He might as well have said that, anyway. In his Op-Ed in the NY Times today, Thomas Friedman shows us the tough options we have to choose between in Iraq, either phased withdrawl over the next 10 months or re-invading and rebuilding the country with 150,000 more troops over the next 10 years. Anyone who suggests a plan that involves deploying more troops needs to immediately follow-up with a plan for where these troops will come from. Draft, anyone? No, I didn't think so. And by the way, could you please factor in that we might want to keep a little bit of our military available just in case we need them here in the US? But if you can come up with a plan to increase our military forces by 150,000 troops, or leprechauns for that matter, be sure to let us know.

I'll confess, I'm fairly critical of anything Friedman says (see this post for clues as to why his grand globalization scheme leaves the taste of vomit in my mouth). I can't even give him credit for gradually shifting to a more pragmatic view on the war in Iraq, since he only did so when the political tides turned in that direction and he has no remorse for his former warmongering. He's criticized the administration for "bad intelligence" on WMDs, but nonetheless feels that we should have gone in, just with more troops to allow for "political therapy".

Friedman ends his column by stating that the mishandling of the war "has left us with two impossible choices." No, it's left us with only one possible, though difficult and unfortunate, choice. Thanks so much for so long acting as cheerleader for the policies and policymakers that have landed us in this latest quagmire, Tom!