•In your book, you point out the dichotomy between Western values and Western interests. Looking at the four big problems: terrorism, the West’s relations with the Islamic world, climate change, and nuclear non-proliferation, can you identify the interests that are compelling the West to stop this shift in power?

The Islamic world is angry with the West because they see a sharp divide between Western values and Western interests. In theory, the West opposes the occupation of territories but the last piece of occupied territory in the world today is in Palestine. And, the reason why Israel can stay for as long as it wants in Palestine is because of American support.

Then there is the issue of climate change. The problem is not just because of greenhouse gas emissions by China and India but also because of the stock of greenhouse gases emitted by the Western world ever since the Industrial Revolution. So, here the West can easily become part of the solution by accepting to pay the economic price of their past emissions and by asking India and China to pay for their current emissions. But the West is only talking about India and China’s emissions and not their own. This is an example of their double standards.

As far as the non-proliferation regime goes, it is about how basically to prevent the proliferation of countries with nuclear weapons. This is the result of a deal reached between the nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states and in that deal the non-nuclear weapon states were supposed to slowly reduce their weapons and eventually eliminate them. Most of the non-nuclear states have kept their promise but the US has modernised its nuclear arsenal and advanced its nuclear capability. It goes against the commitment made under the NPT and they are endangering the non-proliferation regime.

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