An Interview with Jonathan Clarke Jonathan Clarke, a former British diplomat, is a political analyst and syndicated columnist with the Los Angeles Times . This interview has been edited from the version originally recorded for Dialogue , the Woodrow Wilson Center's radio program. It was conducted by Dialogue producer and host, George Liston Seay. Dialogue is distributed in the United States by Public Radio International and in Europe by World Radio Network. Americans do ask that question far more often than other countries.
Most British diplomats ask themselves questions pertinent to British interests.
Idealism, or the moral angle, is not taken into account nearly as much in Britain, at least not in terms of rhetoric. First you have intense morality. People today are talking constantly about values. In fact, that was one of the first responses of then-Governor Clinton during the 1992 presidential campaign. He was asked about the principles of his foreign policy, and the interesting reply he gave was that first he would address what ought to be the country's values.