded by a cheering crowd.

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In the time I spent quite a few months over that year and I got to know the main faces because they're all busted, you know?

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But they they were like the sort of people who professional employed to be as welcoming party.

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I think wherever he went this has gone on not just for it was for years and years and years but I think and he was eccentric tending to loopy.

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And I think that he I think he come to believe his own propaganda.

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I think I think dictators who live in a bubble after a while believe their own publicity and they believe and it's complete nonsense.

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And of course, he hollowed out the country and hollowed out the institutions.

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The with the once the once the ruling family had gone.

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Everything collapsed. Not that there was much to collapse, in a sense.

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So. Yes. So the thing is, though, that because, you know, we're also concerned about how an interview sounds and looks,

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it's very important to say the question to safe to say, you know, I mean, with Assad,

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I was asking him about barrel bombs because it had been documented already.

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There was video I'd been across because we had some connections with various rebel groups.

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So I've been across from regime held Damascus into Duma, particularly in Duma in Eastern Ghouta.

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And I saw the aftermath of these attacks burnt out buildings,

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bits of barrel bits of the netting that some of the things came down and, and, and it was so well documented by then.

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So I said to him, look, I have seen I've seen it myself in my own eyes.

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I've seen the consequences of what these bombs do. And there's so much video around.

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And he started making a about it know, he said, next thing you'd be saying, we're throwing cooking pots at the pots.

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Barrels. Yes, there were bullets. We fired bullets at terrorists.

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But that's it. And I really pushed him on the point, and he was just laughing.

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And it's funny what goes through people's minds, what they think is a convincing.

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Let me keep pushing you, though. What goes through your mind as a journalist?

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Do the interviews with dictators, did you ever feel frightened, you know, in talking to some of these other.

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No, because you're there in a very controlled environment.

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And, you know, if they allow in the international media to talk to the boss, then you're going to be fired.

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They're not going to. I mean, what's the worst thing to kick me out of the country?

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I think maybe. Yeah, well, that. Yeah, you could.

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You could get loose. I mean, you know. Yeah, it's.

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Yes, you could have it. I said it could happen.

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I think what is way more scary is dealing with guys at a roadblock who who may have killed someone that morning,

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physically, himself, personally or what.

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I mean, I write in the book about seeing the bus at the bus station in Damascus that went to Raqqa.

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I felt scared looking at the sign, you know, when at the time that that ISIS was running, when the you know, the caliphate was at its height,

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I felt scared even looking at the bus and imagining what it would be on that bus,

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going towards the first ISIS's checkpoint, we came to the outskirts of Raqqa.

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I mean, that kind of thing. I mean, I I'll give you one example.

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In fact, the one of the reviews, the fox, I should have made more of it and said how dangerous it probably was.

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But one of the the militias in Iraq the cycle I look I went I saw their spiritual leader in Baghdad and I said, can I come and see you?

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And that was again, I mean, he's quite scary. And I said, Can I come and see your guys in the field?

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And they said, yes. And so the next day we went out and they were right near the front line where they were fighting the ISIS people.

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And we went and I was with the local producer.

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I work with that experienced journalist, also a Shia.

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And he look, he's never knows. He looked so nervous walking into their HQ.

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And I said I said, what's what's eating you today?

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What's the problem? He said, to get it. These people killed without hesitation.

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They felt that, of course, they had a record of kidnapping and killing British people, too, in the journey.

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Yeah. So they killed without hesitation the leader, the chief uniform guy in there was the little fellow with the most piercing eyes I have ever seen.

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And he was looking at us and he was saying, I've been asked to entertain you here and be responsible for you, but I'm telling you.

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If there is any if I think your life I will find it out.

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And you know, he went on this way. I think I would tell a lie from a source.

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I will not tell a lie because it was I mean, he was a you could see this guy's got oceans of blood on their hands, some of them.

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But the reason why it's necessary, I think, for journalists to go to dangerous places sometimes is because I'm a big believer.

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You know, I'm aware that there are issues about people trusting what we do.

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And I think that I'm a big believer in eyewitness reporting because I think that is the way to help build trust,

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because I hope that people over the many years realise that if I say something,

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it's because I've seen it or spoken to someone and not it's not something that's popped into my inbox or seen on social media or anything like that.

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So that's why, unfortunately, at times it means mixing with unsavoury characters.

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Well, you get a mix with a lot of savoury characters too.

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And I think some of the heroes that come through in the book are the people you interview to get behind

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stories from the way they impact the lives of people like you and me who are in Gaza or in Beirut.

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There are so many nice people. I me.

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Yeah, most of my my work and of course, you know, a perception of the Middle East among people who are there and don't know.

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It is very often that it's, you know, this seething mass of war torn countries.

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And while there is quite a bit of war, sadly and even quite a bit of seething, in fact, you know, as everyone in this room knows,

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the remarkable people and extraordinary history and culture, and people don't deserve what politics is of their way, basically.

