Soft power can work well when it isn't actively opposed by the sitting fovernment of the target nation.
There are lots of schools in Saudi Arabia, but their cirriculum isn't what you might expect it to be.
Ther greater portion of that region has for centuries relied on learning by rote.
Socratic reasoning isn't taught in the schools in the Arab world. Just rote doctrine.
Soft power can work, right after you overthrow the regime that is keeping the people under their thumb.
4
Do I hear a resounding cry for more Fulbright Student and Scholar Awards/Exchanges for students from these regions to study in America and for Americans to spend time there in exchange ?
2
More schools and fewer tanks for the US.
The US spends more money on tanks than the next seven countries combined. And still even minimum schooling in the US is elusive.
Before meandering in the realms of other dysfunctional societies, fix the broken social coherence at home. Time to call a spade a spade.
3
This is from a man who thought the Iraq War was a grand idea.
6
Tom, how about rewiring brains, too. The Middle Easterners were backstabbing and killing each other when they had only daggers and swords. How would anyone resolve their unique ability to carry on grudges and tribal feuds for generations? And no matter how many schools they build themselves or with outsiders' aid, they would always have more Madrassas outnumbering the enrollments in secular schools.
No, Tom, the problem lies in the basic architecture of their societies. As long as they subscribe to the Salafi-Wahabi tenants that Islam is the only true faith and that the followers of other faiths are Kaffirs, a term that relegates all non-Muslims to close to being savages, turmoil in their societies would continue. There would always be individuals who rebel against the established dogma and the cycle of violence against them and others would continue, starting against the renegades and reaching out to the minority communities.
I'd rather leave those societies to their own devices. The solutions that would take hold and endure would have to come from the local populace alone. Besides, let's not keep patting ourselves all the time that only we know what is better for others. Haven't we watched enough of Bush-Cheney experiments in the engineering and remodeling of the Iraqi nation? And what about your own repeated prescriptions of panaceas for that region that were to come to them in 6-monthly intervals?
2
More schools and less tanks? Ha! Tell that to General Dynamics !!!
3
The problem is our military industrial complex that Ike warned us about especially now with a sec of defense a former Boeing exec in charge. Jared acted as salesman for the defense industry no doubt getting discounts for MSB that he collects on the back end. After Iraq we got ISIS and after Syria we got migration of millions of refugees and Trump handed off Syria to Russia for a price not disclosed yet. Obama made a better deal with Iran than Trump did with North Korea which has more nukes than ever and his love affair with Kim will deliver more goodies to N.Korea in exchange for some silly love letters to each other as if they were teens in love. Trump is a horrible negotiator despite his self promotion as the smartest man the world has ever known while actually a lying ignorant and erratic buffoon.
We should strongly demand our candidate's and politician's views and opinions on our involvement in ME wars. If they avoid this urgent topic or don't have an answer they aren't worthy.
We MUST keep asking them more about this grueling issue.
Every. Single. Day.
3
For once, a headline I can get behind.
People should realize that if you ruin people's neighborhoods, including sewers, electricity, roofs over heads, and livelihoods, you will create and encourage terrorism.
The Iranians are a sophisticated people, and Trump's actions are exactly calculated to throw their leadership to the most conservative and violent.
Want to make friends? Help, don't destroy. Hatred is poison.
27
@Susan Anderson
I propose you get closer in touch on reality.
The drone that exploded over the parade ground yesterday, wasn't put together by those Yemeni hillbillies, the Houthis.
It was almost certainly the work of the Iranian government, who are very likely thinking ahead to something like: Coming soon, to a marathon, near you....
The Persian people, are wonderful folks - not Arabs, by any stretch of the imagination - with a long history of literature, art, and music.
But the persons who run the theocracy are ruthless radical ideologues with a very effective secret police function. Opposing them internally, isn't an option.
But they need to go.
And the dual constitution needs to go.
The Persians can handle the rest.
1
"I’d keep our special forces in Syria..."
"I’d give huge aid to..."
"And I’d massively expand the scholarship program..."
"I’d also massively expand..."
