BBC - Radio 4 - Transcripts

CHAIRMAN: JONATHAN DIMBLEBY

PANELLISTS:

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Author and journalist

RENEĖ AMOORE: Deputy Chairman of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON: Former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell

THOMAS E MANN: Political analyst, The Brookings Institution

From the Jack Morton Auditorium, The George Washington University, Media and Public Affairs Building, 805 21st Street NW, Washington DC 20052, USA.

DIMBLEBY:
Welcome to Washington the capital city of the United States where on Tuesday Barack Obama will be inaugurated as the 44^th President of the United States. (APPLAUSE)
Enthusiasm across our entire audience. A million or more people are expected here for what is generally held to be a truly historic occasion. There is a very evident desire among Americans to believe Barack Obama’s promise on the night of his election that I quote “a new dawn of American leadership is at hand” though almost in the same breath and citing two wars, a planet in peril and the worse financial crisis in a century he warned the “road ahead will be long, our climb will be steep”. We are at the George Washington university in the Jack Morton Auditorium, our hosts the Washington branch of the English speaking union of the United States true to its founding purpose 89 years ago, a purpose which engaged among others Edward Amaro, Winston Churchill, President Eisenhower and TS Eliot, its cultural mission is to create I quote again “global understanding through English”.

On our panel 4 luminaries with a deep interest in America’s role in the world and diverse views about the challenges faced by the President Elect and the way in which he should meet them. Thomas E Mann distinguished as a political scientist, a senior fellow for Government Studies at the Brookings Institution which is one of the capital’s oldest think tanks with origins which go back to 1916 and where he holds the Averell Harriman Chair. Reneé Amoore is a successful entrepreneur and a political activist, a leading member of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, she was given star billing at the Republican Convention last summer where she declared: “I am proud to be an African American woman, I am proud to be Republican and I am proud to be voting for John McCain”. . Not surprisingly perhaps as the only African American woman to address the convention her words brought the house down. Later this month she hopes to be elected as the co-Chair of the National Republican Party. Larry Wilkerson spent more than 30 years in the US army working closely with General Colin Powell when the latter was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the early 90’s. When Powell became Secretary of State Larry Wilkerson became his Chief of Staff. Since 2005 when, like the Secretary of State, he left the Administration he has written and lectured extensively not least at this university where he specializes in international relations, national security and public policy. He has become a trenchant critic of the outgoing Bush administration. Christopher Hitchens is English by birth and upbringing but is now a naturalized American citizen famous in the States as Author, Columnist, pamphleteer and polemicist he has a reputation for holding opinions that are never knowingly ambivalent. Yet he fits no easy pigeon hole. You could describe him as a crypto-Marxist neo-con or alternatively perhaps as a neo-Marxist crypto-con. Which do you prefer of those?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
I will take number two.

DIMBLEBY
OK. He is the 4^th member of our Panel. (APPLAUSE)

I think everybody was getting the applause. Can we have our first question please?

SUZIE DE QUATTRO
I would like to know how the panel explains the fact that the same country that had the gall to elect George W Bush two times has the intelligence to elect Barack Obama and are we now forgiven?

DIMBLEBY
Reneé Amoore

RENEÉ AMOORE
I think that is an interesting question to start off with me to say the least. Let me say I am excited about being here too a little intimidated with this panel being the only woman but I think I can hold my own. Let me just say that I don’t know about being forgiven but I think as far as having an African American President it definitely makes a statement, it shows how Barack Obama pulled folks together from both sides of the Isle and it showed that people were interested in a change and let me be real clear. It also showed that we have different expectations and where we are and where we want to go and how we are going to get there so if you want to be forgiven yes you can be forgiven but also I think that the country is ready to move on and that will happen and I think that Barack Obama has brought a lot of people together. Republicans, Democrats, Independents and its going to make a big difference so I am happy with the way we are going to go.

