twin defense of a values—based international order. but much of the world isn't buying it. inside america, too, there is significant pushback. my guest is fiona hill, former us national security council expert on russia. how dangerous is this new world disorder? fiona hill, welcome to hardtalk. thank you so much, stephen.

as we speak to each other, the world's headlines are being made by the conflict in the middle east between israel and hamas. undoubtedly, too, it has sucked up the attention of the biden administration. what effect do you think it is having on america's wider national security and strategic interests? well, clearly, this is having some considerable effect. and we've seen, of course, that president biden has linked the two together, both ukraine and israel — not just for the purposes of trying to get military support and financial aid through the us congress, but also because he does see a linkage here. and i have to actually underscore that there is one and it does come in the form of russia, but also of iran. i mean, i think perhaps stepping back from all of the horrors that we're seeing on the ground on a day—to—day basis. and, looking at the broader geopolitical perspective around this, we actually can see the ways that now, the actions in gaza and israel and ukraine are clearly linked

because russia has been increasingly dependent on iran for support in its pursuit of the war in ukraine, notjust in terms of getting drones and other equipment from iran. iran, along with north korea, has been all in recently in terms of helping provide russia with military support, which is quite a flip, if you think about it, from the past. but it's also becoming more political and much more of an alliance, if you would. and of course, iran is always a factor in the middle east. and in previous times, russia would actually benefit from being able to have close relationships with all of the middle east players, including iran and also israel. but we've seen now a rupture between russia and israel, notjust because of what's happened in gaza, but because of the fact that russia has actually made a strategic, if notjust tactical decision, to align with iran. and what you have just done

there in that fascinating answer is make a lot of real political linkages between different nation states, all of which have a hostility right now to the united states. but it seems to me whenjoe biden makes the linkage between the two conflicts, he's going further. he's talking about points of principle. he's telling the world, "we in the united states represent a defense of the rules—based order." and in both of these conflicts, that's what we are about. does that element of his argument hold water for you? look, i think he's going to have to work very hard at making that argument, not for me personally, but i think for many of the players in the international... but you're an influential foreign policy analyst. i just wonder whether you think joe biden in making that argument is doing something deeply unwise because many people around the world simply will not travel with him down that intellectual track. well, it's because of the framing that many people have about these different conflicts. of course it is. and that is part of the problem, because he's presenting a frame that isn't a kind of a natural leap for most people.

and also, because he has framed the war in ukraine previously as some struggle between basically democracy and autocracy and authoritarian systems. and most people in the world didn't really buy that because it is quite a stretch to start dividing the world up into countries that are most evidently democracies when democracy is in trouble at home in the united states as well as in other western countries and authoritarian systems. he was he's been trying all the way along since russia's invasion of ukraine to make a very neat split in the world. and as you're suggesting here, most countries and most populations don't really buy that. they see the world as a very messy place. they do. but they also see... do they not see a rank hypocrisy? cos this isn'tjust about ideas about democracy. it's about ideas of sovereignty and of adherence to international law. and when it comes to those issues, while ukraine says there was a clear violation of its sovereignty and a violation of international law when putin invaded

ukrainian territory, when we flip over to the middle east, what we see is an israeli occupation of palestinian territory, which has lasted for many decades. we see violations of what many people regard as the laws of war when it comes to laying siege to gaza and to the bombing of civilian areas. now, these are points which the biden administration doesn't make when it comes to israel, but it's certainly made those points when it came to criticism of russia in ukraine. in your view, is that hypocrisy? well, i think there's an even deeper problem than you're pointing out here, which goes back to the united states invasion of iraq in 2003. what we're dealing with here is 20 years of perceptions, and notjust perceptions, but the reality of what the united states has done in the wake of 911. so, we're looking at this in a contemporary frame. but the whole world has