"And I’d give Tunisia a $1 billion interest-free..."
"[And I'd also} quadruple the size of the Tunisian American Enterprise Fund..."
"The other $43 billion I’d spend on..."
Has everyone figured out that Mr. Friedman is hopelessly addicted to spending OPM? (Re., OPM: sounds like opium, is equally addicting, stands for Other People'sd Money--forcibly extorted.) Hopelessly addicted people cannot recognize their problem, so they devise hopeless plans.
Down with all U.S. government futile plans to impose their ideas of what is good for other countries by hook or by crook. Leave Tunisia alone. Allow ordinary Americans--not pols or 'crats--to travel, trade, start businesses, start schools, vacation, invest and otherwise do as they please in a spirit of friendship and mutual respect by means of voluntary (viz., free-market) exchange without any government imposed rules or regulation, subsidies or tariffs, and before you know it will have a potential partner like Israel without the downside of continuous violence that relationship has had.
2
Uhhh Tunisia and Afghanistan aren't in the Middle East...
2
Next column:
More Schools and Fewer Tanks, For The Midwest
6
Gaza's sewage system is about to collapse. We won't inquire why parts have been allowed to sink into disuse, but Hamas is now demanding that if the West doesn't come up with the money to finish it for them they'll just leave it incomplete, pave over some parts, and thus unleash epidemics on the region. As they crowed when they first started launching fire bombs into Israel, it's their new secret weapon! I don't think Israel and Egypt, or the Palestinian Authority, will just cower in terror as Hamas disintegrates and unleashes epidemics. Perhaps the West should step up and take them in? France would probably not recognize the difference if you moved in one million or so people from Gaza. What Americans won't do, and it's the message of this letter, is send more money to the MidEast at a time when our own infrastructure needs help. And further, it turns out that an astonishing number of Americans already depend on their federal government. I do agree however, with the picture of dead Kurdish women and children in Halabja on my mind, after George Bush rescinded our promises of protection, that America should not again desert the Kurds. But that takes an American military commitment, not a continuing fantasy of Islamic development. Which, if you've ever actually worked with Muslim visiting college students, it's not at all clear that they even want.
2
Sorry to be a pedant, but the US very much sent soldiers to fight and die in Tunisia. Tens of thousands, in 1942 and 1943. That was against European fascists of course, not Arab Islamists, and it is true that Tunisia was largely left alone during the Cold War and Post-Cold War eras.
Just thought I'd clarify.
1
What humanity has in common is that each individual wants the best for her/his children. The book by Greg Mortenson, "Three Cups of Tea" implements this idea and shows that it can be done on a shoestring. A great read that I highly recommend.
The world needs the US to lead on this rather than weapon production.
2
I write from Tripoli, Libya on my way back to Tunis. Last week I was in Baghdad. I am working on projects trying, like all the kings’ men, to put these broken nations back together again. Last week, flying to Tunis from Istanbul, by amazing coincidence I sat next to a young Tunisian woman, Houda, whose family were students of mine on the island of Kerkennah in the 1970s. Houda's grandparents were illiterate, her parents studied three languages, including English with Peace Corps volunteers, and Houda is now a surgeon flying home business class from Kuwait. Again and again I meet Tunisians who sprang from those years.
Bourguiba is famous for an anecdote: The Americans came to sell him fighter jets back in the 1960s. He asked how many schools one fighter jet would buy. Shocked by the answer, he sent the Americans packing.
We have made this mistake for fifty years, championed by hawks like Friedman. Every year we shovel billions in military hardware to Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia – none beacons of human rights or democracy – while poor Tunisia gets its measly aid cut back to nothing. I propose we take half of the military aid we now waste on Israel and Egypt and instead develop a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, with Tunisia at its centerpiece.
37
@Ken of Sag Harbor
Great insight and a amazing plane story. Well done!