(APPLAUSE)

DIMBLEBY
Larry Wilkerson

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
Well I am one who voted for George W Bush in 2000 and I am one who has been a Republican for most of my life, I have voted for Democrats but mostly for Republicans and I feel like one of the problems is that in 2000 a nation of 300 plus million people could only produce the two people they produced because of the frailties, weaknesses and downright dysfunction of our political process in this country. It is rather extraordinary that the only two people who could rise to that pinnacle if you will in two main political parties would be George W Bush and Al Gore. I had the same feeling about this last election until about a year out when Senator Obama began to impress me majorly and I began to understand that possibly we are on the cusp of having another great leader. If you count our Presidents and you count the great ones amongst them or even the good ones amongst them you can do it on your hands so I am looking forward. I hope my expectations are even partly fulfilled knowing the imperfections of our governmental system and so forth I know they won’t be completely fulfilled but I am looking forward to this new reign and I will make a categorical statement that I do not believe we would have elected Barack Obama if the performance of George W Bush had not been so abysmal (APPLAUSE)

DIMBLEBY
Do you think that implicit in the question from Susie de Quatro seems to be the “are we forgiven question” that people around the world had an animosity towards the US administration if not more generally as it were. Will in so far as that is a kind of wound in the relationship with other countries and the United States. Will that be healed?

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
We have a saying in the army it is always best to take over a really bad company not a good one (LAUGH)

DIMBLEBY
Christopher Hitchens

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
You have got no place ……

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
I am proud to say that I cast my first vote as an American citizen for Senator Obama and (APPLAUSE) and that I was depressed up to about a month before by the number of people not just black African American brothers and sisters but many people around the world who said either he won’t be elected or he can’t be because you remember the Bradley effect, everyone has used that expression probably once in their lives by now it used to be an expression that only Black Americans understood. White people are much more racist than they look, they will tell the opinion polls one thing and they will do another. Well that didn’t turn out to be the case, then well the voting machines will be fixed if that doesn’t prove to be enough, they won’t let the brother be elected or if he is he will be shot. Now we have admittedly 5 days to go before the inauguration at least as we are speaking. I think the United States deserves to be congratulated for the calm and decent an orderly way that it put all that behind it and now it seems that the President and his (APPLAUSE) the Prescient and his lovely first lady, it is as natural as breathing seeing them as President and First Lady Elect. I should just close by saying that I write sometimes a column for the Daily Mirror in London when George Bush was re elected the headline the whole front page was how can this fill in blank number of millions of Americans be so stupid. Well it is the same Americans and I am very proud to be one of them. (APPLAUSE)

DIMBLEBY
Thomas Mann

THOMAS E MANN
Well my colleagues have spoken great sense on this question. I see two pieces of the transition from Bush to Obama. All it takes is an unpopular war or ravaged economy a discredited Republican administration, an incompetent management of the government and a kind of ugly politics connected with the moral absolutism that creates an opening for the opposition party but it is Barack Obama because of his individual qualities the cool, the intelligence, the thoughtfulness, the rationality, the pragmatism but also he is the man that connected with the zeitgiest, he fit the times in a way that I haven’t seen any American politician in some decades.

DIMBLEBY
I just want to bring in briefly Reneé Amoore. Does that description of the outgoing administration fit your view as a Republican? Was Bush as bad as that suggests?

RENEÉ AMOORE
You have hurt my feelings. Let me just say as an African American I am third generation Republican and going back in history African Americans were Republicans let me be real clear about that (interruption) exactly thank you so much. We believe in small governments those types of things. What happened the administration lost its way, it has lost its way, it has lost its message, people were all over the place. It is not a secret that it is a broken party right now but we have had even worse times before then and we were able to rebound and I am looking at we can do that again to have the right message and the right messenger and that is one reason why I am running as co-Chair for the national Party because we have to have the face of what the whole country looks like but it does fit this description, like drama and trauma town but you know it does fit some of those things that were going on.

DIMBLEBY
Thank you. We will go to our next question.

BETH KNIGHT-YAMAMOTO
Although all smiles in front of the camera do you think there will be any power play between President Elect Obama and Hillary Clinton behind closed doors?

DIMBLEBY
Into the politics of power. Christopher Hitchens?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
It is sometimes to be considered etiquette to answer a question with a question but you will see I hope the force of this one. It is 3 in the morning, there is a big Foreign Policy crisis who is the Secretary of State going to call? Her President or her husband? That we already know the answer to that question tells us a lot I think

DIMBLEBY
What is the answer to the question?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Is there an influence peddler or an oligarchy?

DIMBLEBY
What is the answer to the question?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Well I just think everybody knows it.

