Good news for the US: Tom Friedman is ready to surge

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, an early supporter of the Iraq invasion and occupation, is ready to roll— conditionally.

In his Friday column, Friedman told the president that “I’ll surge on the condition that you once and for all enlist the entire American people in this war effort, and stop putting it all on the shoulders of 130,000 military families, and now 20,000 more.” By “surge,” Friedman appears to mean that he will pay the additional gasoline taxes and support the petroleum detoxification program that he says Bush must inaugurate to enlist his support and that of the entire American people.

One could hardly ask fairer than that.

He doesn’t say what will happen if the president fails to meet his conditions, but his patience is obviously at an end; probably he will personally intervene and bring the troops home now, instead of on December 1. He says December 1 is the date on which the president should remove all of our troops from Iraq if the Iraqis haven’t met the conditions he says Bush must impose on them.

Those conditions — condition, really — are simple: “You need to tell Iraqis that by calling for a surge in troops you’re giving them one last chance to reconcile” and stop fighting each of the five wars they are conducting against one another and us.

Hardened Friedman watchers, who are the only kind left, may be misled into thinking that the time frame for this one last chance is longer than the one for all of Friedman’s previous one last chances, which was the six-month window dubbed a Friedman Unit, or F.U., by Atrios. The column was published on January 12, and the deadline is December 1, more than ten months away.

But don’t be fooled: withdrawing from Iraq in good order will take at least four months, which means the Iraqis have only six months to reconcile before the withdrawal begins. One F.U.

The time frame puts a great deal of pressure on the president as well, who must now create, pass and sign the legislation necessary to persuade Friedman to rally the American people behind the surge. Post haste.

Friedman allows as how “confronting violent Islamic radicalism by trying to tilt Iraq and the Arab-Muslim world onto a more progressive track is indeed hugely important.”

The early Friedman would not have countenanced “trying” to “tilt” something. He wanted to break things. He wanted to hit the Muslim world hard. He wanted to grab violent Islamic radicalism by the throat, pin it against the wall and slap it in the face six times, rapidly, like Edward G. Robinson would do if violent radical Islamism were not very tall. He is the intellectual heft behind the Hulk Smash school of liberal foreign policy.

And now he is reduced to “trying” and “tilting.”

We are saddened. Whither next, bold spirit?

“Of course, just leaving would be bad for us and terrible for those Iraqis who have worked with us. We need to give them all U.S. passports.”