4
The culture of those benighted countries you mention doesn't permit the adoption of institutions and practices we cherish in the West. If Tunisia is the best example of hope you can cite, there's not much hope for the whole region. Unfortunately the Arab/Islamic cultures cling to their religion, their absolutist rulers and their hatred of Israel. That's their identity. It's all they've got. Samuel Huntington is right. And they only respond to brute force. That's why the Russians work so well with them. They are alike in that regard. We should defend Israel and let the rest of them continue to fight over who should have succeeded Mohammed. It's the Hatfield - McCoy show in the Mideast.
6
...another one in an endless list of common-sense obvious solutions. But why not throw billions into a defense budget that is larger than that of Russia and China combined? The "ideological" stupidity of this administration should send us into the streets to demonstrate. But where is everyone?
2
"Western civilization" took about 2,000 years to become what it is. For about 2,000 of it, people in Europe killed each other en masse, in wars of religion, resource contention, and general stupidity.
It was "the Enlightenment" that ended the Dark ages, and general education systems for all citizens, to make western democracy work. We no longer rule by Devine Right, or "devine might", but by logic and reason, and a system of rights for all.
The Middle East is us, as we were, about 500 years ago. The kings in the castles, the peasants living in the mud. There are no shortcuts to becoming a modern country. There will be blood. Self determination is how modern civilizations are built.
1
Could there be some kind of educational primer for Americans regarding why we actually care about the Strait of Hormuz, too?
That would save us all a bunch of trouble.
Hmmmmmmmm. Tom, wouldn't that 43 billion dollars left over be just the right amount for the Trump vanity piece on the southern border? A little more graft for our presidential grifter.
1
May I add,
“... and the approach we tried with the Pentagon in the lead has only led to multiple dead ends”,
...death and dismemberment of hundreds of thousands across the Middle East and Afghanistan.”
1
Tunisia seems so stable, yet they've sent more people to fight for ISIS than any other Muslim country.
Turkey is Sunni-dominant, they've got no beef with moderate Sunnis in Syria. Syria's problem all along has been that the Assads are Alawites, a quirky branch of the Shiites. Suppressing the majority population of Sunnis, that's a huge factor for ISIS in Syria. The opposite happened in Iraq, Saddam Hussein was Sunni but the country is majority Shiite, like neighboring Iran. The only two majority Shiite countries in the Arab world. When we toppled Saddam, we foolishly allowed the majority Shiites to dominate, akin to a makeup call in basketball atoning for a prior bad call. That's the rise of ISIS in Iraq.
The Gulf countries have plenty of money, so does Iran. They can spend it in soft power if they wish, or they can go to endless war with each other. If Friedman hasn't noticed, the USA has oodles of our own problems that need solving.
1
"Tanks for the Mideast"? Is Mr. Friedman still stuck in the 20th Century? The last significant tank battle took place in the 1973 war between Egypt and Syria against Israel..
If you are trying to come up with new ideas you might as well use contemporary symbols.
Personally, I believe that the best and shortest way to achieve a long lasting spring among Arab nations is to impose full economic sanctions and arms embargo on Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran till they completely stop from spreading and financing the extreme elements of Sunnis and Shias who are viciously fighting each other, dragging along millions of innocent Moslems.
2
Hear, Hear.
Good sense once again.
Thanks, Mr. Friedman.
1
We need not fear our industry's losses from not making tanks and guns because they could make school desks and chairs. Even better, wind turbines and solar systems for were the world no longer enriching the Saudis the funding for militant Jihadists would dry up. The billions our arms makers pocketed pales in comparison to the trillions we have paid religious despots.
1
I recognize that's very emotionally satisfying as a catch-all explanation, but things are a tad more complicated than that. In our democracy, elected representatives have to justify government spending. It is always easier to argue for defense funds (hard power) than social funds (soft power).
An excellent example is Charlie Wilson's War starring Tom Hanks. Charlie's Congressional colleagues were happy to fund shoulder fired missiles (Stingers) that enabled the Afghan Mujahideen to shoot down Soviet aircraft, but they wanted nothing to do with funding schools for girls. There's no support for soft power programs like that in this or any other democracy.
2
Tom, you're a frickin' genius.
