Shortly into my chat with Thomas Friedman, it becomes clear we have different agendas. Friedman wants to talk exclusively about his new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded - a clarion call for a US-led global green revolution. I also want to discuss the Iraq war, which he cheered with breathless enthusiasm in his twice-weekly column in The New York Times. 'Iraq is a whole other interview,' the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner objects.

Sure, the book is an urgent primer on the need for a clean energy system, engagingly written in his usual folksy and anecdotal style. But as Iraq teeters on the brink of civil war and the US faces unprecedented hostility from the Arab world, it's hard not to feel that Friedman - perhaps the most prominent liberal columnist to have boosted the invasion - is trying to turn over a verdant new leaf.