DIMBLEBY
Well let’s check does everyone think, can you show your hands, those who think it will be the husband, those who think it will be the President? Well we have got pretty even division here Christopher so you had better answer your view.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
How extraordinary. Well that would not be my view but I would add that the address of the Clinton Foundation as we now know is also know by every oligarch warlord, on the run business man, lobbyists and influence peddler in the world so I think it is an incredibly incautious start for the President to have made to have given that amount of power to a shady family that has its own ambitions for the next election which may not include his re election.

DIMBLEBY
The BBC of course does not take, the BBC does not take any view about shadiness and I presume that Christopher Hitchens is using it in a totally non legalistic fashion and we will go straight to Larry Wilkerson

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Impeached, disbarred Mr Clinton, impeached and disbarred.

DIMBLEBY
Family you said

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Loyal wife of someone impeached and disbarred.

DIMBLEBY
Larry we have corrected a potential misunderstanding. Larry Wilkerson

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
Well I teach the interplay of 800 pound gorillas and the egos that accompany them amongst other things. I teach it in the environment of post World War 2 America in particular and I can tell you that having studied people like Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon and Colin Powell and Caspar Weinberger and George Schulz and Ronald Reagan and a host of others that there will be friction; guaranteed. Personalities like this at this level of power operating within the committee that runs the world to use David Roskopf’s felicitous phrase to describe the National Security Council is just that way. But I have every expectation that the pragmatism on both senator Clinton’s behalf, Secretary of State Designate Clinton’s behalf well I guess she is now confirmed and on President Elect Obama’s behalf will in the end overcome some of the nuances of this power struggle that inevitably occurs between huge personalities and in the long run we will get good policies.

DIMBLEBY
I presume that it could be the case that if they don’t work in harmony that the President may not call his Secretary of State just as President Bush is alleged to have not bothered to call Colin Powell

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
Well that is a fallacy of the pundits in this town. He called Colin Powell all the time; Colin Powell called him all the time. The President just didn’t on occasion listen to Colin Powell (LAUGH AND APPLAUSE)

DIMBLEBY
Reneé Amoore

RENEÉ AMOORE
Yes?

DIMBLEBY
Your answer to the question. Do you think that they are going to get on easily or will there be power play?

RENEÉ AMOORE
You know I definitely think there is going to be a power play. You know Hillary is a very powerful woman. Let me just say that. Look what she did as far as wanting to be President of the United States. Look at all the you know things that happened to her, the criticism, those types of things. I have to give her respect you know for that but I definitely think there is going to be some power play. Absolutely there is going to be some issues and I can’t wait.

(LAUGH)

DIMBLEBY
Tom Mann

THOMAS E MANN
Christopher’s example of when the 3 a.m. call comes into Secretary Clinton who will she call? The point is that the 3am call won’t be coming into her. She lost and it will be coming into Barack Obama, the more important question is when does he call her and what kind of relationship has developed. What kind of trust has she built up with her President because that is what is required for her to be an effective Secretary of State without his support she fails and more than anything else Hillary Clinton wants to succeed. She is intelligent, she is pragmatic. Obama actually relishes having strong opinionated people working with him in Government. I think rather than the intrigues of power you are going to see a pretty effective working relationship between the two. (APPLAUSE)

DIMBLEBY
Just a reminder from this Washington edition of Any Questions? that if you have thoughts about what you are hearing and want to express your own view then AnyAnswers is available to you after the Saturday broadcast of this programme. The number to ring is 03700 100 444 and the email address is Any.answers@bbc.co.uk. Our next please.

ERIN METER
How do you think the Obama administration is going to handle the Israeli policy and conflict especially in light of the new crisis in Gaza?

DIMBLEBY
Tom Mann

THOMAS E MANN
Excellent question. It is too good a question. First of all unlike his intervention on the second instalment of the financial bale out and the economic stimulus he has no interest in beginning before he is inaugurated as President. It is fraught with difficulty. He is hoping and he may realise this that a ceasefire will be in place when he is inaugurated and then it is the effort to engage from the beginning. The major complaint that Obama has with the Bush administration is that they largely ignored the conflict for the first six or so years of the administration and came in too late to be helpful but the obstacles are enormous, we will engage, we will have a special envoy but very carefully and quietly and the priorities in both domestic and foreign policy will be elsewhere.

