Insight with Martin Woollacott

Martin Wollacott, foreign affairs correspondent of the Guardian, talks to Charles Glass about the striking similarities between the war in Iraq and the Suez crisis which brought down a government and changed the world politics forever.

With Tony Blair and George Bush’s authority increasingly threatened by the blow-back from their venture in the Middle East, the Suez crisis of 1956 has new relevance.

Join us as we discuss the painful lessons of the past and the unplanned consequences of power shifts in the Middle East.

Martin Woollacott is a Foreign Affairs commentator for the Guardian, having previously been their Foreign News editor for six years. In over forty years experience as a journalist he has won six awards, including the James Cameron Award for his coverage of Kurdistan in 1991, and was nominated International Reporter of the Year for his coverage of the Vietnam war in 1975. He is the author of After Suez: Adrift in the American Century.

Charles Glass has been a freelance writer and broadcaster since 1973. He has covered wars in Eritrea, Rhodesia, Somalia, Iraq and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He is the author of The Tribes Triumphant and most recently The Northern Front.