Thomas Friedman on Iraq: Just Wait Six Months....

Brian Doherty | May 19, 2006

Thomas Friedman sees the next six months or so as being the really crucial ones in Iraq. He's been seeing it for a long time, and over and over again.

Comments

|5.19.06 @ 5:46PM|#

I'm going to hold off on commenting on this post for about six months, give or take.

|5.19.06 @ 6:30PM|#

Reminds me of people in the stock market who talk about "paper losses" as if being willing to hold a loser long term means they shouldn't have to meet margin calls.

...Doesn't he seem to have called a lot of "dead cat bounces" as up ticks too?

|5.19.06 @ 6:35PM|#

Tom Friedman is one of a large number of Beltway Kool Kids who bet their reputations on this war leading to democracy and freedom throughout the Middle East. These people zealously, eagerly, ferociously burned the bridges connecting them with the reality-based community.

There really is no accommodation to made with dead-enders like this - they just have to be crushed.

|5.19.06 @ 6:48PM|#

Yep, hard to go wrong by pointing out that the immediate future is the most crucial time for just about everything. It's not surprising to hear a lot of people who make a living off of telling us what to expect saying a lot of things as true and as meaningless as "your next breath is a really crucial one."

And by the way, I expect the first six minutes to be really crucial ones if the Pistons are to get off to a good start tonight.

|5.19.06 @ 6:57PM|#

...another six months, maybe that's how long it takes for him to get a call back from Mandelbaum?

|5.19.06 @ 7:01PM|#

"Yep, hard to go wrong by pointing out that the immediate future is the most crucial time for just about everything."

Future Tense Orientation?

RACIST!

|5.19.06 @ 7:07PM|#

Brian (Doherty): this story is two days old, in blog-time. It's far too late to write about it now. Get with the program.

|5.19.06 @ 7:16PM|#

Wel, Rufus, I didn't come across it 'til early this morning and other responsibilities kept me from blogging it til later; tis true technorati has 22 hits beating me to it in the past couple days; I don't know whether to be ashamed or pleased that even the Suicide Girls scooped me. But you know the old saying, until it's been Hit and Runned (Hit and Ran?), it ain't really been blogged.

|5.19.06 @ 7:31PM|#

What's that about the getting beaten by the suicide girls every 6 months?
Count me in!

|5.19.06 @ 7:57PM|#

Brian Courts,

So far, it is neck and neck.

Ron Hardin|5.19.06 @ 8:24PM|#

Friedman has to produce the excitement of importance or he's dead as a columnist. It's his schtick.

Iraq has fights with the right people about the right things. The question is about the moonbat left at home, not the troops in Iraq.

|5.19.06 @ 8:55PM|#

FYI: A Rasmussen Reports poll shows that 51% of American's think Iraq will worsen over the next six months, while only 29% think it will improve.

|5.19.06 @ 9:02PM|#

Friedman and Limbaugh have been meeting secretly in WV?

To what purpose?

"until it's been Hit and Runned (Hit and Ran?), it ain't really been blogged."
My tagline henceforth.

|5.19.06 @ 9:20PM|#

Iraq has fights with the right people about the right things. The question is about the moonbat left at home, not the troops in Iraq.

Questions about the tinfoil hat right currently far outweight the moonbat left in my book these days. And as for the troops in Iraq, if you're talking about the Iraqi troops...well, there's lot's of questions about them too.

|5.19.06 @ 9:50PM|#

To paraphrase Thomas Dewey in 1948, Iraq's future lies ahead of it.

|5.19.06 @ 10:08PM|#

1) Six months
2) ????
3) Profit!

Is anybody inside the Beltway capable of non-magical thinking anymore?

Quick! Look over there! Immigrants!

|5.19.06 @ 10:26PM|#

To paraphrase Thomas Dewey in 1948, Iraq's future lies ahead of it.

To quote Yogi Berra, "The future ain't what it used to be."

|5.20.06 @ 12:36AM|#

To quote Yogi Berra

It's gulf war two all over again.

|5.20.06 @ 2:04AM|#

"There really is no accommodation to made with dead-enders like this - they just have to be crushed."

WTF @!! What's going on, joe ? Suffering thru' a d.ivor.ce or what ?

|5.20.06 @ 2:45AM|#

SM, my guess is that joe knows what is best in life.