DIMBLEBY
We might come back to some of that in a moment. Reneé Amoore

RENEÉ AMOORE
You know I think that one of ….. first of all President Obama is coming in on overload as far as I am concerned if you look at all the different issues that are going on and I have to agree with my colleague over here because of Obama’s, one big strength of his is communication and his outreach, and his communication skills and he will definitely engage but he will also bring the right people around him to make the right thing happen because he doesn’t pretend that he knows everything and he tends to stay in his lane but he will bring the right people in to do the right thing at the right time. Because timing is everything, he won’t jump right in….

DIMBLEBY
Do you think given your view earlier that the administration collapsed lost the way, lost its sense of direction, do you think that there will be a significant difference in the way in which an Obama administration approaches the Middle East question from that of Bush?

RENEÉ AMOORE
Absolutely. First of all let me just say I didn’t say it was all that bad the administration. I want to make that real clear. (LAUGH)

DIMBLEBY
I think that a listener with even a modicum of memory will detect that you said that the administration is falling apart.

RENEÉ AMOORE
I didn’t say falling apart. But I don’t recall let me say that anyway. (LAUGH)
DIMBLEBY
I am not going to ask for a vote on it just carry on

RENEÉ AMOORE
Thank you but let me say this on a serious note I think that he has learned from it. I think that being in Chicago and we see all things that happen in Chicago, he knows what things can happen and what can’t happen so he is going to be real careful you know he is going to step out on face and take a risk but he is going to be real careful in what he does and get other opinions on what he needs to do. Where he is, where he needs to go and how he is going to get there.

DIMBLEBY
Christopher Hitchens

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
I consider it rather shameful and also shamefully neglected aspect of this crisis in Gaza is that it is occurring precisely because there is an electoral inter regnum in the United States. It is an attempt by the Israeli government to take advantage of that and also to position itself, the ruling coalition for the Israeli elections which are due next month; the sheer electoral calculation element of this I think hasn't been sufficiently called attention to. It might be thought that no administration could be more pro Israeli in its ethos than the Bush Administration has been but I think the Obama/ Clinton administration will be even more so. It is pretty much 100% support, always has been, it is reflected in the choice of the President’s Chief of Staff President Elect Chief of Staff I should say, Mr Emmanuel a former member of the Israeli Defence Forces and in other appointments as well which raises a very interesting question indeed because as well as the electoral dimension that I have just alluded to the fighting in Gaza is a proxy war in the up coming fight between Israel and Iran. Positions are being taken; experimental tactics are being employed by both sides for this grand confrontation that is coming at us like Christmas. It would be very good to have a sense of what the administration feels about that. I wish them…..

DIMBLEBY
We may come to that very issue. Does that. We had a number of questions on this one of which said that do you think that with Obama in office the prospects for the Palestinians will improve and that the two state solution will get closer? Just quickly on that what is your response? What is your thought about that?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
I think the two state solution is in the past. There was a time, it probably ended with the murder of Prime Minister Rabin I think by Jewish extremists. There was a time when that was a feasible thing but now the Palestinians just don’t want it.

DIMBLEBY
Are you saying it is from the West or I mean Bush in 2002 said that he wanted the two state solution is that now as it were empty rhetoric from the rest of the world from Europe from the United States?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
It should be said for the President’s credit, I will do this with 5 days to go. Someone ought to say it. He was the first President ever to use the word Palestinian and state in the same sentence. People think Jimmy Carter did but he didn’t. He said homeland. It was never said before nor did Mr Clinton. I am afraid it has come a fraction too late, the leadership of the Palestinians now has passed into those who want to remove a state from the United Nations not add one.

DIMBLEBY
Larry Wilkerson

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
It is unfortunate that we attribute to George W Bush electric and provocative and even innovational language when there was absolutely no action behind it. So the language is on the floor dead, the action was never there. He may have said he believed in two states but he was doing everything in his power as Eric Sharon and others to ensure that there couldn’t be two states making the settlement process for example continue almost irreconcilably and without end. So Gaza is a really tragic thing right now. It has done so much damage to the potential for the Obama team to take within the first 100 days some dramatic new action. Let me give you one example because my time is constrained here. In Tehran they are concerned right now. Opposite what Christopher was implying in one respect and opposite what the punditry in this town is saying in many respects particularly the right wing the Iranians, the Persians are really not happy with this because they felt they were probably going to get at least a new sheet of music with the Obama team, they weren’t sure what it was going to sing like but they thought it was going to be new. This is tying his hands in that regard. He can’t be seen as leaning forward in the fox hole as it were vis a vis this issue now because of the so called complicity of Tehran in what is happening in Gaza. We have a CIA operation going on there right now which is a massive failure, at a cost of many millions of dollars and we are trying to cover that up. I won’t go any further except to say this is a mess, this is a horrible mess.

