One of the great famines in human history took place during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. [At the same time] Western journalists were reporting how marvelously Chinese society was working. We know so little [about what happens in China].

The United State has a net worth against which our debt is a joke ... we wrote in 2008 the United States is going to come out of this recession fast. The Europeans are going to fragment. The Chinese are going to be cremated. Why could we come out of it? Why has all economic theory been proven wrong? Because we're rich and we could afford it.

But every time new powers emerge they have to find their balance. New powers are emerging, old powers are declining. It's not that process that's dangerous, it's the emerging position that's dangerous.

I think there are worse things than war. For example, injustice.

Politicians are enormously smart and rational. They don't have the same interests as businessmen ... But a man rises to the top of the United States. He's clawed his way out of 330 million people. OK. He didn't do that because he was dumb, or lucky, or something like that. He understands power. And he understands how to take it. And he understands how to keep it.

War and sex are what I call the two abysmal - by that I mean deep - parts of the human condition.

I'm not a journalist. So I didn't down and let Assad charm me. I didn't walk away and say "my god he's got an Apple computer and he really likes Beyonce so he must be a liberal."