I used to think that Tom Friedman served a strange but invaluable role in foreign policy: namely, as the canary in the mine, sniffing out the conventional wisdom about whatever is happening in the world and then telegraphing it to the rest of us through his twice-weekly column in the Times. Increasingly, though, I am beginning to wonder about Friedman’s place as the leading purveyor of foreign policy fortune cookies. His column is as conventional as always–no worries there–but the wisdom has been arriving a day late and a dollar short. By the time the Friedman canary keels over these days, you can bet that the rest of the miners have been dead for weeks. Consider his latest missive on Iraq. Friedman of course urged and applauded the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003 when it was the fashionable thing to do among tough-minded, centrist Democrats. “Liberals so detest Mr. Bush that they refuse to acknowledge the simple good that has come from ending Saddam’s tyranny,” he puffed in righteous anger shortly after Baghdad fell. In another column that year: “Whether you were for or against this war, whether you preferred that the war be done with the U.N.’s approval or without it, you have to feel good that right has triumphed over wrong. America did the right thing here. It toppled one of the most evil regimes on the face of the earth, and I don’t think we know even a fraction of how deep that evil went. Fair-minded people have to acknowledge that. Who cares if we now find some buried barrels of poison?” Then, as the war grew unfashionable and unpopular, Friedman wavered, blubbered, and finally fled for the hills–desperate to stay one step ahead of the bien pensant conventional wisdom, not to mention, the good graces of the Democratic party whose respect he desperately craves. (He’s not alone in this maneuver, of course. See the writing staff of the New Republic or the Democratic Leadership Council for further examples.) When the surge was announced earlier this year, he once again bleated the bromides of the moment, insisting in anguished tones that it wouldn’t work–at least, not unless it was matched by a “diplomatic” surge and a “moral” surge and a surge in Indian software engineers with solar-powered Internet-based outsourcing companies. (OK, it’s possible that I might be mixing up that last one with another one of Friedman’s columns.)
In February, in any case, he gravely warned that “the only way more U.S. troops might bring stability” to Iraq is if “you add two missing elements: a deadline and a floor.” Now, a day after the front page of the Times reports that–despite President Bush’s refusal to listen to Tom Friedman and set a deadline for withdrawal–“the security improvements in most neighborhoods of Baghdad are real,” Friedman wades back into the Iraq debate, now with a tone of . . . wait for it . . . why, yes, it’s cautious optimism! “It’s clear that the surge by U.S. troops has really dampened violence in Iraq…” he tells us. “Right now what is indisputable is that we are seeing the first crack in years in a wall of pessimism that has been the Iraq story. It is only a crack, but it creates new possibilities. It would be reckless to ignore or exaggerate.” Of course Friedman offers so many qualifications and caveats in his column that he comes off sounding less like a paid foreign policy commentator than a recent divorcee nervously thinking about getting back into the dating scene. “I don’t know… I’m taking this one step at a time… I have more questions right now than strong opinions,” he burbles. Friedman’s advice to his readers about Iraq: “You have to keep your mind open that something may be emerging . . . and yet be wary.” Frankly, I can live with Friedman’s equivocations. What his columns invariably lack in insight and sophistication about the world beyond our borders, they more than make up for in signaling (albeit belatedly) the direction of fashionable opinion in Washington and New York. His column this morning is just the latest sign that the Iraq debate is shifting– and fast–away from the narrative of defeat and failure advanced by Democrats, toward something cautiously more hopeful.
