GW: The jury's out on Obama, altogether. He may well be the most wonderful thing that's ever happened. He may not. Let's try and analyse the evidence at the moment, which we can take from his Cairo speech. North Korea has become even more impertinent and Iran has a President for whom I'm afraid I predict a few more years in power, including some brutal repression. Again I go back to the 1930s and see how these initial anti-Nazi stirrings in Germany meant nothing in the end — that there were rebellious brownshirts, people in the higher echelons of the army, and Hitler dealt with them in his own way. And some people say that the president will be in for another four or five years before these stirrings become more important, because the opposition is very discouraged and disappointed by our reaction. It is a terrible dilemma. 

I believe, whilst making these imprecise comparisons, that these people are more dangerous than the Nazis. And this is because if you weren't a homosexual, a Jew, or a Roma, and were prepared to live quietly, you had a very good time in the Third Reich. Why not? Nobody bothered you if you weren't one of these or didn't have any hang-ups on liberty. 

But these people, with their prescriptive cradle-to-grave thing, their definite determinism about the 13th Imam and the Caliphate, are not reasonable people. The communists, above all, were pupils of Hegel and Marx. But when you say to these people that there'll be no export of oil if they dominate the Strait of Hormuz, they just say, "Wonderful! Capitalism would disappear, then the whole world would collapse, and the 13th Imam will be here sooner."

AR: But do you think that the Iranians would, if they got the nuclear bomb, one day use it against Israel?                                  

GW: Their hates in descending order of importance are the following. Number one: the Guardians of the Shrines of Mecca and Medina, the Saudi Arabian royal family, and the Saudi regime. Number two: the apostates in the Sunni camp and all over the place. Number three: the great state of America. Number Four: the Jews. 

But in order to rally the street and make them forget their differences you can always go for the Jews and say incinerate Israel. They have no intention of incinerating it, not because they wouldn't like to, but because they think it's too dangerous because of the second strike. But what they will do is use this thing, therefore making it impossible for peace between the Israelis and the Arabs, because the street will always say, "We have the Iranians, and they want to get rid of Israel, so why should we make any concessions?" 

Israel has lived in this way 40 years, or 60 years. The Latin Kingdom of the crusaders lasted 99 years, Israel has now lasted 60, and long before 99 years they're going to be all screwed up. They will be eroded like the Christians in Lebanon. They [its enemies] won't have to kill a million; they will just go. The strength of Israel is its high-tech business, and Israelis can do this anywhere in the world — they can go to America, the doors will open to them.  

That's why Mr Lieberman and Mr Netanyahu should not be regarded as cretins, or fools, or fanatics — they know exactly what they're saying. What the Iranians will do is give Hizbollah and Hamas dirty bombs and create havoc, and Iran, which is 90 million strong, and growing, will be the most important power in the Middle East. 

AR: Do you not see Israel even existing as a Jewish state in, say, a hundred years' time?

GW: No, I do, because it has the courage to withstand. It will remain. It will be in danger, and it will have to look after its own interests, find alliances where it can, and realise that there are divisions among its enemies that might be stronger than the danger to themselves.