Obama would ‘probably do same thing’ over Syria, says Samantha Power

For anyone in public office, idealism can be tricky to maintain – often incompatible with the need for pragmatism and the harsh realities on the ground.

Like Samantha Power – the former US ambassador to the United Nations under Barack Obama.

She was in the job at the height of the Syrian Civil War – and in 2013 she was intimately involved in President Obama’s deliberations over whether to bomb the Assad regime in response to chemical attacks.

A self-described idealist, Samantha Power has written a new memoir about the challenges of implementing real-world foreign policy. She came to talk to us here in the studio, earlier today.