been shaped by american interventions since 911, which have actually undercut the united states�*s position to be able to very effectively make the kinds of framing and the kinds of statements and positions that we're talking about right now. so, if we want to go back even further, the problem for the united states begins in the decision to go into iraq in 2003. there are principles here, aren't they? it's very interesting to me that a seniorfigure in the state department, josh paul, director of congressional and public affairs at the state department's bureau of political and military affairs. for a decade, he chose to resign in recent days, saying, and i quote, "the response that israel is taking and with it the american support "both for that response and for the status quo of the israeli occupation "will only lead to more and deeper suffering "for both the israelis and the palestinian people." he said, "biden�*s support for — blind support, indeed — "for one side was leading to shortsighted, destructive, "unjust and contradictory

us policy positions." you're no longer in government, but you served various presidents, including donald trump. were you in a position in the administration today, would you be considering resignation on a point of principle? look, it's very difficult. i wasn't injosh paul's position. i don't work on the middle east. so let's just make this very clear right at the beginning here that i can't exactly say whatjosh paul's position was within the administration, the things that he was saying up until now. i think one of the problems that we have right away is this lack of continuity and people taking their eyes off the ball. we're talking about the united states, but frankly, where was the united kingdom? where were france? where were germany? where were other players? israel itself, in terms of analysing this situation, colleagues that i have who've been working on the middle east for a very long time were basically pulling all the alarms up until the hamas attack on israel on october 7th. they were saying this situation is getting out of hand. wasjosh paul saying that beforehand? well, i tell you who wasn't. i don't actually know. jake sullivan, chief

national security advisor to the president, who, just a few weeks before october 7th, in the murderous assault in southern israel, jake sullivan announced that as far as he was concerned, the mideast was more stable and quieter than he could ever remember. well, that's actually the point that i'm making, because, in fact, most people are stepping back and they're taking their eyes off the ball. and we're actually thinking that the situation was actually going along a very even—keeled trajectory. they'd be moving from the abraham accords. so, the focus on israel making peace with some of the arab nations that had started under the trump administration, continuing that to basically then move on to the next phase of israel and saudi arabia regularising their relationship. and everybody had been making the assumption that the palestinian issue was in some regard settled or at least was going to be then put on the table after that... because, frankly, they didn't care, it seems, very much about the occupation of occupied territory when israel was doing it.

they didn't care too much about how israel treated palestinians both in the west bank and with the effective siege of gaza. they might�*ve cared, but not thought there was a certain amount of urgency, because we can flip this back to the area that i worked on in terms of ukraine. we can also say that most people didn't really care that much about ukraine. president trump certainly didn't. he thought that it was an exploitable situation and all that he cared about was basically having the president of ukraine, president zelensky, actually do some dirty work for him that would affect his own political positions. i'm afraid that, again, as i say, i don't know quite whatjosh paul's position was and the things he was saying inside of the government, not working with him closely. but in many of these circumstances, politicians put their own political expediency first, and then they lose sight of the substantive issues that they need to be caring about as a result of that. i want to bring it back to ukraine injust a second, but one more thought about the big geopolitical picture. do you believe it matters that america seems to be in danger of losing this argument

about democracy, values, the rules—based order with the so—called global south? look, it doesn'tjust matter for the united states. it matters to the united kingdom as well and for other european western countries. what we're seeing now, and this is what we're seeing brought together now by ukraine and israel and gaza being linked not just by what we're hearing from joe biden, but from russia as well, is an attempt to basically create a major rift between the north and the south on a global context. russia is playing to the hilt along with iran and also, to some degree, china. this idea that now the western world, the united states and europe are in opposition to the rest of the world and that gaza and palestine... it comes back to this phrase, double standards. just one more quote. king abdullah ofjordan, of course, a partner of the united states in many ways. but right now it seems deeply angered by the american position — anywhere else, he said the other day, attacking civilian infrastructure and deliberately starving an entire population of food, water and basic

necessities would be condemned. accountability would be enforced. it seems, he says international law loses all value if, as of now, it is implemented selectively. yeah, look, i agree with that. but i also think we've shifted away from ukraine where russia is doing exactly the same. the point that i'm trying to make so that our viewers will hear this as well, is russia is now trying to exploit this to pretend that it is still, as it tried to present itself during the cold war, the standard bearer of the national liberation movements. so unfortunately, because of the way that many issues getting framed, russia is trying to take advantage of us and to pump up the idea of these double standards. russia also has a double standard. iran has a double standard. and frankly, a lot of the arab states have a double standard as well. where have they been in terms of supporting the palestinians? they were quite happy also to make peace with israel and to move beyond thinking about the plight of palestinians in gaza