Great re-framing of the $45 billion wasted each year in Afghanistan. Money that would be much better spent pulling us out of our $5 TRILLION infrastructure hole at home, as well as other soft-power investments in the Middle East.
To naysayers who decry the revenue loss to the military-industrial complex--the Rand Corp determined long ago that a billion spent by the Feds on soft power produces four times as many purely civilian than military-related jobs.
I am certain that Tunisia cannot be compared to other Mideast countries, and as Friedman notes, Tunisia is still beset by Islamist terrorists and cells.
There are "times for war, and times for peace".
The swings of Moslem history have meant reaction and retraction after periods of engaging Western ideas[Bernard Lewis].
The clerics in the Saudi-Iraqi-Iranian heartland retain their enormous power.
3
Tom, I presume you are speaking to open minded citizens who have aspirations to improve lives throughout the middle east and here.
Nobody like that in the white house now.Trump's analysis goes like this:
Pulling out of Syria meets campaign pledge, sends more scary Muslim refugees to Europe which strengthens my hard right allies there, feeds my Muslim ban which the base loves and earns points with Vlad (Don't ask why I need that).
Pulling out of Afghanistan makes sense for the same reasons plus the savings will fund a nice tax break. However we need to go slow so I don't look like a loser.
Thank God for the Saudis - tough on fake news and other troublemakers, hate Iran, strong supporters of my oil agenda, big spenders on condos and arms and real flexible attitude wise (wink, wink)
4
Many comentators have already highlighted Mr. Friedman's apparent naiveté regarding our true motivations for being in the Middle East, so I will not dwell on that.
I wanted to focus on his comment that: "It (US military presence in Syria) does so in part by protecting the Kurds and moderate Sunnis from the murderous Syrian government and Turkey".
Firstly, with the exception of being attacked by chemical weapons, we have long abandoned the "moderate Sunnies" to the "murderous Syrian government".
Secondly, by "Kurds" Mr. Freiedman really means the Marxist PYD and their militia the YPG, which Turkey justifiably considers to be a terrorist organization. In order to defeat ISIS terrorist we are arming and training YPG terrorists in Turkey's backyard. Understandably the Turks are more than a bit upset with their American "allies".
I must also point out that the PYD/YPG do not need US protection from the "murderous Syrian government". Before taking them under our wing, the PYD/YPG were in cahoots Assad and within days of Trump's tweet that US will leave Syria they were calling Assad seeking arragements to get back in bed with him. So much for their "decency and Western values" as Mr. Friedman put it.
3
While I don't agree on absolutely every detail, I agree that we need to move away from hard power to soft power. It is generally more productive.
Unfortunately, to do that we need our government to take the State Department more seriously. Given all the cuts they've been making there, the loss of top-level expertise and the uncertainty for the bulk of Foggy Bottom, we have a lot of work to do.
To make more progress in the Middle East, we need a leader who is less petty-wise and proud-foolish.
2
Mr. Friedman:
Instead of lambasting the US, you should call upon other middle east countries to emulate Tunisia. Imagine if Hamas built schools instead of bombs. Not everything is the US' fault.
5
Perhaps if you said that with a reasonable peace plan Trump could build hotels and golf courses in Afghanistan and Syria we might see some progress.
2
None of this has much chance of ever solving the root problem which is humanity's subjugation by supernatural belief systems that originated when mankind was ignorant about almost everything. While so many believe with certainty in the world views of ignoramuses living in those times there is virtually no hope.
1
Friedman's solutions to Middle Eastern problems are certainly good ones. But strong economic progress is a long term proposition. So what does it benefit an American politician to espouse such smart moves when that politician's time in office will be much shorter? And when these solid methods pay off, the current office holders at that time will get the credit.
Sending weapons profits our defense corporations. Their profitability merits donations and the appearances of success.
So why do the best right thing when the an immediate payoff is so easy?
2
How about no tanks and no schools, with the U.S. government keeping its nose, the CIA and its military out of foreign nations, while giving its people the unlimited and unhindered right to visit, work, trade or play with their friends--unlike gov ops they would quickly become friends--anywhere in the world. The very best American emissaries are ordinary Americans who travel and visit without a political axe to grind. No doubt some of those private Americans abroad will decide to build schools, but they won't be, nor will they be thought of as propaganda arms of the U.S. government--like the public schools back home in America.
