[Peace-discuss] Spot the Loony

[C. G. Estabrook]

["Monty Python Presenter: And welcome to 'Spot the Loony', where once again we 
invite you to come with us all over the world to meet all kinds of people in all 
kinds of places, and ask you to ... Spot the Loony!" of course, this is a 
particularly easy one, because today's contestant is NYT flack for the USG, Tom 
Friedman.  Tom's outdone himself today, though.  Here in one column is enough 
misinformation and outright lying to sustain an entire war effort. In fact, it 
does.  It's the USG's rationale for killing people in the Mideast, and it's 
absolutely mad.  --CGE]


	June 7, 2009
	NYT OP-ED COLUMNIST
	After Cairo, It’s Clinton Time
	By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry after reading the reactions of 
analysts and officials in the Middle East to President Obama’s Cairo speech. 
“It’s not what he says, but what he does,” many said. No, ladies and gentlemen 
of the Middle East, it is what he says and what you do and what we do. We must 
help, but we can’t want democracy or peace more than you do.

What should we be doing? The follow-up to the president’s speech will have to be 
led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This will be her first big test, and, 
for me, there is no question as to where she should be putting all her energy: 
on the peace process.

No, not that peace process — not the one between Israelis and Palestinians. That 
one’s probably beyond diplomacy. No, I’m talking about the peace process that is 
much more strategically important — the one inside Iraq.

The most valuable thing that Mrs. Clinton could do right now is to spearhead a 
sustained effort — along with the U.N., the European Union and Iraq’s neighbors 
— to resolve the lingering disputes between Iraqi factions before we complete 
our withdrawal. (We’ll be out of Iraq’s cities by June 30 and the whole country 
by the close of 2011.)

Why? Because if Iraq unravels as we draw down, the Obama team will be blamed, 
and it will be a huge mess. By contrast, if a decent and stable political order 
can take hold in Iraq, it could have an extremely positive impact on the future 
of the Arab world and on America’s reputation.

I have never bought the argument that Iraq was the bad war, Afghanistan the good 
war and Pakistan the necessary war. Folks, they’re all one war with different 
fronts. It’s a war within the Arab-Muslim world between progressive and 
anti-modernist forces over how this faith community is going to adapt to 
modernity — modern education, consensual politics, the balance between religion 
and state and the rights of women. Any decent outcome in Iraq would bolster all 
the progressive forces by creating an example of something that does not exist 
in the Middle East today — an independent, democratizing Arab-Muslim state.

“The reason there are no successful Arab democracies today is because there is 
no successful Arab democracy today,” said Stanford’s Larry Diamond, the author 
of “The Spirit of Democracy.” “When there is no model, it is hard for an idea to 
diffuse in a region.”

Rightly or wrongly, we stepped into the middle of this war of ideas in the 
Arab-Muslim world in 2003 when we decapitated the Iraqi regime, wiped away its 
authoritarian political structure and went about clumsily midwifing something 
that the modern Arab world has never seen before — a horizontal dialogue between 
the constituent communities of an Arab state. In Iraq’s case, that is primarily 
Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

Yes, in a region that has only known top-down monologues from kings, dictators 
and colonial powers, we have helped Iraqis convene the first horizontal dialogue 
to write their own social contract for how to share power.

At first, this dialogue took place primarily through violence. Liberated from 
Saddam’s iron fist, each Iraqi community tested its strength against the others, 
saying in effect: “Show me what you got, baby.” The violence was horrific and 
ultimately exhausting for all. So now we’ve entered a period of negotiations 
over how Iraq will be governed. But it’s unfinished and violence could easily 
return.

And that brings me to Secretary Clinton. I do not believe the argument that 
Iraqis will not allow us to help mediate their disputes — whether over Kirkuk, 
oil-sharing or federalism. For years now, our president, secretary of state and 
secretary of defense have flown into Iraq, met the leaders for a few hours and 
then flown away, not to return for months. We need a more serious, weighty 
effort. Hate the war, hate Bush, but don’t hate the idea of trying our best to 
finish this right.

This is important. Afghanistan is secondary. Baghdad is a great Arab and Muslim 
capital. Iraq has something no other Arab country has in abundance: water, oil 
and an educated population. It already has sprouted scores of newspapers and TV 
stations that operate freely. “Afghanistan will never have any impact outside of 
Afghanistan. Iraq can change minds,” said Mamoun Fandy, of the International 
Institute for Strategic Studies.

You demonstrate that Iraqi Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds can write their own social 
contract, and you will tell the whole Arab world that there is a model other 
than top-down monologues from iron-fisted dictators. You will expose the phony 
democracy in Iran, and you will leave a legacy for America that will help 
counter Abu Ghraib and torture.

Ultimately, which way Iraq goes will depend on whether its elites decide to use 
their freedom to loot their country or to rebuild it. That’s still unclear. But 
we still have a chance to push things there in the right direction, and a huge 
interest in doing so. Mrs. Clinton is a serious person; this is a serious job. I 
hope she does it.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/opinion/07friedman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion