‘We’ve transformed Syria into a screaming bowl of fire and pain’, PETER HITCHENS questions the West’s meddling in foreign countries in latest episode of new Mail podcast with SARAH VINE

• PODCAST: Acclaimed columnists Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens tackle one big idea each week on our new politics podcast – Alas Vine & Hitchens. Listen here

By JOSEPH PALMER

Published: 12:13 GMT, 13 March 2025 | Updated: 12:42 GMT, 13 March 2025

Western nations, particularly the UK, must stop their ‘completely baffling’ interventions into the affairs of foreign countries, acclaimed broadcaster Peter Hitchens argues in the latest episode of the Alas Vine & Hitchens podcast.

Reflecting on the recent toppling of Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad, the best-selling author told his co-host, columnist and writer Sarah Vine, that the UK’s meddling has only wrought a ‘murderous chaos’ upon the Middle East.

Hitchens questioned how Britain can continue to finance the overthrow of despotic yet ‘stable’ regimes whilst at home, public services crumble and illegal migration spirals out of control.

He asked: ‘Why do we keep messing around in other people’s countries when we can’t fix our own?

‘We can’t fix the potholes; we can’t teach our children to read; there aren’t enough dentists. Yet, we constantly rain missiles and bombs over countries we think we can fix. What gives us this idea?

‘Syria, thanks to Western intervention, has turned from a pretty hideous but stable tyranny into a screaming bowl of fire and pain.’

The UN reports that since the outbreak of war in Syria, 7.2 million of the country’s inhabitants have been displaced, whilst more than 90 percent of those Syrians who stayed live below the poverty line.

Between 2011 and 2021, over 350,000 people died fighting in the conflict, which ultimately saw a US-backed Islamist group, the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), seize power.

Hitchens railed against his co-host’s view that the pursuit of natural resources underpins the West’s desire to interfere in foreign regimes, instead believing a flawed ‘utopian’ vision of geopolitics forces the bloc’s arm.

‘Since the Second World War, there’s been this sort of Messianic desire in the West to make the world a better place.

‘Everything is that war all over again: the person they’re trying to overthrow is always Hitler. It’s a form of utopianism.

‘There’s nothing wrong with it as a desire – but the difficulty is in actually making it happen. The world is much more complicated than that.’

Listen to Alas Vine & Hitchens, with Sarah Vine and Peter Hitchens wherever you get your podcasts now. New episodes released every Wednesday.

Peter Hitchens:‘Why do we keep messing around in other people’s countries when we can’t fix our own?’ Listen here

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‘We’ve transformed Syria into a screaming bowl of fire and pain’, PETER HITCHENS questions the West’s meddling in foreign countries in latest episode of new Mail podcast with SARAH VINE

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