2
Couldn't agree more. The problem is directly related to the present administration. Do you think Mike Pompeo is going to come up with anything like this. No one at Defense and a president who sees no benefit in interacting with democracies. We will need to wait until 2020. So, if you could, please save these articles. They may come in handy.
5
@RPU
I don't know why you think this issue is Trump's fault. No previous democrat administration has carried out this plan.
1
Mr. Friedman. I agree with you that the ongoing dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians, is not all the reasons for the unrest in the Middle East.
The tensions between Saudi Arabia (Sunni sect) and Iran (Shia sect), are the main cause for all the problems we see in the region. Both sides are competing in an aggressive and brutal manner, to gain superiority over the other.
Saudi Arabia, with all its oil wealth, has all the opportunity to invest and help neighboring countries, with the soft power, which you are encouraging here. But, that is not what we see happening. The same is true of Iran, and of their policies in and outside their country. The animosity between the two largest sects in the Islamic faith (Sunni and Shiate) comes down from time immemorial. The solution to bridge the gap, is in the hands of both Saudi Arabia and Iran.
We have to push and compel Saudi Arabia, Iran and other oil producing countries in the Middle East to spread their wealth, to better the lives of their peoples and countries.
The question is why is the US continuing to sell arms to countries like Saudi Arabia, Israel, the UAE and Egypt. How does this help peace and stability in the region?
As for the 45b, I prefer all that money to be invested back here at home. We need them for Education, Healthcare, Infrastructure and other needed projects. "Charity begins at home".
2
Investment in human capital thru learning is an essential part of the answer. But what is the question? How at planetary scale can the science, finance and policy communities collaborate to build (spelled “jobs" ) radically efficient, culturally vibrant local communities that solve the climate challenge, meet the sustainable development goals and restore the soils and ecosystems upon which all depends? This is where peace and security lie. How will such capacity honor local culture and local control? Can the financing of such modular redevelopment (the replacement of high risk, inefficient infrastructure) be structured as a business partnership with future generations? Surely this. coupled with science-based vocational education, is the full employment opportunity for the human race. Cheaper and more fun than bombs and razor wire.
The green bond movement (see the Climate Bond Initiative) is a good starting point.
1
Some interesting thoughts Mr. Friedman. Although I would add that despite a herculean effort of the Tunisian government to combat terrorism, there have been numerous attacks since 2011 which have been detrimental to tourism, one of the country's main source of revenues. Yes, soft power makes a huge difference in lifting off people's livelihoods; extremism and terrorism feeds off misery and hopelessness. Re the Iranian influence in the region, I would add that Shiites don't consider Sunnites heretics and disposable but the other way around. Finally, you can't expect from a country to be friendly if you spend a lot of energy and money trying to overthrow its government...
2
A substantial percentage of the monies we and the International community provide to these countries would be better spent on education. Pakistan - where terrorists are trained, armed, funded, and dispatched - has a public education system that is a complete failure - which is why in some areas 80% of the population is illiterate. This illiterate population is fodder for Islamists groups. However - we must not just hand over monies without extreme oversight. That's what we've been doing for almost two decades and it just ends up on the military's coffers.
4
Friedman was wrong in case of MBS, whom he called the future of the Muslim world and he is wrong again. Keep the Billions to yourself and get out of the Middle East. The only problem in the ME is Israel and her occupation of Palestine. That's the elephant in the room and the source of all the instability in the region. It is not primarily about Sunni - Shia, it is not about Democracy vs dictatorship, and it is not about American Soft power vs Military power. It is not even about " anti-Semitism ". The root cause is the injustice of the ruthless occupation of Palestine by the Jewish state and the encouragement aid and military aid it gets from US.
2
@Syed Abdulhaq - please explain the situation in Yemen in an Israeli/Palestinian context.
Repeat for Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
Again, too, for Wahabbism exported worldwide by Saudi Arabia.
