New York Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman is considered by many
of his media colleagues to be one of the wisest observers of international
affairs. "You have a global brain, my friend," MSNBC host Chris Matthews once
told Friedman (4/21/05). "You're amazing. You amaze me every time you write a
book."
Such praise is not uncommon. Friedman's appeal seems to rest on his ability
to discuss complex issues in the simplest possible terms. On a recent episode
of MSNBC's Hardball (5/11/06), for example, Friedman boiled down the
intricacies of the Iraq situation into a make-or-break deadline: "Well, I think
that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six
months—probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is possible there,
and I think we're going to have to just let this play out."
That confident prediction would seem a lot more insightful, however, if
Friedman hadn't been making essentially the same forecast almost since the
beginning of the Iraq War. A review of Friedman's punditry reveals a long
series of similar do-or-die dates that never seem to get any closer.
"The next six months in Iraq—which will determine the prospects for
democracy-building there—are the most important six months in U.S.
foreign policy in a long, long time."
(New York Times, 11/30/03)
"What I absolutely don't understand is just at the moment when we finally
have a UN-approved Iraqi-caretaker government made up of—I know a lot of
these guys—reasonably decent people and more than reasonably decent
people, everyone wants to declare it's over. I don't get it. It might be over
in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months, but
what's the rush? Can we let this play out, please?"
(NPR's Fresh Air, 6/3/04)
"What we're gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether
we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war."
(CBS's Face the Nation, 10/3/04)
"Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the
next few months. But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the
ground in a war over the last mile."
(New York Times, 11/28/04)
"I think we're in the end game now…. I think we're in a six-month
window here where it's going to become very clear and this is all going to
pre-empt I think the next congressional election—that's my own
feeling— let alone the presidential one."
(NBC's Meet the Press, 9/25/05)
"Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just
beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see
just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come
around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help
build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our time."
(New York Times, 9/28/05)
"We've teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months
really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into
three parts or more or whether it's going to come together."
(CBS's Face the Nation, 12/18/05)
"We're at the beginning of I think the decisive I would say six months in
Iraq, OK, because I feel like this election—you know, I felt from the
beginning Iraq was going to be ultimately, Charlie, what Iraqis make of
it."
(PBS's Charlie Rose Show, 12/20/05)
"The only thing I am certain of is that in the wake of this election, Iraq
will be what Iraqis make of it—and the next six months will tell us a
lot. I remain guardedly hopeful."
(New York Times, 12/21/05)
"I think that we're going to know after six to nine months whether this
project has any chance of succeeding. In which case, I think the American
people as a whole will want to play it out or whether it really is a fool's
errand."
(Oprah Winfrey Show, 1/23/06)
"I think we're in the end game there, in the next three to six months, Bob.
We've got for the first time an Iraqi government elected on the basis of an
Iraqi constitution. Either they're going to produce the kind of inclusive
consensual government that we aspire to in the near term, in which case America
will stick with it, or they're not, in which case I think the bottom's going to
fall out."
(CBS, 1/31/06)
"I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to
tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq."
(NBC's Today, 3/2/06)
"Can Iraqis get this government together? If they do, I think the American
public will continue to want to support the effort there to try to produce a
decent, stable Iraq. But if they don't, then I think the bottom is going to
fall out of public support here for the whole Iraq endeavor. So one way or
another, I think we're in the end game in the sense it's going to be decided in
the next weeks or months whether there's an Iraq there worth investing in. And
that is something only Iraqis can tell us."
(CNN, 4/23/06)
"Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six
months—probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is possible there,
and I think we're going to have to just let this play out."
(MSNBC's Hardball, 5/11/06)