and in the west bank. let's stick with putin, then. you're telling me that he sees another sort of diplomatic opportunity in what is happening in the middle east? do you believe that events in ukraine on the battlefield are also pointing to a conviction that putin seems to have had for some time that he can outlast ukraine when it comes to winning this war. yes. and he's pretty sure that as a result of exploiting all of the sentiment and the perceptions and realities of double standards in the middle east, that this will help him even more. putin is pretty convinced that he can erode support for the united states. he's presenting ukraine as a proxy of the united states, and he is exactly convinced that he can force the capitulation of ukraine as a result. the diplomatic arena is important, but so is the battlefield. i mean, iwonder what you make of what we've seen in recent months, you know, ukraine's determination to push this counteroffensive and we're now into, what, november and frankly, winter and the ice is coming.

so the counter—offensive probably is going to culminate — and they've gained very little territory. zaluzhny, the military chief in ukraine, calls it a stalemate. zelensky didn't like that, but a stalemate surely in the end helps putin, who believes, again, that his scale, his advantage in men and material in the long run will prevail. let's flip that fora moment, right? remember back to the beginning of the war in february of 2022, what did we expect? we expected that ukraine would capitulate in the first two weeks because of all these things that you've just laid out here, that the view immediately of ukrainians would be, "we can't possibly prevail, we're going to lose." well, what's happened? we could argue that ukraine has fought russia to a stalemate. yes, they haven't been able to regain all of their territory... still lost 20% of their sovereign territory. but they've still got kyiv and the whole of ukraine. what putin was going for was all of ukraine. he's already taken most of belarus without any of us noticing in effective terms.

so actually, if you flip the way that we look at this, ukraine has been remarkable in fighting russia to a standstill. there's also been something... but i'm not looking back, i'm looking forward. i'm looking at the united states where it is clear there is a very significant number of republican politicians on capitol hill who will no longer support new finance and new military assistance to ukraine. yeah. we don't know whetherjoe biden can push through a new package. he wants more than $60 billion more of assistance to ukraine. but right now it's not clear whether he can push that through. putin is watching. yes, well, two things, stephen. also watching the united kingdom. for one thing, it's notjust about the united states. it's primarily about the united states. it isn't primarily about... i actually fundamentally disagree with you. it is not primarily about the united states. this is about european security. we've already had in the united kingdom before the invasion of ukraine, litvinenko, the skripals. you've had all kinds of operations going on in the united kingdom, assassinations in the tiergarten in berlin as well.

russia has been a bad actor in europe against european security for a very long time here. that really wasn't my point. my point was about where the russian threat lies. it's not about where the response sits. yes, but the response doesn't just sit in the united states. if europe doesn't care and the united kingdom doesn't care about security, then the response sits in the united states, and then, yes, putin will prevail, because the united states is not going to keep bailing out europe for 100 years. world war one, world war two... mm. that's where the debate is. so if europe doesn't care and the united kingdom doesn't care, then absolutely that is probably going to mean that putin will prevail. now, if people in the united kingdom... it's fascinating what you're saying. do you think — and you look at european reaction to the war very closely — do you think at the moment europe gets that, and europe does care enough and will sustain that care for long enough? well, i think that increasingly europeans are getting this. and it's notjust, you know, we shouldn't be just following what's happening in slovakia or hungary. macron in france, president macron is being very

articulate about this. i'vejust spent quite a bit of time in germany, and the germans absolutely understand that this is an existential threat. they may have a different view of how this is going to end, but they do understand that this is all about european security. and i think here in the united kingdom, that's absolutely the case as well. and just one point where the ukrainians are pushing through is in the black sea. while we've been all obsessed about the counter—offensive where russia has dug in with land mines and all kinds of anti—tank and other defenses, the ukrainians have had a lot of success in actually breaking through the blockade in the black sea to the point that some of the most important of the russian black sea fleet have been relocating from crimea, and the russians have signed a new deal with the abkhazian government in the breakaway province of georgia to build up a new base on the black sea on the opposite side to crimea. you've had dinner with putin in the past. i just wonder with your knowledge of him and the way he operates and the way

