Iraq is Flat

Tom Friedman, in the course of gallivanting around the Middle East on one of his periodic travels to discover his Next Big Idea, just spent about an hour in a discussion with me and 50 of my closest friends on his thoughts on Iraq, the world, and everything.

Now, I've never been shy in expressing my long-held belief that he is vastly overrated and his insights vastly underwhelming. Part of this may be envy -- does anyone who has inclinations toward the written word not want to be a New York Times columnist? -- but I just think he's formulaic, doing diligent research and reporting but producing pablum. It's the Bob Woodward school of journalism: He's a fabulous reporter with incredible access and a decent (if somewhat cloying) writer, but a mediocre thinker.

Nevertheless, he made several good observations in a little impromptu talk that began the meeting:

1. We'll only win (the war on terrorism) if we get them to fight all of us (the civilized world).
2. If we leave, Iraq will collapse into itself in about 10 minutes, but if we stay 10 years, the outcome will still be uncertain -- so how do you make policy given this reality?
3. The surge is not an unmitigated 100% success, but there are some very "interesting" things going on with the Sunni tribes and other formerly hostile groups.

And here are some choice quotes and points raised during the Q & A:

• When we leave, it won't be a clear-cut win for Iran because they'll have to deal with the ancient intra-Shia Persian v. Arab divide.
• Our differing treatment of Saudi Arabia and Iran is a problem. For too long our Middle East policy consisted of three dictates to Arab governments: keep the oil pumps open, keep prices low, and don't bother the Jews too much (but do whatever you want with women, civil rights, religious extremism, etc.). On 9/11 and since, we're reaping the back-end results of that front-end policy.
• We have to get Arab leaders to condemn Muslim-on-Muslim violence. "When Christians kill Muslims it's a big deal. When Jews kill Muslims it's a Security Council meeting. When Muslims kill Muslims... it's a fucking weather report."
• Quoting senior Israeli officials whom he was with, coincidentally, the day after 9/11, "we have to change the village." "When the village is silent, look what happens." Meaning no matter how good you are at stopping suicide bombers, one will eventually get through unless you change attitudes at their source.
• "If I were President Bush, I would go on a global apology tour" and then ask world leaders what they're going to do now. "London, Paris, and Moscow are a lot closer to the Middle East than Minnesota [where Friedman is from]."
• The Middle East is the only part of the world/Third World/developing world afflicted with all the obstacles to development: the curse of oil, a legacy of colonialism, a religion antithetical to modernity, and a legacy of authoritarianism.
• "We're gonna have to keep coaching these guys [referring to the Iraqi leadership]."
• "We're not doing nation-building -- that would be easy -- we're doing nation-creating."
• "This is indeed Germany after the war -- 1648, not 1948." We're creating institutions wholesale.
• "The young people [of the Middle East] wanted us to succeed."
• When asked by a reporter for a pan-Arab newspaper that prints his column about his stance on a supporter of the war at its start, Friedman said, somewhat sarcastically, "I'm sorry. I thought Arabs wanted democracy and peace. Next time I'll be a better Frenchman."

A lot of interesting stuff there, though, as he said, he's still digesting it all. I thought on the last one he was gonna add some sort of smoothing punchline, but he didn't, which certainly gains him credit from these quarters. Maybe I'll take a look at his next few Iraq columns, see if he comes up with anything useful from this "eye-opening" trip.