One Friedman Unit Ago...

[tristano's ghost]

If you're not familiar with the "Friedman Unit," it's a liberal blogger term for the almost-like-clockwork ponderances of gasbag Thomas Friedman, who's been declaring since late 2003 that "the next six months will determine the fate of Iraq" or some such... and it's come to represent all of the repetitive, one-last-shot statements made by war supporters since then. Atrios has been compiling a good list of ones from this past year:

Charlie Rose


One Friedman ago today, Charlie Rose had a panel discussion about the surge. His guests were:

Fareed Zakaria who supported the war.
Bill Kristol who supported the war.
Richard Holbrooke who supported the war.
Ken Duberstein who supported the war.
Rahm Emanuel who supported the war.
David Ignatius who supported the war.

Michael Duffy, Tom Ricks, and Robin Wright who, as "straight" journalists, presumably took no public positions on the war.


-Atrios 11:40

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Six Months


One Friedman ago today, Senator Kerry asked Quiet American Michael O'Hanlon a question:



So my question to each of you, in sum, is if there isn't sufficient evidence of this kind of summitry and diplomacy -- if there isn't a sufficient political process in place -- and I want your judgment as to whether or not there is -- will more troops have any chance of, in fact, getting what we want, or is it going to make matters worse? And if it does, where are we after putting them in in six months if it hasn't worked? Mr. O'Hanlon?

MR. O'HANLON: Senator Kerry, very tough question. I like your idea of a ledger. On the positive side of the troop surge proposal, I would say we all know tactically there have never been enough troops in Iraq to clear and hold. So that's the tactical argument for this case. It would have been a much more compelling argument three and four years ago than it is today, but I think it remains at some level in the plus column. On the negative column, of course, we know that there is no political resolution of these very sectarian divides --


-Atrios 11:30

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Wanker of the Day


John Boehner.

And why does CNN think we need to hear what Walnuts McCain says about anything? Is it possible that just once some dirty fucking hippie who opposed this war could get some airtime?

Jeebus.


-Atrios 11:21

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We Need to Say


One Friedman today, Brigadier General James "Spider" Marks (Ret.):


FOREMAN: Six months from now, are we going to look at this area right here where most of them are going to go and say we're better off or worse off?

MARKS: We need to say we're better off.

ZAHN: We need to, but will we?

MARKS: There are ways to achieve that. And it's not mutually exclusive. It's not a political solution better than a military solution. All of these are essential ingredients to a solution. So it's not a military strategy.


-Atrios 11:17

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We'll Know It's Not Working


From CBS News, one Friedman ago today:



Pentagon officials expect US troops to stay in the streets for about six months before turning security over to the Iraqis. `If it hasn't happened in six months,' one official said, `we'll know it's not working.'


-Atrios 11:01

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Dead Serious Six Months


One Friedman ago today, Tim Russert said:


Unless considerable progress is made in Iraq in a relatively short time, you will see Republicans crossing over and joining Democrats in challenging his Iraq strategy in a bipartisan way. This is a dead serious six months we're approaching.


-Atrios 10:58

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Second to Last Stand


One Friedman ago today Chris Matthews said:


MATTHEWS: Well, I don`t think it`s his last stand. I think it`s the second to the last stand. I think asking for more troops suggests hope that if we try a little harder, it will work. I think the next go-around, six months from now, or a year from now, perhaps, you`ll see the president come back to the American people and say, give me one last shot at this. I think he has one more chance after this. It`s not the end of the game.

This is the second to the last battle, I believe, of this war politically. But I do believe his numbers will continue to go down. I think we`ll see casualties in the streets of Iraq, Baghdad. It`s going to be a bloody campaign and I don`t think it`s going to yield stability.



-Atrios 10:36

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Last Shot


One Friedman ago today, Quiet American from Brookings Michael O'Hanlon said:


He has one last shot, and that's the way to look at it, I think. It's Hail, Mary time.



-Atrios 09:59

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Re: the "dirty fucking hippie" remark, this is Atrios' sarcastic reference to the utter lack of war opponents on the mainstream TV talk shows then or now, and said mainstream media's tendency to still, unconsciously or not, think of anti-war folks as "dirty fucking hippies." I mean, look at that guest list on Charlie Rose! And that's freakin' PBS, which tilts right if anything these days, but still held by said right to be some bastion of Stalinism...

Well, just what--three Friedman units to go till the Worst President Ever leaves office.

[guy]

Originally Posted by tristano's ghost

If you're not familiar with the "Friedman Unit," it's a liberal blogger term for the almost-like-clockwork ponderances of gasbag Thomas Friedman, who's been declaring since late 2003 that "the next six months will determine the fate of Iraq" or some such...

Didn't Friedman stop this habit at a certain point? (2006?) I try to avoid NYC op-ed columnists whenever possible so I don't know.