he thinks, do you think there is any conceivable end to this in negotiation — in zelensky, if he's still in charge in ukraine, and putin, who looks as though his grip on moscow right now is relatively stable despite prigozhin — any chance of those two agreeing on a meaningful, sustainable compromise? well, yes, if it is not the case that we look like we're about to just hand ukraine over on a platter. it will only be a meaningful compromise if it's notjust the united states sitting down across the table and having yalta 2.0 like world war ii, which is exactly what putin wants. but when it's made very clear that this is important for other european players, for their security as well. so if it is all about the united states, well, then good luck with that for europe and for ukraine, because of course, it will all get bogged down in debates about funding about the american elections a yearfrom now, in november 2024, and about these domestic politics and debates. well, if that's what europeans — including the united kingdom,

i'm not talking about the eu here, but the united kingdom is an important player in nato and in european security — want to do is just sort of give up the security perspective again to the united states, then it is much more likely that this ends on putin's terms and that will not be the end. he will pocket it as a victory for now and will keep on putting pressure on ukraine and also on other countries. why do you think finland joined nato? precisely because they could read it as being important for their security when russia invaded ukraine. so i think we have to flip the way that we talk about this and the way that we think about this to get a meaningful ending to this dreadful war. you just alluded there to putin looking very carefully at what's happening in us politics and what might happen in the november 2024 election. now, in your career, you've always been a sort of diplomat and a strategist. you've avoided partisan politics, but you look at what is happening in american politics. you listen to donald trump when he says that if he returns

to power, he will wage a war on what he calls the deep state, the malign impacts of the deep state. as a former official, do you worry about what a new trump presidency might do to the united states and its government? i do. and i think that people here should worry as well, because what you will see is a hollowing out of the us federal government. so in other words, it will become actually quite a weak state and more power and activity will devolve down to the actual states themselves. you're seeing a kind of a soft secession or an unraveling of the united states that will make it much more difficult to deal with for the united kingdom and other partners of the united states. and i think that united states�* leadership will also be very much eroded. so getting back to what we were talking about before, i wouldn't be making my bet that all of the security of europe and elsewhere will be decided in the united states because the federal government might not be in a position to do that.

and do you take at face value some of the talk from trump and some of his closest associates, for example, of taking the united states out of nato, completely challenging the wto and its goal of reducing tariff barriers? trump says he might well increase them on a whole host of things. would trump, in a second term, go much further in challenging the multilateral world order? well, yes, because, look, i mean, i don't want to be rude, but the way you've framed all these questions to me is all about the united states. if trump thinks it's all about the united states, then his view is, why should the united states be paying for basically everybody else�*s security and everybody else�*s prosperity? he doesn't see this as a win—win. he sees this as zero sum. we've all heard him say over and over again, the rest of the world is "ripping off the united states". "nato rips off the united states. "the european union is worse than china — "they rip off the united states." absolutely. trump will withhold... ..any kind of us assistance and will not want to be footing the bill for nato and european

security and will not want to be giving countries any undue benefit in the trade space. so absolutely take that seriously. he's made a personal point of going after, for example, former chairman of thejoint chiefs mark milley, american general — he's even in the past referred to you as a... ..deep state stiff with a nice accent. this isn't a joke question. no, of course not. do you think if trump came into power again, he would go after people like you? yeah. i don't take it as a joke at all. and i think, again, people will have to ask themselves here and elsewhere, how are they going to interact with the united states, where we have a president who is basically taking revenge against anyone who's crossed him ? he's also got a list of people he doesn't like here in the united kingdom. and, you know, you might recall a previous uk ambassador who got in trump's crosshairs, some of the difficulties when we had to try to arrange state visits and he was having a spat at least through what was then twitter with the mayor of london, for example. trump won'tjust confine his list of his version of deplorables to the united

