Andrew Roberts: evaluation

Transcript context

…Now, speaking of strategic leadership, why is it that we don’t have a figure natively in Iraq and Afghanistan who had that level of leadership? A Zelensky in Iraq and Afghanistan, where in the book General Petraeus discusses the frustrations he had with Maliki in Iraq. And of course, Ghani leaves Afghanistan when the Taliban start routing the Afghan forces. And Karzai, of course, also in Afghanistan. Yes, these guys come in for a bit of a pasting, understandably in our book, because they are not the sort of Churchillian figures that Zelensky is. I think partly it’s down to the sectarian and tribal nature of Iraqi and Afghan society, where, however good a leader is, he doesn’t automatically command the attention and loyalty of other people in the same country. The thing about Zelensky was that it was very clear very early on that he was speaking for the huge majority of the country, and it’s very difficult for an Iraqi or Afghan leader, however good they are. And I’m not saying for a minute that Maliki and Karzai were any good, let alone the last chap who gets into his helicopter weighed down with suitcases full of money and hightails it out of there. By complete contrast, you do have Zelensky, who shows all of those four qualities of leadership that I mentioned, and also, of course, who decided he was going to stay in Kyiv, fight in Kyiv, his family were going to stay in Kyiv, he wasn’t going to let any military-age male Ukrainians leave the country. And his big idea was, “I need ammunition, not a ride.” What is our big idea, the Americans’ big idea in Ukraine? What is the ceasefire, or end arrangement, we are driving at which we think would be plausible for both sides to accept?…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.