DIMBLEBY
Let me because that takes us very directly to our very next question.

SEAN McLAUGHLIN
President Elect Obama promised to engage in diplomacy with Iran in his campaign how exactly do you think he should go about talking with Iran and what issues could he practically address with them?

DIMBLEBY
Two panellists have already referred to this in slightly contrasting ways. Carry on your thought given you said there was a mess Larry Wilkerson how do you believe, has he got the possibility of engaging as he said he wished to engage in directly in diplomacy in talking to Iran against this background that you described

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
Right. Extremely difficult. I wouldn’t expect it but

DIMBLEBY
Because, why is it so difficult?

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
Because I think right now the atmosphere within the political structure of the Democratic Party is I can’t, we can’t do anything especially now it seems like we are weak on national security and you can take that from the global war on terror, as misnamed as it is, all the way over to Afghanistan. I can’t seem to show any ankle with regard to national security at least not in the beginning and what is happening in Gaza right now is amplifying that 10 fold there is no doubt in my mind that the Minister of Defence and others took that into their consideration when they launched these operations in Gaza . What I would do if I were Obama and came for a day or so I would go back to March 2003 when the Iranians made scared to death that we were leaving Iraq and coming to Tehran with our military forces made a very in my view all encompassing proposal about negotiations, no pre conditions and everything was on their sheet from Hamas, Hezbollah the nuclear programme to the situation in Iraq and all things in between. In fact all that was a replica of talking paper we had sneaked to them earlier when they were co operating with us in Afghanistan and we chose because of various power considerations in Washington, we were embroiled in the North Korea process for example not to pursue that but that is where I would pick it up again on that sheet of music, the sheet of music drafted in Tehran but based on our own our own non paper that we furnished them in Afghanistan about a year before that.

DIMBLEBY
Tom Mann

THOMAS E MANN
Listen the latest evidence is that Iran’s nuclear weapon capacity is moving ahead. It is a tremendous worry and the idea that somehow we can easily engage in diplomacy to deflect that is probably naïve and yet we have no choice, no choice but to, as Hillary Clinton said at her confirmation hearings, pursue aggressive diplomacy with Iran. Dennis Ross will be a key figure trying to connect Iran to the rest of the Middle East normalizing some engagement between the countries would help, following Larry’s suggestion of dealing with Afghanistan where we have some mutual interest.

DIMBLEBY
Tom when you use the term aggressive in this context what do you mean by that. Do you mean on the front foot or do you mean fiercer than the diplomacy has been hitherto?

THOMAS E MANN
Yes, no what I have in mind here is the beginning of much more second and third level engagement with Iran far from the top of the government but beginning in a way that moves us towards some reasonably constructive discussions.

DIMBLEBY
Reneé Amoore

RENEÉ AMOORE
I think you know what folks are saying is it is easier said than done what he would want to do right now because you are dealing with the economy. People right now want to make sure they have a job, food on the table, a house to live in, those types of things. The basic things to survive and if you look at the country right now a lot of folks don’t have the basics. I think it is something that they will tackle but not any time soon.

DIMBLEBY
You started off on this tack earlier Christopher Hitchens by saying there was a war in the offing

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
I have been in Iran. Actually I have been to all the evil countries. It presents us with two separate but related challenges. The first is that its government is not an expression of the will of the Iranian people, it is the expression of a theocratic clique which rules by force and claims to be a party of God which is one of the reasons why I think it does deserve the appellation of evil. It hopes to distract attention from the ruin that it has inflicted on its country, the corruption , the misery, the violence the torture, the censorship by aggrandizing itself locally with the hope of nuclear weapons and I would say in the very very near future which will be used as blackmail against neighbouring Muslim, Sunni Arab states in the Gulf as well as to complicate the strategic ambiguity which already surrounds the Israeli Palestinian question and eventually the peace of the world in general. It has been stated by successive administrations and by resolutions in both Houses of Congress that Iran must not be allowed, this criminal theocracy must not be permitted to become a nuclear power. If we don’t say that we meant that, it means that you can wave completely goodbye to every resolution on non proliferation that the United Nations has every passed, to every Treaty that Iran has every signed, to every inspection of the International Atomic and Energy Authority. This is not an allegation made by the CIA any more or by Colin Powell or other people not qualified to pronounce it is a finding, it is a verifiable finding, it means goodbye to all that. Forget diplomacy if they are allowed to put themselves

