In this interview they were AGREEING strongly about Americal foreign policy: Our foreign policy, they agree, is the cause of many of the problems in the world, and America should just butt out and let other countries run themselves, even if we don't agree with them. Paul pointed out a key reason we are having so many problems in the Arab world is because, in the past, we have supported such characters as the Shah of Iran, Osama Bin Ladin, and Saddam Hussein. Each time we did this it was beleived necessary to maintain a power balance in the Middle East (and to protect our business interests and energy supplies), but it backfired every time. He said the CIA has a term to describe this: it's the "blowback effect".

Now I doubt either of these polar opposites is naieve enough to believe all the terrorists would stop hating us and begin to love and respect us if we butted out of the Middle East. Bin Ladin and his bunch will stop targeting the US only when we become an Islamic theocracy under Sharia law. I agree many obese American women would look better in a Burka than A bikini, but that's not a good reason to adopt Muslin law:) (Linda will pummel me about the head and shoulders when she returns from London and reads this sexist statement).

But I do believe they raise a valid point: Every time we support a war or engage in one, even if we achieve the intended objective of removing a bad guy from power, in the process we kill thousands of Muslims, making it much easier for the radical Islamists to recruit young people who are willing to sacrifice their lives in a terror bombing. Currently there probably are a few thousand people who are ready and trained to be suicide bombers, hundreds of thousands who could easily be recruited because of the widespread hatred of America, and millions who wouldn't become terrorists but support terrorism even if it includes the killing of innocents. It's those millions who scare me the most.

They also discussed the Republican Party, and Paul simply said it has abandonned the conservative philosophy and has lost its way with huge amounts of deficit spending and programs that violate our constitutional rights and threaten our freedom.

It's not uncommon for a sound tactical decision to have the reverse effect in the strategic arena. Big corporations make this mistake regularly, but I would hope our politicians could see this and not make Bin Ladin's job so easy.

• Ron Paul