« I Wonder What MoDo's Place is Like (UPDATED) | Main | A Solemn Pledge to My Readers »

... pens a great column. I may disagree with him from time-to-time, but I respect the fact that he typically places thoughtful analysis over dogma:

As someone who believed, hoped, worried, prayed, worried, hoped and prayed some more that Iraqis could one day pull off the election they did, I am unreservedly happy about the outcome - and you should be, too.

Why? Because what threatens America most from the Middle East are the pathologies of a region where there is too little freedom and too many young people who aren't able to achieve their full potential. The only way to cure these pathologies is with a war of ideas within the Arab-Muslim world so those with bad ideas can be defeated by those with progressive ones.
...
It's about time, because whatever you thought about this war, it's not about Mr. Bush any more. It's about the aspirations of the Iraqi majority to build an alternative to Saddamism. By voting the way they did, in the face of real danger, Iraqis have earned the right to ask everyone now to put aside their squabbles and focus on what is no longer just a pipe dream but a real opportunity to implant decent, consensual government in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world.

Read the whole thing. Via Scylla & Charybdis, who agrees about Friedman ...

How great would it be if event 25% of the the Left were to have the reasonable, logical position of Thomas Friedman of the NY Times ...

... and outlines the terms of today's climate of non-debate over the war.

Posted by Bill at February 3, 2005 01:31 PM | TrackBack (0)