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Friedman returns

5 comments on Friedman returns

Friedman returns

: The NY Times’ Tom Friedman is back — he sure picked a lousy time to leave — and he’s still resolute in the need for a beachfront of democracy in Iraq but he’s pissed about the execution of that effort:

Being away has not changed my belief one iota in the importance of producing a decent outcome in Iraq, to help move the Arab-Muslim world off its steady slide toward increased authoritarianism, unemployment, overpopulation, suicidal terrorism and religious obscurantism. But my time off has clarified for me, even more, that this Bush team can’t get us there, and may have so messed things up that no one can….

What I resent so much is that some of us actually put our personal politics aside in thinking about this war and about why it is so important to produce a different Iraq. This administration never did. Mr. Kerry’s own views on Iraq have been intensely political and for a long time not well thought through. But Mr. Kerry is a politician running for office. Mr. Bush is president, charged with protecting the national interest, and yet from the beginning he has run Iraq policy as an extension of his political campaign.

Friends, I return to where I started: We’re in trouble in Iraq. We have to immediately get the Democratic and Republican politics out of this policy and start honestly reassessing what is the maximum we can still achieve there and what every American is going to have to do to make it happen. If we do not, we’ll end up not only with a fractured Iraq, but with a fractured America, at war with itself and isolated from the world.

I’d say he’s appropriately tough on Bush but inappropriately easy on Kerry.

And Friedman is being too easy on Friedman. I’m distrubed that he, like the candidates, is throwing up his hands at the difficulty of the task he supported. He should be pushing the candidates — both of them — step by step toward the means of victory for democracy, humanity, modernity, and decency in Iraq.

Mr. Friedman, I was one of many who endorsed this war because of your own doctrine there. Now it’s time to follow through and turn strategy into reality. It’s not your fault. It is your responsibility.

5 responses to “Friedman returns”

  1. chuck Avatar
    chuck

    Friedman is the classic B student. Hard working, diligent, and responsible, but he will never get an A because he just doesn’t have the native ability. That said, he is one of the NY Times’s best columnists.

  2. John Avatar
    John

    Friedman, at least, is the least predictable columnist in the Times stable, though Safire can be icconoclastic at times (he did pull the lever for Clinton in 1992). But for him to shift any further away from the paper’s standard op-ed line and closer to the Safire-Brooks axis would be tiptoeing into an in-house political minefield, as far as long-term career goals are concerned. Be thankful for the “A pox on both your houses” tone of Sunday’s column and leave it at that.

  3. gaw3 Avatar
    gaw3

    I agree Friedman’s being too hard on Bush. There is a long segment in the first paragraph of his column (you didn’t quote it) where he elaborates many instances of Bush choosing politics over fighting terror. I’m as impatient with Bush as the next guy, but these are pretty strong stuff. No wonder Bush looked so pissed off in the debates!
    Nice post, John.

  4. Robert Brown Avatar
    Robert Brown

    What an odd column.
    First Friedman tries to conflate an aggressive presidential campaign with an aggressive military campaign. One involves lethal force the other does not…no comparison.
    It is apparent that Friedman thinks that the use of more military force is Iraq would have resulted in a better outcome today. Fair enough, but the other side would counter that we need to turn Iraq over to the people at some point, and the use of brutal force would alienate the moderate people in the long run.
    Then he he itemizes the political v.s. “the right thing” reasons why the Bush administration cannot succeed in Iraq:
    -More troops or “radically” lower taxes? Bush would be perfectly happy to borrow the money for more troops if he thought that was the solution.
    -Fire the evangelical Christian guy? Yawn.
    `
    -Apologize to the UN for no WMD? The UN agreed that Iraq had WMD’s.
    -Raise Gas tax $.50 to starve Saudia Arabia? A dubious long term strategy that has nothing to do with success in Iraq.
    -Fire Rumsfled for the abuses at Abu Ghriab? Do the insurgents it Iraq really give a *bleep*?
    Then he give a pass to Kerry simply because he is a candidate, not the president.
    I have respected Friedman’s views in the past. I hope he will be more thoughtful in the future.

  5. Lee Avatar
    Lee

    “Mr. Friedman [. . . ] it’s time to follow through and turn strategy to reality.”
    How is it that a journalist would do this, Mr. Jarvis? Mr. Friedman writes most about foreign relations, not war theory; and while the two overlap, it is the Executive (Pres., Sec. Defense, etc.) and the legislative branches that must lead us through a war and, we hope, to victory, for our own interests and for those of Iraqis and the region.
    What twisted way of thinking has us wondering why a columnsit does not provide us with a strategy– and also suggesting the columnist is too hard on the Commander-in-Chief, whose job it mostly certainly IS to do these things? This Commander also has a legislative branch controlled by his own party and for years had the popular backing of a solid majority of the governed.
    Our representatives have a responsibility to construct a policy, elucidate its strategy and implement it successfully. They haven’t.
    Any challenger who seeks to be a representative should also have to do those things, in my view, to get my vote.
    Right now, neither the “man in charge” nor his opponent is doing so convincingly. More’s the pity we each may have to vote for whomever we feel is the lesser of evils in foregin policy– or we may vote on a different basis.
    But it is hardly Mr. Friedman’s responsibility to come up with war strategy.