This article is taken from the October 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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In the summer of 2013 I was talking to a senior French diplomat about the Syrian regime’s slaughter of more than 1,400 of its own citizens, including many children, in a nerve agent attack on Ghouta, eastern Damascus. President Obama had declared that chemical attacks were a red line and crossing it would bring “enormous consequences”.

The world waited expectantly for America’s response. France was the only major European country to pledge support for the expected airstrikes. Its military and navy were primed. But my French contact was incredulous. Word came through: stand down.

A nervous Obama, fearful of the potential blowback, had cancelled the strikes. Episode 8 of Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? examines the Ghouta attack and its aftermath in forensic detail. There were indeed “enormous consequences” for Syria’s President Assad — although not the ones that he had feared.

Israeli film maker Dror Moreh has assembled a stellar cast for his eight-part documentary series that steps inside the White House and the American political establishment. Several of the key officials and powerbrokers interviewed such as Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright have since died.

Others, including Hillary Clinton, Antony Blinken, Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta are still alive. The eight episodes cover America’s actions in Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur and Libya, with two episodes devoted to Syria.

Narrated by Meryl Streep, the series, now showing on BBC iPlayer, takes a classic approach, mixing talking heads with contemporary footage. Each episode investigates the different crises and Washington’s responses. Moreh’s real skill is to get the grandees of foreign policy to open up about the details of how policy decisions were taken and their regrets.

I reported from Bosnia and so was especially interested in episode two. Madeleine Albright, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, was a passionate interventionist. But Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, looked at the Balkans through the prism of Vietnam and refused to deploy the US military.

Tragically, that same caution shaped President Obama’s Syria policy. Samantha Power, once one of his closest confidants, and Ben Rhodes, another key adviser, speak frankly about their time in the White House. Both are clearly haunted by the Syrian crisis and America’s failure. Their interviews make for gripping viewing.

This chilling, riveting series is vital for anyone wanting to understand how power is deployed (or not) in today’s chaotic world. Obama eventually called for regime change in Syria and for Assad to step down. Yet he refused to use American power to make that happen. This was the worst of all options.

As the programme shows, the consequences of his inaction were rapid and clear: an unprecedented opportunity for Russia to flex its global muscles without fear of American response. Russian planes were soon bombing Aleppo, turning the historic city into dust and rubble and slaughtering its inhabitants.

The following year Russia annexed Crimea, and its client militia took control of swathes of eastern Ukraine. Eleven years on from the Ghouta attack, President Assad remains in power, propped up by Russia. Russia is still waging war against Ukraine, raining down missiles and shells on civilians. As October 7th shows, its ally Iran and its client militias are more dangerous than ever.

Whatever America’s flaws, its absence from the global stage, as this series makes clear, leaves a space quickly filled by far more malevolent actors. Be warned: some of the footage is very disturbing. Bosnian Serb execution squads, the Einsatzgruppen of the Balkan wars, are shown at length shooting Muslim prisoners in the back after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995, the victims’ bodies jerking as the bullets slam into them. More than 7,000 men and boys were killed over several days.

After Srebrenica, the United States finally acted. The Bosnian Serbs were bombed and the war quickly came to an end. Madeleine Albright was proved right — sometimes military intervention works.

It would almost certainly have also worked in 1992 or 1993 and so saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 20 years later Obama failed to take similarly decisive action. Syria paid the price. The dead children of Ghouta, their mouths agape, their faces twisted, will haunt you.

Hostage, a Swedish thriller series now showing on Channel 4’s Walter Presents, is a smart take on a familiar story arena. Terrorists have taken control of a plane en route to the United States. The passengers remain oblivious to the threat, but the crew, and the Swedish authorities, know what is happening.

The series is a follow-up to Stockholm Requiem, a crime drama also showing on Walter Presents. Both are based on books by Swedish author Kristina Ohlsson, a former officer in SAPO, the Swedish domestic security service.

Most of Hostage unfolds in the SAPO headquarters and on board the plane. The SAPO scenes feel authentic, as does the interrogation of Said Khelifi, a Syrian academic. The terrorists want him freed — but is he really connected to the hijacking?

The first couple of episodes could use a bit more thrust, but the series soon speeds up and reaches cruising height, especially when the American authorities threaten to shoot the plane out of the sky. There are echoes of Hijack, the British series starring Idris Elba, showing on Apple TV+.

But the characters’ back stories, a forbidden love affair between a SAPO and CIA operative, and the intelligence agencies’ storyline make for richer viewing.