Next thread he posts on, he'll be commenting about hearing the lamentations of the women.

|5.20.06 @ 3:10AM|#

Reminds me of the Soviet commie "five year plans". If you'll just suffer thru this for a little longer, things will get better...

Bring outr troops home now so they'll quit dying needlessly

|5.20.06 @ 7:49AM|#

Where's RC Dean to chime in w/ the Samizdata "Iraq is a wonderful government success" line?

|5.20.06 @ 10:32AM|#

mediageek, I find that seeing my enemy driven before me is also satisfying. Ah, good times, good times.

|5.20.06 @ 10:47AM|#

I agree with Rick Barton. We need to spout more slogans.

|5.20.06 @ 11:04AM|#

Friedman reminds me of a customr who had bought a very expensive foot cream that gave her a rash, but who kept using it becuase "she had paid for it"

I lectured her on the subjcet, and managed to get her to throw it way, immediately, and to buy me a foot cream for $1.99 She said she had talked to her sister on the phone and said that I was right.

Unfortunaltey, people like Friendam and co. are not easily placaed with $1.99 substitutes.

VM|5.20.06 @ 11:29AM|#

More self loathing there, Bob? What, lose the job as an efficiency expert? What's your partner, Bob, to do?

Rick: you said it! :)

|5.20.06 @ 11:44AM|#

Be sure to bear in mind, in case you are confused, that there are always more corners to turn when you are lost in an endless maze.

Hah!

Whatever one may think of the situation in Iraq, the most damning indictments of our policies in Iraq often come from its very defenders.

"Look, just give it another 6 months. Yeah, I said that 6 months ago, but the past 6 months taught us some important lessons. The most important lesson being that we need another 6 months."

"Look, the influx of foreign jihadis isn't a bug, it's a feature, because it means that American soldiers get to fight!"

"Well, yes, Iraqi oil exports are feeble, but look at all the good news. Like the public works projects being built at taxpayer expense! With so many government schools and government clinics being built, and public works programs giving more Iraqis a public sector job, it's only a matter of time before Iraq is a free, prosperous, and liberal beacon!"

Which is not to say that we can judge the policy based on the stupidity of its defenders (otherwise, a conversation with a dumb stoner would force me to stop supporting drug reform), but, for God's sake, a lot of the hawks need to STFU.

|5.20.06 @ 12:16PM|#

Bob,

I don't think that it qualifies as a slogan. You just called it that cuz it's easier for you then challenging the idea.

greg wirth|5.20.06 @ 5:37PM|#

This is the kind of punditry driving our politics.

|5.20.06 @ 8:59PM|#

But you know the old saying, until it's been Hit and Runned (Hit and Ran?), it ain't really been blogged.

Even if you're lying, I'm sure this blog will get better within the next six months.

|5.20.06 @ 10:23PM|#

rhampton--

FYI: A Rasmussen Reports poll shows that 51% of American's think Iraq will worsen over the next six months, while only 29% think it will improve.

More than "51% of American's"(sic) cannot name their own fucking Congressional representative(and over 40% don't know that the time it takes the Earth to make one orbit of the sun is otherwise known as a "year"...).

Why does anyone care about what the morons amongst us do not know or understand?

|5.21.06 @ 10:33AM|#

Why does anyone care about what the morons amongst us do not know or understand?

Because those morons can vote?

|5.21.06 @ 1:54PM|#

I admit to being one of those who does not know his own Congressman. I did know, once... but then I moved to Chicago... up here, I don't even know what congressional district I'm in. I wouldn't really even know who my alderman (Vi Daley) is if there weren't a shrine to her a block away.

my bad, yo.

|5.22.06 @ 2:14PM|#

You have internet access. You can easily surf to www.house.gov and input your address to find who your congressman (or congresswoman) is.

Giving them a spine so they can actually start doing their constitutional duties would be nice, too. I think with the current system the only way to implement the spine transplant is via the November voting booth (hey, that's 6 months :-), assuming el Chimpero does not suspend the election to protect our freedoms from immigrants and the boogey man.

|5.22.06 @ 3:18PM|#

Very funny timeline of Friedman's "six month" corner. I look forward to the follow-up post, a similiar timeline consisting of several years of "Iraqi civil war any day now" predictions. Pundits! Sheesh.