January 26, 2007 -- 9:04 AM EST // //
TOM FRIEDMAN KEEPS DANCING THE "CONDITIONAL SHUFFLE" ON IRAQ.
It's time to coin a new phrase here at The Horse's Mouth: The "Conditional Shuffle." Or, if you prefer, we can call it the "if only dodge."
This takes place when a commentator or pundit continues to call for President Bush to do this or that in Iraq as a way to postpone acknowledging reality and the inevitable. Today, Tom Friedman dances the Conditional Shuffle all over the New York Times Op ed page.
Back in November, Friedman wrote: "We need to face our real choices in Iraq, which are: 10 months or 10 years. Either we just get out of Iraq in a phased withdrawal over 10 months, and try to stabilize it some other way, or we accept the fact that the only way it will not be a failed state is if we start over and rebuild it from the ground up, which would take 10 years. This would require reinvading Iraq, with at least 150,000 more troops...If we're not ready to do what is necessary to crush the dark forces in Iraq and properly rebuild it, then we need to leave -- because to just keep stumbling along as we have been makes no sense."
On January 10, of course, Bush announced that he was sending approximately one seventh the amount of troops that Friedman said we needed to avoid failing. Several days later -- even though he'd said very clearly that if we didn't send 150,000 troops, we should "leave" -- Friedman weighed in again, saying that he could support Bush's surge if the President did this or if the President did that.
In today's column, Friedman again says he can support the "surge" -- that is, if Bush does still other things:
Let the troop surge be accompanied and reinforced by what the Baker-Hamilton commission proposed: a regional conference that puts Syria, Iran, Jordan and Saudi Arabia around a table with Iraqis to try to stabilize the place. And that requires that America brandish carrots and sticks with all the parties. If a real regional conference doesn’t work, then Democrats who want to just set a date to withdraw will have an even stronger case because we will truly have tried everything. But let’s try everything: a surge of diplomacy, not just troops.
So before, it was basically, "if Bush doesn't send 150,000 troops, we should leave." Now it's basically, "if" we try a "regional conference" and it doesn't work, the case for withdrawal is "even stronger."
But Professor Friedman, at what point should we conclude that Bush isn't going to do any of the things you're demanding of him, no matter what the Democrats put "on his desk"? These continued calls for things that almost certainly are never going to happen -- if this, if that -- are becoming nothing more than a dodge. As in: If only Bush would do this or that, then we'd really find out whether we're doomed to fail, and hence doomed to leave.
This has become nothing more than a convenient way of postponing the arduous task of taking a real position on what we should do right now -- whether it's to withdraw immediately, set a timetable for phased withdrawal, or agree that we'll stay forever or until we achieve some sort of defined victory, whichever comes first. The key is that it's time to take a real position on this question independently of what Bush might or might not do in the future. No more of the Conditional Shuffle. No more of the "if only" dodge.
Again: How many more "if onlys" have to fail to materialize before Friedman brings himself to embrace the course that he himself said less than two months ago was our only other option?
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Update: Matthew Yglesias has more: "Once you don the Moustache of Understanding you'll realize that in order to be a Serious Person it's important that you never agree with liberals." And while you're over at his site, absolutely don't miss this great post.