One of the sadder results - a true casualty - of this incredibly stupid invasion of Iraq has been - is - the New York Times' Thomas Friedman. His columns about the Mideast and Islam were always provacative, even exciting when he optimistically predicted hope in solving the problems over there. But the Iraqi Incursion totally destroyed his credibility as he gushed about "opportunity" for the West in destroying Saddam and his WMD's, setting up a Jeffersonian democracy in the heart of Islam and then letting all those ugly old dominos fall as democracy sweeps across the Moslem world.

I wish he had thrown Israel into that scenario, but perhaps that is asking too much of him.

At any rate, it's interesting that on the same day the New York Times' editors took an extraordinary step - apologising to its readers for being duped and mislead by dubious Iraqi and Bush Administration sources prior to the war - that Friedman could write yet another column still brimming with optimism "THAT THE CHANCE IS THERE" to make it all right. The fact that the war was launched on lies, the fact that we are now an occupying force and not loved by anybody in the Mideast - except Sharon - does not seem to come into play. Hey, he says, it's great that we are THERE!

Loss of credibility - that's the least of his worries. People perceiving him as an idiot and Sharon's lapdog - that is more of a danger to a man I once respected.

Here is his latest column (and some of my comments sandwiched in):

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: May 27, 2004

I'm glad the president gave a sober talk about where we're going in Iraq and in confronting terrorism. But I can't say I found it reassuring. (Well, dud!) I still don't feel we have a broad, workable strategy. We currently have two national commissions looking backward — one on how 9/11 happened, and another about why no W.M.D. were found in Iraq. Those are key questions. (This is as close as Friedman will ever get that he was duped like the rest of us. But the sad thing is: he doesn't care.) But what we really need is a bipartisan commission looking forward. I'd call it the National Commission for Doing Things Right. Its mandate would be simple: tell the country what U.S. policy would be if we were determined to do things right in confronting terrorism, no matter what the political costs — so we don't have to have yet another commission looking backward two years from now. Here's what I'd like to see:

• We would take all the money the Bush team has wasted on P.R. campaigns directed at the Arab-Muslim world and put it into three programs: a huge expansion of U.S. embassy libraries around the world, which have been cut in recent years (you'd be amazed at how many young people abroad had their first contact with America through an embassy library), a huge expansion of scholarships for foreign students to study in America, and a huge expansion of our immigration service so it can quickly figure out who should get visas to study or work in America and who shouldn't. Too many good students are getting shut out of the U.S. You don't get better P.R. from ads. You get it from bringing people into America or American libraries and letting them draw their own conclusions. (Libraries? I think part of Friedman's problem, and we all should have sensed this very early, is that he spends all of his time talking to fellow intellectuals, not the people on the street. The professors, all of whom have been educated in the west, were just telling Friedman what he wanted to hear. But hey, go ahead and strengthen the embassy libraries. More books will help the fires when the angry Islamics burn down our embassies.)

• We would adopt a 50-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax, the Patriot Tax (along with my wife's proposal: free public parking anywhere in America for any hybrid or other car getting more than 35 m.p.g.). A Patriot Tax would help pay for the Afghan and Iraq wars and help finance a Manhattan project to speed the development of a hydrogen economy, enabling the public to make a contribution to the war effort while lessening our dependence on foreign oil.>(Thomas, tell your wife that we have free parking anywhere on the Plaza, and most shopping centers in Kansas City. She would like it since most of the stores in NYC are also here. And the free parking is really helping keep down the number of cars . . . But hey, even though it is especially regressive and would hurt the poor, let's have the tax. Maybe it will help with the deficit created in part by this war you love.)

There is simply no way to stimulate a process of economic and political reform in the Arab-Muslim world without radically reducing their revenues from oil, thereby forcing these governments to reform their economies, and societies, to produce real jobs for their people. Is there anything dumber than the Bush campaign ads chastising John Kerry for once favoring a gasoline tax? Had we imposed a Patriot Tax a year ago, gasoline might still cost $2 a gallon today, but 50 cents of that would have gone to paying for American schools rather than Saudi madrassas.

• We would spearhead efforts in trade talks to reduce U.S., European and Japanese farm subsidies. Nothing would be more helpful to Pakistani, Egyptian and other poor farmers in the Muslim and developing worlds than no longer having to compete with our subsidized produce. (I am not even going to comment on this stupid idea. Seriously, has his brain grown soft?)

• We would make a serious effort to diffuse the toxic Arab-Israeli conflict, including using NATO forces to separate the parties. (Here is the main problem in the Mideast, and truly, one of the reasons one might justify the war in Iraq if you felt there was any justification. THIS IS THE BIG PROBLEM. And Friedman gives all of two lines in his lengthy column about it. Thomas, frankly you need to look a little inward and see if you have Leiberman Disease. How about separating Sharon from his Army?)

• We would spell out that the war on terrorism is a long-term war on radical Islam — and while force is necessary in that effort, it is not sufficient. We have to connect all of the above dots to strengthen Arab-Muslim moderates, because only they can take on their extremists. Unfortunately, the Bush team reacted to 9/11 as if all the old rules and methods had to go. I believe 9/11 was gigantic. But the old rule book — emphasizing allies, the Geneva Conventions, self-sacrifice, economic development, education, Arab-Israeli diplomacy — was and remains our greatest source of strength in the effort to promote gradual reform in the regions most likely to breed threats to our open society. (And libraries, Thomas, libraries. Don't forget the libraries.)

I think David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said it best: "The answer for us lies not in what has changed, but in recognizing what has not changed. Because only through this recognition will we focus on an effective multilateral response to W.M.D. proliferation, the creation of real stakeholders in globalization among the world's poor, the need for reform in the Arab world and a style of U.S. leadership that seeks to build our base of support worldwide by getting more people to voluntarily sign onto our values. We need to remember that those values are the real foundation for our security and the real source of our strength. And we need to recognize that our enemies can never defeat us — only we can defeat ourselves, by throwing out the rule book that has worked for us for a long, long time." (Rule No. 1 - never invade a country on false pretences just to steal their oil. Thomas, you need to know that one, and then the other rules just fall into place.)