Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

OP-ED: "Many Plans, No News: Back to the past in the Middle East," by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 30 March 2007, p. A23.

This piece, showcasing Friedman's strongest skills as a regional expert, echoes a lot of my frustration with Bush:

In the Middle East today, home of the invention of algebra, a new math seems to have taken over. It is subtraction by addition. It goes like this: Add more trips to the region by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice--who doesn't seem to have any coherent strategy--to an emotionally stale, restated Saudi peace overture to Israel, and combine it with a cynical Hamas-Fatah cease-fire accord and an Israeli prime minister so unpopular his poll ratings are now lower than the margin of error, and you'll find that we're actually going backward--way back, back to the pre-Oslo era.

Only the bad guys make history in the Middle East today. Only the bad guys have imagination and resolve. Arab, Palestinian and Israeli "moderates" are just watching. Their leaders have never been weak, and America has never been more feckless in framing clear choices to spur them to action.

We could be and should be doing better.

Then Friedman does the unthinkable: comparing Bush so unfavorably to Clinton, whose foreign policy looks better with each passing year.

Ouch! It's so good it hurts!

Killer ending:

The Bush team reminds me of someone who buys a rundown house that comes with remodeling plans by Frank Lloyd Wright, but insists instead on using drawings by the next-door neighbors. You get what you pay for. Or what you don't pay for.

Awesome piece.