One assumes Tom Friedman's recent hiatus from opinion column writing was supposed to focus his mind on world affairs and produce new and dazzling insights about how the world now works. Behold, the opening paragraph of today's column,:
The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president -- but this cold war is with Iran.
I know he needs lines like this to grab our attention, but come on. Do we really need to go through another round of pointing out how no other nation on Earth even comes close to the Soviet Union in its heyday, in terms of military capability? Do we really need Glenn Greenwald to go through the column line-by-line, pointing out all the ways in which Friedman is wrong? Do we really need Joe Lieberman remarking on the Bill Bennett show that bombing Iran is "appealing?" And finally, do we really need another tepid warning from Friedman that "we’re not going to war with Iran, nor should we. But it is sad to see America and its Arab friends so weak they can’t prevent one of the last corners of decency, pluralism and openness in the Arab world from being snuffed out by Iran and Syria." Calling our political relationship with Iran a new cold war isn't merely sill; it drags us dangerously back to those uncertain days in late 2006 when it really seemed possible that Bush would order up airstrikes for no other good reason than to make himself feel powerful again. And I'm not sure we can rely on another NIE to stop the warmongering this time.
--Mori Dinauer
