Richard Engel Talks To Hugh Hewitt

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Hugh Hewitt Show:

NBC Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel On The Election Perception Abroad

Hugh Hewitt

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

 

Audio

 

(Snip)

 

HH: Okay, where are we on that scale of the ongoing expansion of liberty and literacy in a growing number of stable regimes?

 

RE: Ah, okay. Here’s an interesting point. And I just wrote a book, and one of the key elements was exactly this subject. Right now, we’re in a period of turmoil internationally. And I think we’re at a phase of world politics where the kaleidoscope hasn’t quite settled. And that makes people very nervous. And we have ISIS, you have collapse of at least three states in the Middle East – Iraq, Libya and Syria, and that has been profoundly unsettling to the world. That has been profoundly unsettling for Europe. I mean, the fact that you had these rise of the right wing groups in Europe, and the fear that the migrant crisis is going to return is all related to this tumult which I think is based in the Middle East. So how does this relate to the question you’re asking? I think when there are periods of profound international instability, there is a tendency to reach for strongmen. There is a tendency toward isolationism. And I think there is, over the next five, six years, maybe even a decade, we’re going to see the return of strong regimes, the return of the strongmen. So that’s on the stability part. But to get there, I think they’re going to be rolling back civil liberties. They’re going to be rolling back human rights, the ability to protest, the ability to speak out. So I think we’re going to have, of those three things – economic prosperity you’re talking about, literacy and education, stability and freedom, I think we’re going to see uneven results…

 

HH: Troubling.

 

RE: More tendency to reach out toward stability, but at the expense of some civil liberty.

 

HH: Now I know about A Fist In The Hornet’s Nest and War Journal. What’s the new book?

 

RE: The new book was about the, it says And Then All Hell Broke Loose.

 

HH: Oh.

 

RE: And it’s about the Middle East, and you know, and what it is, is it tracked, you mentioned Mubarak. So use Mubarak as an example for what’s happened in the Middle East. So Mubarak was a pro-American, secular, military-lite dictator. You know, he was harsh on his enemies, and sent them to jail, and these jails were rife with torture and terrible things. But he wasn’t, say, Saddam Hussein. He didn’t have a sadistic streak in him. So this was the setup that was in place in the Middle East, really, since World War II, and more specifically, since 1967. You had these big men who controlled all of the Middle East – Mubarak and the Assad family and Ben Ali in Tunisia.

 

HH: And coming up on a break, Richard. I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell people about And Then All Hell Broke Loose and then get you back to talk about that book, because I need to follow this. People need to follow this going on. But I appreciate you joining us. It just came out. I’m going to read it, and then I’m going to get you back and talk about that soon. Thank you, Richard.

 

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And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East

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