Martin Woollacott



Profile:


Full name: Martin Woollacott

Area of interest: EU and World Affairs (esp. Middle East, Far East, Balkans)

Journals: The Guardian

Email: [mailto:martin.woollacott@guardian.co.uk martin.woollacott@guardian.co.uk]

Website: Guardian.co / Martin Woollacott

Blog: Comment is free...

Agent:

Networks:



Biography:
Education: Manchester Grammar School; Merton College, Oxford University

Career: Sun, reporter, 1965/1967; Agence France Press, 1967/1968; The Guardian: reporter, 1968/1971; Far East correspondent, Vietnam war, 1971/1976; Middle East correspondent, 1976/1989; foreign editor, 1983/1989; commentator and occasional correspondent, 1989; retired from full-time Guardian employment in 2004, but continues to contribute an occasional foreign affairs column as well as book reviews -
 * Covered the final years of the Vietnam War, the Bangladesh war, the Indian Emergency, and the Iranian Revolution as well the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and reporting from Iraq, Bosnia and Sierra Leone during the interventions in those countries

Current position/role: contributes occasional comment pieces


 * also writes/has written for:

Other roles:

Other activities: member of the board of Institute for War & Peace Reporting since 1993, and joined International Alert's Board of Trustees in 2005

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight:

TV/Radio: Occasional radio and TV

Controversy/Criticism:

Awards/Honours: International Reporter of the Year (IPI), 1975; Journalist of the Year, British Press Awards, 1991; David Watt Award, 1993; Journalist of the Year (IPI), 1994; James Cameron Award, 1995; David Watt prize, 1995

Other:



Books & Debate:

 * After Suez: Adrift in the American Century (2006) OCLC 68772507 (Google book preview)

Latest work:

Speaking/Appearances: Frontline Insight with David Horovitz, editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, talking about the Middle East and the Israeli media Wednesday 27th February, 2008 - moderated by Martin Woollacott

Current debate: 

The Guardian:

 * no regular column

Column remit: Foreign affairs

Section:

Role: Commentator - occasional contributions

Pen-name:

Email: [mailto:martin.woollacott@guardian.co.uk martin.woollacott@guardian.co.uk]

Website: Guardian.co / Martin Woollacott

Commissioning editor:

Day published:

Regularity: infrequent

Column format:

Average length:



Articles:

 * failure of Robert McNamara'' - Hailed as one of 'the best and the brightest' of his age, Robert McNamara was a ditherer who lacked courage - 8th July 2009
 * letter may go unread'' - Iran and America want concessions, without budging from their positions: meanwhile the Middle East's future goes undecided - 30th January 2009
 * war on coherence'' - Two months after the Caucasus conflict broke out, some sober lessons are emerging for all sides - 8th October 2008
 * National insecurity - The Pakistani army must change its tactics against the militants if it is to halt a descent into chaos - 30th July 2008
 * Cyanide on the table - The threat of war will not recede until there is regime change both in Washington and Tehran - 10th July 2008
 * Chicanery in Turkey - The AKP is crying foul over the attempt to rule it unconstitutional, but it too has been playing fast and loose with democracy - 2nd July 2008
 * Charlie Wilson's flaw - You don't expect good history from Hollywood, but this cold war comedy is shamefully cavalier with the truth about US backing for the mujahideen - 14th January 2008
 * Win, win? - Annapolis: Saudi Arabia's decision to attend next week's conference is to make sure Arab states cannot be blamed for failure - 23rd November 2007
 * Why peace has no price - Is it possible for Tony Blair's economic measures for Palestine to succeed while Israel still controls society? - 19th November 2007
 * Heed Iran's dissidents - An attack would fortify Tehran's nuclear hawks, and we would all suffer the consequences - 17th Novemeber 2007
 * The grace-free Russian - Vladimir Putin is an enigma: some of his criticisms of western hegemony are valid, but his vision is frequently arid and lacking in nuance - 29th October 2007
 * Iran and the US must talk - Diplomatic structures are needed to bypass the rhetoric of conflict in Washington and Tehran - 25th September 2007
 * Beyond the bravado - It would be foolish to discount the dangers of a clash between the US and Iran, but they are more remote than the words of their leaders would suggest - 29th August 2007
 * This is a war for credibility - His motives are suspect but in certain crucial respects Bush is right to compare Iraq to Vietnam - 23rd August 2007
 * 1967: The price of victory - It was Israel's stunning success in the 1967 war that led to many of the Middle East's problems today - 5th June 2007
 * Mission not yet accomplished - In vetoing the Iraq funding bill, George Bush intends to shift the focus of debate towards the importance of an American victory - 2nd May 2007
 * The importance of unity - Scepticism, as usual, is in order over a breakthrough in the Middle East process - particularly with Hamas and Fatah at odds - 22nd January 2007
 * Home and away - Iran's president appears to have lost the wider support he enjoyed across the country - just as the US piles on the pressure - 16th January 2007
 * A reluctant alliance - The relevance of Nato, with its strange mixture of determination and footdragging, is increasingly being called into question - 29th November 2006
 * The roads from Suez - Fifty years ago today, British troops were advancing along the Suez Canal. The operation proved a crossroads from which everyone set off in the wrong direction - 6th November 2006
 * Rising to the challenge - Iraq's neighbouring states ought to initiate cooperation over conflict in the region; western states should merely be ready to help if asked - 6th November 2006
 * Clearly the lessons of Suez were lost on the Americans - The events of 50 years ago marked the end of the British Middle East. For the US, there are uncomfortable parallels - 19th October 2006
 * Iran has called the west's bluff on the nuclear standoff - The US cannot risk imposing stricter sanctions or military action. Fairness is now the only option - 21st September 2006
 * Absolutes are not possible in the Middle East - Israel is bedeviled by its search for absolute security solutions. It is time it was abandoned - 27th July 2006
 * The new world immaturity - Newt Gingrich has read Starship Troopers one too many times. But his declaration of world war three represents a global return to adolescence - 24th July 2006
 * Blow for blow - Israel has lashed out after seeing its soldiers captured, but the likely conclusion remains a prisoner exchange - 13th July 2006
 * The Inshallah occupation - Bush and Blair agree that Iraq's future is clouded, and presume only to hope, and not to dogmatically insist, that the final outcome will be good - 26th May 2006
 * Cool heads required - My own starting point on the big question, of how dangerous a nuclear armed Iran would be, is that weapons don't make wars 28th April 2006
 * A turn for the worse - Hopes of pragmatic cooperation between incompatible Palestinian and Israeli governments are endangered - 14th March 2006
 * The region will wrest back control when the US stumbles out of Iraq - This costly intervention has exposed the myth of America as conductor of a grand democratic Middle Eastern orchestra - 13th December 2005
 * Iran's heritage deserves respect from America and Europe - The greatness that was Persia continues to endure through the repeated turmoil of the Middle East - 13th October 2005
 * We miscalculated and now history has us by the throat - The west profoundly misunderstood how the Middle East works - 10th August 2005
 * Ali Shah's last stand - The Khamenei regime's consolidation of power in Iran has a last-ditch feel to it - 27th June 2005
 * We are not instruments of US power - Claims that NGOs are agents of destabilisation are irresponsible - 28th May 2005
 * A bigger threat than the bomb - The world can live with Iranian nuclear weapons. But can the US? - 13th May 2005
 * The reinvention of failure - Australia has joined the ranks of the one-legged democracies but, unlike in Britain, it is the left's demise that is at the heart of the story - 1st February 2005
 * Despite this deal, the road ahead remains rocky indeed - Turkey's bid for European membership is full of contradictions - 18th December 2004
 * The greatest threat to the ANC is its own dominance - Democracy cannot function if there is no alternation in power - 16th April 2004
 * Now it is America that desperately needs rescuing - The limits of raw military power are being learned again in Iraq - 9th April 2004
 * ''Humanitarians must avoid becoming tools of power' - The gap between aid to Iraq and central Africa is driven by politics - 2nd April 2004
 * The election victory that makes China so nervous - The possibility of war still casts a shadow over the Taiwan Strait - 26th March 2004
 * Like it or not, the west just can't leave the Middle East - The dreams of al-Qaida and its allies are destructive - but doomed - 19th March 2004
 * The last thing Iraq needs is a US election campaign - Bush wants a show of success but doesn't care about the reality - 12th March 2004
 * Sunnis and Shias must play an equal part in a new Iraq - More unites the country's rival religious factions than divides them - 5th March 2004
 * How America's right bears the longest grudge - Attitudes to old conflicts are a key issue in the presidential race - 27th February 2004
 * Europe has lost its leverage in all the places that matter - The EU's star is faint in America, Russia and the Middle East - 20th February 2004
 * Iran's die-hards will dump democracy - if the US helps - Washington looks ready to strike a bargain with the rump republic - 13th February 2004
 * Iraq's insurgents are more nihilist than nationalist - Sunni rebels must understand they would lose a fight with the Shia - 6th February 2004
 * Our spies were hostage to their mistrust of Saddam - The Iraq intelligence failures built up over more than a decade - 31st January 2004
 * US frailty doesn't just exist in the European imagination - America needs the outside world as much as it needs America - 23rd January 2004
 * The failure of intervention demands a new modesty - The west has overestimated its ability as an agency of change - 16th January 2004
 * After half a century, a moment for optimism - India and Pakistan have seized the initiative from the extremists - 9th January 2004

