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Read other letters about this article
Or so he says. He says it in a way that seems pretty unambiguous. So it must be true, right?
I don't know what goes on in that fat head of his, but color me skeptical. Consider his long history, for one. Consider the tone of this article, 'frightening consequences' and all that.
But more than that, consider the professional space Freidman occupies. He sits, alongisde other pundits like George Packer, Peter Beinart, et al, inside an allegedly liberal space of those whose professional identities rely on their influence, their quotability, the fact that they have staked out a distinctly identifiable, informed and smart-sounding position. Saying you want a cold war, but not really war, accomplishes that.
What I kept thinking about while reading this was Ken Pollack. 'Threatening Storm', Pollack's thick tome, was the most densely documented, thoroughly reasoned and persuasive argument presented anywhere and by anybody that we had to invade Iraq, for reasons that appeared (!) to transcend the partisan political purposes anybody could question. (The thin chapter on how deterrance wasn't going to work was easily devastated in a short article by John Mearsheimer, but the mass behind that skip-this entry was impressive)
Then, Pollack goes on to say that he thinks the administration is making a big mistake in the way it's going about things, that he would do it differently, etc. He hedged, in other words. Planted a seed that he could point back at later, in case things didn't go so well. And this he did, with great skill, after the fact; he performed his ritual mea culpa, some ablutions, then went back to cheerleading the ongoing debacle while being billed as a 'war critic'.
The hedge is an obvious, but important strategy, and Friedman is smart enough to know how the pundit game works. Or maybe, he really doesn't want war, but is too confused to wrap the rest of his what-shall-be-done article around that sentiment.