DIMBLEBY
So that being the case, if we accept that supposition do you talk, or do you not talk or do you allow military action to be the only other route?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Well I will answer that obliquely if I can just by simply saying that if what I have just said is true and I believe every word of it to be true and verifiable then the suspicion must be that negotiations are being used by the Iranians merely to run out the clock until the point where they can say we have got a bomb on Washing and what are you going to do about it which will mean we will have to live in a world where we have to be very polite and very nice to a homicidal theocracy. The nightmare we have all dreaded for the longest time when does an apocalyptic weapon get into the hands of a messianic regime? That will be reality. Now I think there are worse things, sorry that is the worse I can think of some other bad outcomes that wouldn’t be as bad as that.

THOMAS E MANN
Potentially the worse outcome is actually taking military action against Iran and setting in motion a dynamic in the Middle East and elsewhere that ends up being more damaging to us and our allies in the world than Iran having some nuclear capabilities. (APPLAUSE)

DIMBLEBY
Larry. Larry Wilkerson. I could call you Colonel Larry Wilkerson. You served for 30 years.

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
You could if you wanted. I just wanted to say that I agree with the comments that were just made and North Korea exploded a nuclear weapon already. The nuclear non proliferation treaty is dead. We need a new regime. We are working on it. The current government is working on it. The Obama team is working on it. We need a new regime for managing nuclear weapons in the world. NPT is dead. My second point is to pick up on what Reneé said. I am really concerned about and you should be too I think the ability of human beings, no matter how talented, Obama, Clinton, Jones, Summers and so forth to focus on so many issues at one time. I think Reneé’s right I think Summers and the Secretary to the Treasury, Summers being Head of the National Economic Council are going to be two key figures initially not Jones and Clinton and I think this crisis is going to get deeper and more profound, it is going to last longer and the attention and the energy of the White House is going to have to be focused domestically.
(APPLAUSE)

DIMBLEBY
Sean McLaughlin you put the question how do you respond to what you have heard?

SEAN McLAUGHLIN
Well I just like to say that personally I agree with you Thomas that I think we should engage in talks with Iran but I don’t think we can do it at the highest levels you know just for practical reasons it is not feasible but I would like to add that I think one of the problems is of course what do we talk about how can we approach them diplomatically in that light I would like to agree with Col Wilkerson that I think that one of the problems of the US foreign policy is that we view at least the Middle East through this prism of terror. Likewise though a lot of middle Eastern nations view the rest of the world affairs and the US through the Israeli Palestinian conflict so what would happen if we were to engage in talks with Iran and were to say legitimately to Iran if you help us with terrorism with issues in Terror because obviously Iran is supporting Hamas and Hezbollah they don’t particularly like the Taliban in Afghanistan if we were to make low level reaches to Iran regarding terrorism what would be so bad if we were to work with them regarding the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

DIMBLEBY
Thank you very much. I just want to ask our audience here who would like to see at whatever level talks opened with Iran would you put your hands up?
Overwhelmingly in this audience that is the feeling and second question to you how many of you believe that there is going to be however a military conflict or believe it likely there will be a military conflict with Iran. Would you put your hands up? The majority here. Who does not think there will be a military conflict? Well here the big majority believe there won’t be a military conflict. Just a reminder of the Any Answers number once again it is 03700 100 444 and the email address any.answers@bbc.co.uk. We will go to our next please.

JOHN ANDREWS
On issues such as climate change the Bush administration has not really been a player in the international community do you expect given all the other priorities that the Obama administration will face that it will be able to take a more positive role?

