Look, everybody just go get a subscription to the NY Times that includes “Times Select.” Then you will be able to read these columns directly. ‘kay? Some of the opinion writers are too vitriolic even for my taste, but Friedman and Kristof, well, I’ll read just about anything they write. Todays example:
The Bush White House issued its latest national security strategy doctrine yesterday, and it identifies Iran as the “single country” that poses the greatest danger to the U.S. today. The report, however, doesn’t say what exactly we should do about Iran. But here’s what I think: The most frightening, scary, terrifying thing we could do to Iran today — short of an outright attack — is to get out of Iraq.
The second most frightening, scary, terrifying thing we could do to Iran is to succeed in Iraq. The worst thing we could do, though, the thing that would make Iranians the happiest, is to continue bleeding in Iraq and baby-sitting a stalemate there. In sum, since we are not going to invade Iran, the best way we can influence it is by what we do in Iraq.
Let me explain: I am not in favor of withdrawing from Iraq now — not while there is still a chance for a decent outcome. But if we did pull out of Iraq, it would make life incredibly complicated for Tehran. There’s a lot of cheap talk that Iran was the big winner from the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Don’t be so sure. Hundreds of years of Mesopotamian history teach us that Arabs and Persians do not play well together.
And so on.
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