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Yeah, that's right. And you know, this the way that they've been so comprehensively failed.

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Well, by everybody from the foreigners who invaded and colonised or took them over and trying to,

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you know, for their own reasons, to their own leaders,

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to those, you know, to that generation of military men who took over in the fifties, the Baathist, you name it, and any number of false dawns.

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And underlying all of that, not just crisis of governance, but corruption, which is like cancer,

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I think in a state, any state corruption is like cancer in the human body.

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It eats away and sooner or later it kills you. Now, Jeremy, I like you.

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I mean, I'd go so far as to say we're friends, but you're a nightmare. I sense a bus, is there?

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There is no there is no discipline to the way in which you address the questions I put you.

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And you have a great way of taking off in your own direction. I haven't touched a quarter of the questions I had.

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Going to ambush you with Iran as to why it is is possible for this is probably because well I'm on the 10:00

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news they say we've got a lot you know where you that bit where you have to sit in the studio and talk to you.

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If you're the political editor, you get about five questions that answers you wax lyrical.

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If you're the Middle East editor, as I'm now, the international as they say, we've got a nice long slot for you today.

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Jeremy one minute 30 and you so you know, suddenly I'll go confronted by the broad expanses of Oxford University to go.

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You said the soundbite went out the door.

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I was, I was at the Cheltenham Literary Festival the weekend before then and my source for about three years.

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So I was going to sit actually. Well, yes, sorry, yes, sorry.

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No, no, no, no need to apologise because the content is fascinating.

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But you've made this shift from being Middle East editor to international editor.

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And if there's something that ties your journalism together, it is war.

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And there is is my subject is war. There is a tendency in your profession that there are war journalists.

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Yeah. You covered Bosnia, you covered Ukraine, you've covered Middle Eastern wars.

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In other words, if you're international, your scope, it's less to do with politics and more war.

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Well, as you know, Eugene was an extension of politics.

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By the means we go. There you go. I'm sure you learned of your undergraduate.

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And I think, yes, the thing is, we live in turbulent times and journalists like me, we don't really like the phrase war correspondent.

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It seems to think of either some terrible adrenaline junkie and they do exist, you know, walking around in big boots.

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And even when he's back in London and they do exist or maybe, you know, sort of a man from scoop in a white suits and a cleft stick and.

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I think that I got involved in, first of all, went to a war because which was El Salvador in 1989.

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Oh, you did, Salvador? Well, I was working in Washington at the time, and I went to Salvador, and I was just curious.

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I felt this was a major part of human experience, and I wanted to see what it was like.

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You know, I was just very curious about about how it felt, how it felt to be in the place where people were shooting.

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I'd never heard a shot fired in anger. I'd never seen a dead body. I've seen so many other you know, it could be a undertake, to be honest.

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And what I think is that if you try and cover it in a smart way, then you reflect the politics and you reflect why they're there.

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If the story is simply, you know, here is Stephan, aged six, in the hospital bed.

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He's been blown up. And then you're in another country and you see his Mohammed, age six, in the hospital bed.

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He's blown up. And then if you say you're somewhere else and there's a you know, what I'm saying is that is that you have to say why it's happening.

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When when reporting is about just, oh, my God, I've seen some terrible stuff today.

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Well, yeah, that's okay for a couple of days.

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But when it's a long running story, like Ukraine or like the Israelis and the Palestinians are like Iraq or Syria or whatever,

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you have to get into why and then you get into the politics.

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And so for me, the challenge of it is to try and approach it in such a way that people don't just think God, they're violent.

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Shiites are. They're killing each other. They think, well, there's a reason why this is going on.

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And it's my job to try and explain that. And sometimes you succeed, sometimes sometimes you don't.

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I would have to say, having watched most of your broadcast career, I think you're 32 years out.

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Wow. That your success rate is one that leads a lot of the people in your profession as admiring of your work.

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Thank you. As those of us who are your viewers. Well, thank you.

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It's been a lot of fun, of course, teasing you and talking with you and sharing your reflections with us.

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I want to before we break, just recommend to everybody the making of the modern Middle East.

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My view on this book, a gripping and compelling account that swings between gut wrenching eyewitness stories and dispassionate analysis.

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I always laying bare the hopes and horrors of the Middle East in the 21st century.

325
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A remarkable book. He didn't pay you to say that?

326
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It is what I think. Yeah. And there are a few more copies out there.

327
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And Christmas is only two months away, you senior scholar.

328
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So more than that, before we break a new clip and everything, I'm going to escort Javi back to the table up.

329
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There were those of you who smart people already bought your copy.

330
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He will sign them for you. And those of you who have yet to buy a copy, please race as soon as we get out of here before they're all gone.

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For that, I get 20%. But. But now, please give it up for Javi.

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But.