DIMBLEBY
Larry Wilkerson

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
I do and I tell you practically why I think that way. From a practical point of view.
I believe Obama has evinced this attitude too I think or this approach. I believe one of the ways that we are going to work our way out of this financial and economic crisis is what I will call infrastructure improvement. We can’t be improving our infrastructure on a 19^th or 20^th century basis we have got to do it on a 21^st century basis so finding a new basket of energy sources whatever they may be, finding an infrastructure that adapts to that and at the same time adapts to our economic needs, creating the millions of jobs that will be involved in becoming the leading country in the world for this kind of technology is going to be a major solution to our economic and financial situation so I think it is a win, win situation. There is a silver lining there if you will.

DIMBLEBY
Ok we have got a lot to get through still. Do you think he will go for it as he said he would do Christopher Hitchens?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Well the infrastructure question which was answered in the same Keynesian terms by the President as by the Colonel is quite separate from the climatic one surely. And indeed I think the interests of the climate would surely be suborn to the interests of economic recovery if the two ever appear to be in any form of contrast and that is just speaking domestically. If by the question was meant for example a change of policy on the Kyoto Treaty. No. Because the treaties have to be ratified by the Senate and the Senate voted I think with no votes for the Kyoto ratification. It certainly wouldn’t be very many, it wouldn’t be very different this time. The United States said it would never ratify the Kyoto Treaty. It is not in the President’s power.

DIMBLEBY
Sorry not Larry, Tom Mann come back in just on that.

THOMAS E MANN
Actually the environment in Congress has changed dramatically since then. Some of the people who led the effort to get a unanimous vote against Kyoto have now become champions of an effort to move the US into the global negotiations and we are now talking post Kyoto and we are talking about where we go in the next state and the US will be part of that. There is just no question you will see in that sense a dramatic change but is the Congress and the country ready for a serious cap in trade programme that bites? No. They are not there yet. Until we come up with the resolve the leadership and the support to tax carbon, to send the price signals that are essential if we are to move to a green economy to really utilize renewable energy then we are not going to engage this issue in a serious way and Obama understands this full well, the politics require him to hide behind cap in trade but eventually he will be there.

DIMBLEBY
You say eventually. In November of this year is the major next climate change summit. do you believe that given the priorities that he has, given the priorities that have been discussed do you believe that because he knows it has got to go in that direction in his own mind that he has the leadership characteristics to both get public opinion behind him to deliver as the leader of the most polluting and richest and most important nation in the world at that climate change summit or not?

THOMAS E MANN
No I think it is too early. I think it will take longer. I think there are other priorities that start. He will try to keep that effort alive but he is not going to make a decisive move.

DIMBLEBY
Reneé

RENEÉ AMOORE
Again that is not priority. I think we have to be realistic. I am glad the Col supported me so I feel important but I think you know we really have to look at priorities and what people’s needs are. I think Obama did talk about the issues around climate during that election and that whole thing and where he was and he does want to push that but I don’t think that is priority for him. I will have to be real clear. We keep saying all these things that Obama needs to do well we have to be realistic about this whole piece. Our expectations are up here. He is coming in with so many other issues they have to priorities and take one step at a time, one day at a time and so we have got to take it slow or it is not going to work.

DIMBLEBY
Thank You

COL LARRY WILKERSON
Can I just add one thing? The idea that the infrastructure and the basket of energy sources and everything is disconnected from climate trouble is sheer nonsense. It is absolutely connected to it.

DIMBLEBY
OK We will move swiftly please to our next question

ANGELA CANNON
52 years ago my brother asked a question on Any Questions wondering if Britain was in danger of becoming the 51^st state. My question now is is Britain now in danger of being irrelevant in the view of the Obama administration?

DIMBLEBY
A fine way of putting what is called by some “special relationship” question. Christopher Hitchens?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
I wrote a strangely neglected book on the special relationship it is called “Blood, Class and Empire”. It is available at fine book stores everywhere. (LAUGH) And no the fact is there is a very deep cultural, political, historical underlay to this relationship which is expressed in the geography of New England and the names of many other states in the South and so forth. Very difficult to imagine America without it. I don’t just say because of our generous hosts the English Speaking Union today but one of the things that impresses me most about President Obama is his command of the English language quite exceptional actually (APPLAUSE) in the political class and itself a faculty and when he thinks about the world and the crisis that he is looking out at he will find that about two thirds of them come from policies inflicted by British partition arrangements in the closing days of Empire that are still with us. He used to say that dividing and ruling would be the last thing we would do and then it was the last thing we did. A wonderful book was written about it called “Divide and Quit”, the lines of conflict in India and Pakistan and Kashmir are still exactly where they were when her Majesty’s Government handed them over. His Majesty’s then. No no the time will never come when the study of Britain and its Empire is irrelevant to the United States.

