Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Safe to Go Back in the Water

Well what do you know? America's most over-rated strategic thinker who once supported the Iraq War but bailed once his wife said they couldn't get invited to the good parties (I'm admittedly speculating on this reason), is now writing of the centrality of the war to beating al Qaeda. Jennifer Rubin has the goods on Tom Friedman:

So to recap: the Bush team kept us safe from an implacable foe by using interrogation methods which the American public approved of and by fighting (often against the admonitions of Friedman and his colleagues) and largely prevailing in Iraq. The latter effort may deal a death blow to Al Qaeda which one supposes made it a very worthwhile endeavor. Well, yes, Friedman awards Obama the prize for “doing [his] best” in a war largely waged by his reviled predecessor – who is rarely praised for doing his best, but we get the point.


You know we've won in Iraq when our most conventional of conventional thinkers, ever mindful of the wind sock of elite opinion blowing in Washington, sees the impact of winning in Iraq.