Seasoned journalist versus Thomas Friedman

Image by Charles Haynes via Flickr

You would think after the breathtaking embarrassment of his “suck on this” comment, Thomas Friedman would have the good sense to never, ever write or speak about Iraq or the Iraqi people again. Yet, here we are. Friedo is back, spouting his wisdom on Iraq, and perhaps most amazingly, defending the Iraq occupation.

Ironically, though, it was the neo-conservative Bush team that argued that culture didn’t matter in Iraq, and that the prospect of democracy and self-rule would automatically bring Iraqis together to bury the past. While many liberals and realists contended that Iraq was an irredeemable tribal hornet’s nest and we should not be sticking our hand in there; it was place where the past would always bury the future.

But stick we did, and in so doing we gave Iraqis a chance to do something no other Arab people have ever had a chance to do: freely write their own social contract on how they would like to rule themselves and live together.

With elections set for March 7, with America slated to shrink to 50,000 troops by September — and down to zero by the end of 2011 — Iraqis will have to decide how they want to exploit this opportunity.

You’re welcome, Arabs. Don’t fuck up this awesome opportunity we’re giving you. PS: Sorry about the million dead Iraqis.

Side note: As always, this pullout date is subject to conditions on the ground, and doesn’t count paramilitary forces like Blackwater, now known as Xe. It was the Iraqi people — not Obama — who ordered Blackwater out of their country. This was in response to the US dismissing charges against Blackwater guards, who murdered 17 Iraqis in cold blood. Should violence surge, the US will almost certainly seize on that instability to stay in Iraq longer, especially given its advantageous geographical location beside Iran.

As usual, Friedo spends his column making vague, wispy assertions about both sides of the sectarian fear mongering, just barely managing to not take an aggressive stand on the topic. Maybe Iraqis are fucked. Or maybe everything will be fine.

Will Iraq’s new politics triumph over its cultural divides, or will its cultural/sectarian divides sink its fledgling democracy? We still don’t know.

No, we don’t. No one can predict the future. But at least we can all agree that the occupation was pointless, destructive, and a huge mistake that should never be repeated.

…in so doing we gave Iraqis a chance to do something no other Arab people have ever had a chance to do: freely write their own social contract on how they would like to rule themselves and live together.

Oh, that’s right. I mean, it was a good thing that produced good outcomes.

In order to predict the future (the future Friedo just admitted we cannot predict), he performs the journalistic equivalent of writing an entire article based on a single interaction with a taxi driver by interviewing Gen. Ray Odierno, the head U.S. commander in Iraq, the hero who has “done more to coach, coax, cajole and occasionally shove Iraqis away from the abyss than anyone else.”

You’re welcome, Iraqis.

Brace yourself, readers: Odierno is worried about the Iraqis, and also? He doesn’t trust this Iran character at all. And that’s it. Friedman doesn’t interview a single Iraqi. Why bother?

Well, as it turns out, Iraqis don’t necessarily share Thomas “Taxi Cab Confessional” Friedman’s bleak outlook.

Nir Rosen is a journalist who has written extensively on American policy toward Afghanistan and Iraq, and who — strangely — felt compelled to spend more than two years on the ground in Iraq reporting on the American occupation. Rosen spoke with real-life Iraqis and has grown frustrated with hearing about all this sectarian fear mongering.

It’s been frustrating to read the latest hysteria about sectarianism returning to Iraq, the threat of a new civil war looming, or even the notion that Iraq is “unraveling.” I left Iraq today after an intense mission on behalf of Refugees International. My colleague Elizabeth Campbell and I traveled comfortably and easily throughout Baghdad, Salahedin, Diyala and Babil. We were out among Iraqis until well into the night every day, often in remote villages, traveling in a normal Toyota Corolla. Our main hassle was traffic and having to go through a thousand security checkpoints a day. Stay tuned for our report next month about the humanitarian crisis in Iraq (which deserves more attention than political squabbles) and the situation of Iraqis displaced since 2003. Stay tuned for my own article about what I found politically as well. And finally stay tuned later this year for my book on the Iraqi civil war, the surge, counterinsurgency and the impact of the war in Iraq on the region.

From the beginning of the occupation the US government and media focused too much on elite level politics and on events in the Green Zone, neglecting the Iraqi people, the “street,” neighborhoods, villages, mosques. They were too slow to recognize the growing resistance to the occupation, too slow to recognize that there was a civil war and now perhaps for the same reason many are worried that there is a “new” sectarianism or a new threat of civil war. The US military is not on the streets and cannot accurately perceive Iraq, and journalists are busy covering the elections and the debaathification controversy, but not reporting enough from outside Baghdad, or even inside Baghdad.

Iraqis on the street are no longer scared of rival militias so much, or of being exterminated and they no longer have as much support for the religious parties. Maliki is still perceived by many to be not very sectarian and not very religious, and more of a “nationalist.” Another thing people would notice if they focused on “the street” is that the militias are finished, the Awakening Groups/SOIs are finished, so violence is limited to assassinations with silencers and sticky bombs and the occasional spectacular terrorist attack — all manageable and not strategically important, even if tragic. Politicians might be talking the sectarian talk but Iraqis have grown very cynical.

Not that Rosen — or anyone — claims it will be smooth sailing in Iraq from now on. The country was nearly bombed into oblivion. That’s not the kind of thing any country in the world could bounce back from easily.

But interestingly, the fear mongering appears to focus on the Shiite leader Malaki, who as Rosen explains, is not pro-Iranian. Nonetheless, we have another media elite, Jackson Diehl, stoking the fear fire by pondering if the next Iran government will be led by hard-line Shiite allies.

Who will lead this hard-line government? Ahmed Chalabi. Now, we have to remain in Iraq indefinitely to thwart the guy who convinced the US to occupy Iraq in the first place.

If you’re thinking it seems like no one knows what they’re talking about, and this is all complete bullshit, you’re right. Military brass will always — always — depict Iraq as an unstable hornet’s nest of terrorist activity because remaining there is advantageous for the US, whose leaders are itching to go to war with Iraq’s neighbor, Iran.

It doesn’t matter what the American people think. It doesn’t matter what Iraqis think. The people in power have decided this war is going to go on — maybe indefinitely if there is an undefined “surge” in violence.

And as long as good, little stenographers like  Thomas Friedman are around to dutifully write down whatever the nearest guy in a soldier’s uniform tells him, without bothering to ask real-life citizens what they want, the media will continue to act as a vehicle for official government propaganda instead of a forum to actively challenge the Smartest Guys In The Room.

It’s not that there’s a shortage of good journalists. The problem is that the Nir Rosens are forced to shout their records of first-hand testimonials in a response letter posted on Foreign Policy’s blog, while Friedo instantly invades the brains of around a million people (more counting on-line readers). The playing ground isn’t level, so the Friedos always win. Suck on it.