Because We Can't

Tom Friedman, two  years ago, writing about the "real reason" for BushCo's War in Iraq, in what remains his signature moment as a deep thinking Middle East scholar:

The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighboring government — and 98 percent of terrorism is about what governments let happen — got the message. If you talk to U.S. soldiers in Iraq they will tell you this is what the war was about.

Two years later and "because we could" still gets to me.  "Smashing" Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been "fine."  And Iraq?  Why not?  It's all good when you've got the most powerful and powerfully pissed off army in the world.  Except it isn't all good, as even Friedman must now understand.  So it's just great to see that in the wake of the London bombings, he's moderated slightly his views on payback:

Because there is no obvious target to retaliate against, and because there are not enough police to police every opening in an open society, either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings - or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.

Oh, sure, he's still throwing around the threats from behind his desk in Manhattan: don't make us inhibit, denounce and restrain you in our rough, crude way.  But he's backed off the whole "Hey, Kids!  Let's start a war!" gameplan, understanding that either it was garbage when he came up with it or, more likely, that the army he wants to throw around the Middle East smashing things is bogged down in the heart of that world showing Arabs everywhere who's boss. 

So it's on to Plan B for Friedman:  collective punishment on the domestic front.  That's certainly never backfired. 

If you want a thoughtful response to yesterday, read Digby, who predicts Friedman's kind of thinking:

This genie is out of the bottle and it may very well have been a home grown operation with minimal direction or guidance from the "top brass" of al Qaeda. Which is why we really, really need to shut down the bloodlust right now and start thinking. The fact that this is called a 'war" does not mean that there is an appropriate military solution. Unfortunately, that may lead to other equally ineffective and toxic solutions.

Blair has a real chance now to separate himself from BushCo in a meaningful way.  He can either get off the Endless War train and form an anti-terrorism plan more in line with what has worked in the UK and Europe for decades, or he can continue to be BushCo's poodle, hoping against hope and history that he can moderate his dangerous, lunatic tendencies. 

UPDATE: Juan Cole explains why Friedman's root argument is wrong.

Comments

[cntodd]

Friedman is an even bigger boob then Judith "I heart Chalibi" Miller. What is with the NYT?

[eRobin]

The most charitable way I can think of Friedman is as a man who is so frustrated by the violence and unnecessary loss of life in the Middle East that he has decided that killing them all and letting God sort them out is the right way to go. I can't think of another way to explain his support for BushCo's War in Iraq. As for threatening Muslims with unreasonably harsh treatment in the West unless they get powerful clerics abroad and at home and abroad to denounce and rein in terror, I have no idea what he's thinking. It's like the terrorists telling us that we have to get BushCo to stop killing Arabs or they'll strike again - only we, with at least the facade of free elections in place, have a better chance at affecting US policy than the average Muslim on any street does.

[Michael]

I can't be as charitable, I'm afraid. Friedman is a fantasist (great qualification, that, for a Times foreign affairs correspondent) and a thug, which makes him spiritual kin to the neocons. Doug Feith with a Times portfolio. His only requirement for the world—small enough thing to ask of it, Friedman thinks—is that it never cease to vindicate him: his foresight, his intellectual and moral superiority. Sadly, the world has decided to go in a different direction—as, being real and not a fantasy, it inevitably has to—and Friedman has nothing to respond with but threats. Cowardly, stupid threats of others acting out Friedman's own rage, like the one on offer today.

I think this column pretty much completes Tom Friedman's post-9/11 moral collapse. Emblematic, really, of a good segment of the "liberal hawk" population.