“Let’s You and Him Talk”

Tom Friedman (NYTimes, 10.4.06) has it right writing:

• the burden of Iraq falls—unfairly and harshly—on one small segment of our population: U.S. military troops and their families.
• a unified Iraq [has] become the “second choice” of too many Iraqis.
• too many Shiites just want their own pro-Iranian zone in the south.
• Iraq [is] a bunch of warring political tribes incapable of acting in common for the greater good.

Friedman wants Iraqis to talk to Iraqis. In the same column, he recommends that Democrats, if they win, “govern from the center” and “look for bipartisan fixes,” i.e., talk to Republicans.

In a September 29 column, Friedman called for “an honest dialogue between Muslims and Muslims” to cut down the influence of “street preachers—firebrands who gain legitimacy by spewing hatred at both their own regimes and the Western powers that support them.”

And in an October 11 column, written just after North Korea tested its A-bomb, Friedman wants us to get Russia and China to talk to North Korea and Iran. If the two giants want “multilateral” solutions, Russia and China are the ones to make it work.

This is great. In Rodney King’s words, “Can’t we all get along?” Nations don’t get along because they are made up of people who don’t get along. Since we haven’t figured how to get along at home, why have any confidence that we can get Iraqis, Muslims, Russians and Iranians, and Chinese and North Koreans to get along? Nice if you can do it.

It would be great if Iraqis, at least, could talk. Do they want some kind of unified nation, or do they not? The polls say Iraqis do want to be unified. Friedman is right. If so, they need to talk.