DIMBLEBY
Reneé Amoore

RENEÉ AMOORE
Britain is very important as far as I am concerned as far as relationships that we need to have and Obama is really clear about that. He understands that. He went out during the election time and reached out to all people. He is very global, he wants to make it happen he wants us to relate and do what we need to do.

DIMBLEBY
Thank you. Tom Mann

THOMAS E MANN
In fact I agree the relationship is special, it is deep, it is cultural and historical. In fact it is so strong that I think it will overcome and outlive the very unpopular Bush/ Blair partnership on Iraq.

DIMBLEBY
And Larry Wilkerson

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
I just came back from London and took my 7-year-old granddaughter over there and I am prejudiced. I have a very special relationship myself with the old country. I will just say this. The Foreign Secretary just made some dramatically critical comments about the Bush administration ranging from its misnaming of the global war on terror to its bad policies at Guantanamo so they are getting ready for the new administration.

DIMBLEBY
How did you, which you did for quite along time as it were go along with what you now revile as Chief of Staff to the then Secretary of State who has not except in the margins of what he said himself been critical of the Bush administration. How did you stick with it for so long?

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
For 4 years. That is a question I ask myself every night when I wake up with nightmares. Serious. I was extraordinarily stupid. I didn’t really see it and nor did my boss really see it in terms of vice President Cheney's unprecedented power. There was a division of labour in the White House. Bush had HIV/ Aids, no child left behind and compassionate conservatism, Cheney had everything else. (APPLAUSE)

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
I hope it is not too late for someone to say that they think that would be me that it is a very good thing that the British armed forces helped the United States armed forces to remove Sadam Hussein from power in Iraq, to make it into a functioning post dictatorial democracy and remove the terrible threat of both illegal weaponry and state supported terrorism from the region. You only need to consult the relevant United Nations resolutions.

DIMBLEBY
I am not going to go there because we don’t have the time. The question from the floor was what illegal weaponry by which I think the questioner meant there weren’t any weapons is that correct yes.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
There is a misunderstanding about the difference between stock piles and capacities.

DIMBLEBY
Let us leave that there because we could spend the whole of the rest of the programme and I just want to get in one more which may be from the sublime to the fascinating. Let’s see.

BETH BREEDING
On to one of the more pressing issues what kind of dog do you hope the Obama family brings to the White House?

DIMBLEBY
What kind of dog do you hope the Obama family brings to the White House? You must have very strong views about this I am quite certain Colonel

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON
A chocolate lab so I can borrow it occasionally.

DIMBLEBY
Tom Mann

THOMAS E MANN
If the ugly truth be known I don’t care.

DIMBLEBY
Reneé

RENEÉ AMOORE
I want a pit bull.

DIMBLEBY
And Christopher Hitchens

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
There is a very old saying in Washington. A piece of local wisdom. If you want a friend in Washington get a dog. That would mean I would say an Irish setter.

DIMBLEBY
Because?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Stupid, highly strung, but dead loyal. (LAUGH)

DIMBLEBY
And that I am afraid brings us to the end of this weeks’ programme as the guests of the English Speaking Union, on the eve of the inauguration of Barack Obama. At the George Washington University we have been. Thank you to Christopher Hitchens, Thomas Mann, Reneé Amoore and Col Larry Wilkinson. Sorry Wilkerson. A proper old English name. Wilkerson got it. And just a chance, quick chance to remind you once more the Any Answers number it is 03700 100 444 the email address any.answers@bbc.co.uk, and by the magic of modern communications I will be back in London for Any Answers after the Saturday edition of Any Questions? Next week we are going to be back home in England, in Devon in the village of Chudleigh where our panel will be the Health Minister Ben Bradshaw, the Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, the Lib Dem spokesman on Culture Media and Sport Don Foster and the Chair of the Charity Commission Dame Suzi Leather. Hope you can join us there but from here in Washington the United States Goodbye.

Any Questions?