Guy

[jeff54]

I'm not sure if Friedman came out earlier then this in calling for the US to leave Iraq but here is a column from Dec, 2006 in which he does. I use to be a fan of Friedman but I'm more of a Bob Herbert man now.

December 8, 2006
Set a Date and Buy Some Leverage
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

The brutally honest Baker-Hamilton assessment of the Iraq morass implies that we need to leave Iraq if the factions there don't get their act together, but it also urges a last-ditch effort to enlist the help of Syria and Iran to salvage something decent. Both are good suggestions, but they will only have a chance of being effective if we go one notch further and set a fixed date -- now -- for America to leave Iraq.

The only hope of moving the factions inside Iraq, not to mention Syria and Iran, toward reconciliation is if we have leverage over them, which we now lack. The currency of Middle East politics is pain. And right now, all the pain is being inflicted on us and on Iraqi civilians. Only if we tell all the players that we are leaving might we create a different balance of pain and therefore some hope for a diplomatic deal. Trying to do diplomacy without the threat of pain is like trying to play baseball without a bat.

Yes, yes, I know, the conventional wisdom is that if the U.S. sets a date to leave Iraq the whole Middle East will explode in a Shiite-Sunni war. Maybe, but maybe not.

Let's play this out. What happens if we set a date to leave? The war in Iraq will get worse, but for how long? Right now our troops are providing a floor under the civil war that allows some parties to behave outrageously or make impossible demands -- because they know that we won't let things spin totally out of control. Would they behave more cautiously if they knew they had to pay retail for their madness? I'd like to find out.

Moreover, while our presence in Iraq helps control the situation, it also aggravates it. For many Sunnis, and a growing number of Shiites, we've become ''occupiers'' to be resisted. Our leaving will both unleash violence and eliminate violence.

As for the neighbors, well, right now Iran, Syria and some other Arab states look at Iraq and clearly believe that the controlled chaos there is their friend. For Arab autocrats, chaos is their friend because a burning Iraq on Al Jazeera sends a message to their own people: ''This is what happens to those who try democracy.'' And for Iran and Syria, anything that frustrates the U.S. in Iraq and keeps America bleeding weakens its ability to confront Tehran.

The minute we leave, chaos in Iraq is not their friend anymore. First of all, if there is a full-fledged civil war, Syria, a largely Sunni country, will have to support the Iraqi Sunnis. Shiite Iran will have to support the Iraqi Shiites. That would mean Iran and Syria, now allies, will be on opposite sides of the Iraqi civil war. That will leave them with the choice of either indirectly fighting each other or working to settle the war.

Moreover, right now we are ''Mr. Big'' in Iraq, soaking up all the popular anger. But the minute we're gone, Iran becomes ''Mr. Big'' and the age-old tensions between Iraqi Arab Shiites and Iranian Persian Shiites will surface. Iran and Moktada al-Sadr will be at each other's throats.

Also, as long as our troops are in Iraq, we are pinned down and an easy target for Iran to hit, should we ever want to strike its nuclear facilities. Once we are out, we will have much more room to maneuver. I'm not saying we should attack Iran, but I am saying Iran will be much more worried that we will.

As for the Arab states, they've done little to promote peace in Iraq. They've basically said to America: ''You can't leave and we won't help.'' O.K., we're leaving. You still don't want to help? The only thing the Arab regimes fear more than democracy is fragmentation.

As I've written before, our real choices in Iraq are 10 months or 10 years. Either we commit the resources to entirely rebuild the place over a decade, for which there is little support, or we tell everyone that we will be out within 10 months, or sooner, and we'll deal with the consequences from afar. We need to start the timer -- today, now.

As long as we're in Iraq, Iraq implodes, and we absorb a lot of the pain. The minute we leave, Iraq explodes -- or at least no one can be sure it won't -- and that is a real threat to the Iraqi factions and neighbors. Even facing that reality might not knock enough sense into them to compromise, but at least then they'll have their medieval religious war without us.

Only that threat will give us leverage. Yes, it would be a sad end to our involvement there. But everything Iraq's leaders have done so far suggests that a united, democratic and pluralistic Iraq is their second choice. Tribal politics is still their first choice. We can't go on having our first-choice kids dying for their second choice.

[Tom Storer]

Where does Atrius's "Walnuts McCain" come from? I love it, but without knowing why. Why "Walnuts"?

[tristano's ghost]

Friedman Unit

According to the Wiki piece, Atrios coined the term in May 2006 after the FAIR report came out on Friedman's long-running "next six months" spiel. Evidently Friedman finally did, in Dec. 2006, call for a fixed withdrawal date. I'm guessing the "Friedman Unit" business shamed him into doing so.

[tristano's ghost]

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

Where does Atrius's "Walnuts McCain" come from? I love it, but without knowing why. Why "Walnuts"?

I think it's just his smartass term for McCain's particular brand of campaign-inspired wingnuttery.