states. he'll be taking vengeance on others who he believes have insulted him or not taking him seriously elsewhere. just a final point. you wrote not so very long ago that russia is america's ghost of christmas future, a harbinger of things to come if we cannot get over and heal our political polarisation. do you seriously sit here worrying about whether america could in the next year or two slide into autocracy? yes, if we have the election, the re—election of trump, a man with 91 criminal cases against him, two impeachment trials and a openly avowed platform of vengeance and rolling back all kinds of us commitments, as well as locking up any of his political opponents, where do we think we're going to be? i mean, if i look at... he only gets back into power, if he wins a democratic election. yeah. well... ..through the electoral college, which is another element here, which is not to say that it's not part

of the democratic system. but again, this will also be a minority government. if he doesn't win in the popular vote, we will have yet another example of a government in the united states that is supported by a minority of voters, a minority of the population, but one in which the president is able to try to ride roughshod over checks and balances that have been eroded over time. one of the other tragedies of the last several years is that now we have a very large segment of the american electorate who no longer believe in the sanctity of elections — and also in polling, a very disturbing pattern which gets back to what you just asked me at the very beginning, where about 30% of people in polls recently have believed that violence is acceptable in the pursuit of your political goals or in defense of things that you don't want to see happening. we have to end there. fiona hill, ithank you very much for joining me on hardtalk. thank you so much, stephen. thanks.

hello there. wednesday brought us some pretty big weather contrasts across the country. for the southeast of england, we have a persistent band of rain, it was raining for most of the day, bringing these rather grey skies, quite windy as well. most of the uk have actually managed to see something a bit brighter through the afternoon with some sunshine, shower clouds getting in here to northern ireland. and here are the showers on the radar picture from wednesday. the speckled shower clouds extend right out into the atlantic to near greenland. and all of those shower clouds are coming our way. so it is going to be quite an unsettled looking weather picture over the next few days, really. now, over the next few hours, a bit of rain crosses northern england,

a few showers here and there. most of them will be across western areas. these are the kind of temperatures that you'll start off thursday with. so quite a chilly start to the day, cold enough for a nip of frost across northern scotland, mostly eastern scotland, central and eastern england, east wales starting off on a dry and sunny note, the showers across western areas. but as we go through the day, you could see an odd shower just about anywhere. they'll always be most frequent, though, towards wales and southwest england where they could merge to give some slightly longer spells of rain. and as well as that, it'll be quite windy around the coast, gusts of around 40, perhaps the low 50mph. now, friday is another kind of showery day, but this time the winds are generally coming in from a northwesterly direction. and that means the showers are going to tend to be draped around coastal areas. if you live away from the coast, you've got a much better chance of it being dry and sunny as well. temperatures running quite close to average for the time of year, about 8 to 11 degrees. now, as we head into the weekend, saturday looks all right. sunday, the big question mark isjust

how quickly this band of rain comes in off the atlantic. at the moment saturday, the better of the two days of the weekend, plenty of sunshine around, maybe a few early morning mist and fog patches. but for the vast majority, it's a dry day. perhaps just one or two showers rolling in to the far northeast of scotland. temperatures not really changing too much, around 8 to 11 degrees celsius. the big question mark on sunday is just how quickly this band of rain gathers and moves in from the west. it might be a lot slower coming in. and if that happens, well, sunday could also be a dry day with plenty of sunshine around as well. so there's a bit of a question mark about sunday's forecast in terms of whether we do see that band of rain spreading its way in.

live from london, this is bbc news. israel's military pushes further into gaza, saying hamas has lost control of the north of the territory. five republican presidential candidates trade jabs at another debate — this time in the key battleground state of florida. former mcdonald's employees launch legal action over claims of sexual harassment, racism, and bullying. and actors in hollywood have struck a tenative deal with studios,

which could bring a happy ending to one of the longest strike in the us entertainment history. hello, i'm sally bundock. we begin in the middle east, where israel is saying hamas has lost control of northern gaza. a military spokesperson said people were fleeing because hamas has lost control of the north. 0ur middle east editor jeremy bowen, has been with the israeli defence forces, inside the territory. while the bbc retained editorial control of the report, the sections featuring the israeli military have been cleared by the idf. they know they cannot win a pitched battle so they are using hit—and—run tactics. that

will intensify as israel tanks