[lit-ideas] The Next Six Months...
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:36:05 -0700
Here's a funny email about Thomas Friedman.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
Tom Friedman's Flexible Deadlines
Iraq's 'decisive' six months have lasted three and a half years
New York Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman is considered by many of his media
colleagues to be one of the wisest observers of international affairs. "You have a global
brain, my friend," MSNBC host Chris Matthews once told Friedman (4/21/05). "You're amazing.
You amaze me every time you write a book."
Such praise is not uncommon. Friedman's appeal seems to rest on his ability to discuss
complex issues in the simplest possible terms. On a recent episode of MSNBC's Hardball
(5/11/06), for example, Friedman boiled down the intricacies of the Iraq situation into a
make-or-break deadline: "Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year
to six months-probably sooner-whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're
going to have to just let this play out."
That confident prediction would seem a lot more insightful, however, if Friedman hadn't been
making essentially the same forecast almost since the beginning of the Iraq War. A review of
Friedman's punditry reveals a long series of similar do-or-die dates that never seem to get
any closer.
"The next six months in Iraq-which will determine the prospects for democracy-building
there-are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time." (New
York Times, 11/30/03)
"What I absolutely don't understand is just at the moment when we finally have a UN-approved
Iraqi-caretaker government made up of-I know a lot of these guys-reasonably decent people
and more than reasonably decent people, everyone wants to declare it's over. I don't get it.
It might be over in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months, but
what's the rush? Can we let this play out, please?" (NPR's Fresh Air, 6/3/04)
"What we're gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated
a country or uncorked a civil war." (CBS's Face the Nation, 10/3/04)
"Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months.
But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the last
mile." (New York Times, 11/28/04)
"I think we're in the end game now.. I think we're in a six-month window here where it's
going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt I think the next congressional
election-that's my own feeling- let alone the presidential one." (NBC's Meet the Press,
9/25/05)
"Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond
transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of
minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is
still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our
time." (New York Times, 9/28/05)
"We've teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going
to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether
it's going to come together." (CBS's Face the Nation, 12/18/05)
"We're at the beginning of I think the decisive I would say six months in Iraq, OK, because
I feel like this election-you know, I felt from the beginning Iraq was going to be
ultimately, Charlie, what Iraqis make of it." (PBS's Charlie Rose Show, 12/20/05)
"The only thing I am certain of is that in the wake of this election, Iraq will be what
Iraqis make of it-and the next six months will tell us a lot. I remain guardedly hopeful."
(New York Times, 12/21/05)
"I think that we're going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any
chance of succeeding. In which case, I think the American people as a whole will want to
play it out or whether it really is a fool's errand." (Oprah Winfrey Show, 1/23/06)
"I think we're in the end game there, in the next three to six months, Bob. We've got for
the first time an Iraqi government elected on the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Either
they're going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that we aspire to in
the near term, in which case America will stick with it, or they're not, in which case I
think the bottom's going to fall out." (CBS, 1/31/06)
"I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we
can produce a decent outcome in Iraq." (NBC's Today, 3/2/06)
"Can Iraqis get this government together? If they do, I think the American public will
continue to want to support the effort there to try to produce a decent, stable Iraq. But if
they don't, then I think the bottom is going to fall out of public support here for the
whole Iraq endeavor. So one way or another, I think we're in the end game in the sense it's
going to be decided in the next weeks or months whether there's an Iraq there worth
investing in. And that is something only Iraqis can tell us." (CNN, 4/23/06)
"Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months-probably
sooner-whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're going to have to just
let this play out." (MSNBC's Hardball, 5/11/06)
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