All Seasons

Season 1

  • S01E01 Iraq - For Every Insect There Is an Insecticide

    • August 6, 2024
    • BBC iPlayer

    Exploring the US's complicated relationship with Iraq, first supporting the country during the Iran-Iraq war but then turning against it after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

  • S01E02 Bosnia - Our Soldiers Are Not Toy Soldiers

    • August 6, 2024
    • BBC iPlayer

    As the Balkans deteriorate into a series of bloody wars, President Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright must decide whether to use force to save innocent civilians from genocide.

  • S01E03 Rwanda - That Was a Local Thing

    • August 6, 2024
    • BBC iPlayer

    Why did the world stand by in 1994 as nearly one million people were murdered over one hundred days of terror in Rwanda? American diplomats describe events on the ground.

  • S01E04 Kosovo - In the Name of Our Future

    • August 6, 2024
    • BBC iPlayer

    Muslim separatists in the Kosovo region rekindle old conflicts, leading Clinton's White House to consider Serbian President Milošević's regime a threat to their own civilians.

  • S01E05 Darfur - Carrots for a War Criminal

    • August 6, 2024
    • BBC iPlayer

    In 2003, hundreds of thousands of Americans protested about ethnic cleansing in Sudan. Following Obama's 2008 election success, could some of those people, now in office, make a difference?

  • S01E06 Libya - If You Break It You Own It

    • August 6, 2024
    • BBC iPlayer

    When Gaddafi declared his intention to 'disinfect' Benghazi, Obama faced a dilemma, have previously told the younger Arab generation 'you, more than anyone, have the ability to remake this world'.

  • S01E07 Syria - The Risk of Doing Nothing

    • August 6, 2024
    • BBC iPlayer

    Obama did not want to be dragged into another war in the Middle East, but when the Syrian regime began to consider the use of chemical weapons, he warned them they would be crossing a red line.

  • S01E08 Syria - A Loop of Imperfection

    • August 6, 2024
    • BBC iPlayer

    America's unwillingness to act after a chemical attack, causes Syrian rebels to despair. Obama concludes that there is no scenario where intervention in Syria would give a desired outcome.