After such a divisive campaign, can the Democratic Party rediscover its unity and should Obama choose Hillary as Vice-President?

I do not think he needs to pick Hillary as his Vice-President, he has no obligation to do so and I think he is under a lot of pressure not to do so. But whether the party can unite depends very much also on Clintons’ behaviour, and whether they will try their best to convince their supporters to support Obama.

Now we know that the final battle will be between Obama and McCain, what will the main issues be in the campaign?

I think the economy and the Iraq war. Those are the two big issues and usually in the American presidential elections the economy is more important than foreign policy. So I think the economy plays a very important role. Then the most important thing for Obama, will be to convince the working class voters, or at least people who supported Hillary, that he will make economic changes.

Which are the issues that Obama should push to defeat McCain?

Well, I think the Iraq war is a strong one, although Obama does not really have the perfect answer about what to do either. However, he is in a bit of a stronger position, and also on things like tax cuts and the Bush administration’s economic record, which is not good, I think McCain is very vulnerable on that, and Obama should make the most of it.

Could elitism and patriotism be a problem for Obama?

Well, they might be if McCain succeeds in portraying him as somebody who is out of touch and an intellectual and so on. But it is up to Obama to provide a different image. As far as patriotism is concerned, I am not so sure. The Republicans will certainly try that, and so it may be an issue, but I do not think it should be, of course.

Is Obama right when he says that dialogue with Iran can be useful for America?

Yes, of course he is right. There is no excuse for cutting off all diplomatic communications, and by saying that the Americans should talk to the Iranians he does not mean that the Americans should simply give in to whatever the Iranians want. He is simply saying that they should talk to them, and I think in practice the Americans are probably already doing so. The “We won’t negotiate” line is just rhetoric.

In her campaign Hillary Clinton played the fear card, with the phone ringing at three o’clock in the night. How can an American Democrat be effective on issues like terrorism without playing the fear card?

Well, I do not think that is a huge problem. I think the problem for Democrats is often not to overcompensate for their image of being weak and trying to sound tougher than they want to, such as when Hillary Clinton talked about obliterating Iran. I think that did her more harm than good. Traditionally, however, Democratic presidents have not been particularly soft in their foreign policy, several wars were started by Democrats, and I do not think that Obama needs to be defensive on that score.

People like Benjamin Barber say that terrorism is an overestimated problem and that a Democrat should address the economy, not terrorism, because at the end of the day there has been only one serious attack on America.

Well, it may be overstated, but it is something people worry about and so it has to be addressed. And it is not as if America is not vulnerable to attacks: There has only been one, but it is fairly likely that there will be another, and you do not need many attacks to do a lot of damage – I do not only mean in terms of human lives, but in creating an atmosphere of fear that greatly undermines a liberal democracy. So I do not think you should dismiss it so easily just because there have not been other attacks. Yes, of course he should talk about the economy, too, but I think it would be very foolish to dismiss the terrorist issue as irrelevant.

Obama was very friendly with AIPAC. Do you think that he secretly has a different position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but cannot express it in this campaign?

I would be very surprised if he has a very different position. I think no American candidate, or president even, can afford to be too tough on Israel, and it would cause more problems than is worthwhile: Whatever they may think in private, I do not see either Obama or McCain or anybody else having a very different or tougher policy on Israel than has happened before. I would not expect it.

But do you think that he is secretly more sensitive to the Palestinian problem?

Well, it does not matter whether he is secretly more sensitive. What matters is what he does, and I do not see the Americans changing very much, especially should there be a president like Obama who feels perhaps he is vulnerable to attacks from the right regards to being weak etc. So, whatever he thinks secretly, in policy terms I do not think that he will do very much about it. He may be a bit more active than Bush was during his first two years, but that is not difficult.

Was this vulnerability that caused him to talk about a possible attack on Pakistan, if it does not move against Osama Bin Laden?

I am not so sure about that. I think the speech he made was not a very successful one. However, I think it’s more the fact that he realizes quite rightly that the real base for Al Qaeda activities is inside the borders of Pakistan, and that I think his argument was that the war in Iraq is a distraction: if you really want to go after Al Qaeda, you have to go after Osama Bin Laden. That means that if the Pakistanis do not act, then the Americans should have the right to act themselves. That is what he meant. I do not think it had much to do with wanting to sound tough, I think it was a different analysis.

Will religion play a role in this election?

The Republicans will probably try and use the Reverend Wright issue and such matters. But unless far more comes out than we know, Obama has already distanced himself from Wright and from the church. So although undoubtedly it will be used against him, I am not so sure it will do him much harm any more.

The United Nations have been unsuccessful on many occasions. Robert Kagan suggests the creation of a “league of democracies”. Is it a good idea?

Well, it is a nice idea, but I am not entirely sure how it would work. I mean whether it would be a military alliance or just a club of friends. So it sounds good, but he has not yet provided us with a very good blueprint , nor have others suggested how it would work in practice.

Could it work as a coordination agency within the United Nations?

Well, it might do. Kagan’s criticism, which is valid, states that the Security Council, for as long as it contains countries like China and so on, is always going to be a very difficult instrument to use for intervention. And if what he means – and I think that is what he means – is that you should have a kind of an alliance of democracies who will intervene in certain cases, then I am not sure how it would work. If it is not a military alliance, it will be difficult to see how it would play out in practice. But I have certain sympathy for the idea; I just do not think it is very concrete.