#Clip: Helen Clark: Keeping NZ Out of Iraq Was “One of Our Best Decisions”

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark joins The Bradbury Group for a major discussion about Iran, Donald Trump, Russia’s war in Ukraine, Israel and the West Bank, China and the Pacific — and the lessons of 9/11 and the War on Terror 25 years later.

Clark reflects on her Government’s decision to keep New Zealand out of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, calling it “one of the best my government ever made”, and argues that the wider War on Terror ultimately failed.

The interview also examines the continuing war with Iran, Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and what New Zealand should be doing to defend international law and an independent foreign policy.

Closer to home, Clark discusses growing strategic competition between China and the United States in the Pacific, the Pacific Islands Forum and why New Zealand’s climate policy risks undermining our credibility with Pacific nations facing an existential climate threat.

In this interview:
• Helen Clark on 25 years since 9/11
• Why New Zealand stayed out of the Iraq War
• Did the War on Terror fail?
• Donald Trump and the Iran war
• The 2015 Iran nuclear agreement
• Russia and Ukraine
• Vladimir Putin and the human cost of war
• Israel and illegal West Bank settlements
• What New Zealand should do on Palestine
• China vs America in the Pacific
• Pacific Islands Forum
• New Zealand’s independent foreign policy
• Climate change and the Pacific
• What NZ can learn from ASEAN

Twenty-five years after 9/11, are today’s leaders repeating the same mistakes that led to Iraq and the disastrous War on Terror?
Watch the full interview and join the discussion.