Repeat, too, please, for the extreme violence between
Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites after Saddam was out and we were bungling our occupation there.
I was talking to a cab driver here in Chicago when the Arab Spring was waving through different places there. He spoke happily about people winning their freedom in nation after nation across the top of Africa. Then I mentioned one of the Emirates where the leaders were cracking down, and he snarled "That's just trouble caused by the Shia". He didn't mention Israel or Palestine.
1
Tom is the go-to guy on the Middle East.
President-elect Obama went to him in 2008.
Can someone please explain why Obama didn’t follow through with these excellent recommendations?
1
After the Jazz Hand punditry on the Iraq War and it's aftermath, I think the Author would only be qualified to review off Broadway.
There is only one liberal democracy in the Middle East - and that is Israel. The Middle East is next to Europe, and a massively wealthy Europe should engage financially and militarily.
The US (along with Canada) should concentrate on education in Central America. Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador Honduras have awful, failed education systems. These are hard working people whose governments have failed them.
3
US has a rich history in interfering with other countries business and is not just in ME. US has been all over the world trying to install its puppets (Chile, Brazil, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq,...). Us has used democracy as a tool to invade or interfere. That is why US has not been successful in ME because it supports the region dictators and kings. US invaded Iraq, obliterated its infrastructure, brought deaths (more than 100K). Do you expect Iraqis to be fool to show open arm to US policies? The same in Afghanistan/Libya. Tunisia got lucky because US capitalism had not much interest in this small country.
I am not fan of Trump by any stretch, but I support his idea of pulling out of ME. Let those countries take care of their own problems. Instead of wasting Billions to cause misery for the region, use that money to fix failing infrastructure at home.
4
Sorry, such ideas may require thought and will not improve profits. Both of which are anathemas to US politics.
2
Excellent column on surprising Tunisia. As a former Peace Corps Volunteer I emphatically agree that more PCVs in the Middle East and support for schools, education, and grass roots development is the only fruitful way for the U.S. to have a positive influence. President Trump proposed cutting the Peace Corps budget to $398 million for the about 7,000 PCVs abroad. Only 3% of current PCVs work in the Middle East and north Africa today. I know it's dangerous but give PCVs a chance to work there.
As Friedman reports the U.S. is spending $45 billion for military just in Afghanistan alone. We have spent probably well over a trillion dollars in 18 years in that country with no positive result.
As John Lennon famously wrote, 'all we are asking is to give peace a chance.' We know what wars and U.S. military have done for the past 50 years in the Middle East, and we need a new policy.
1
The sad reality is that the US has always supported dictators abroad whether it be in Philippines, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt or Latin America and the results are before everyone to see. This is because a Democracy always speaks with many voices and a Democratically elected leader can never be seen as taking dictation from a foreign power. Our diplomats visit foreign countries almost like satraps of a colonial power where they demand local governments kowtow to US policy. This is only possible when there is a dictator in charge looking for legitimacy by having a big power supporting his regime. Unless there is a change in attitude in our diplomacy where we can incorporate many opinions and sometimes agree to disagree, I don't see a change is approach.
2
Might at least one major reason for American weaponry being supplied to the Mideast have to do with that fact that others, who may not have been friendly to the US, were already supplying a great deal of arms and expertise to certain nations in the region?
1
Here's another thought:
Much much fewer tanks and perhaps a few schools in the Middle East.
The rest of the money - Latin America.
Rather than ripping kids out of the hands of mothers. Or teargassing these poor people. Why not try to inject a bit of money, and encourage real democracy and order in those countries that the US has had a hand in destabilizing in the first place. Since Latin America cannot be helped by outside countries, because it's in the "US's sphere of influence", only the US can help make it better. Me thinks that more problems arise for the US from Latin America than from the Middle East.
Yes, I know. There may not be as much oil there - although Guatemala has some - but there is lots of crime and drug production. Most aimed for US markets. Perhaps if the quality of lives of Hondurans and Guatemalans can be improved via other options than the drug commerce, many of the so-called immigration issues in the US could be nipped in the bud.
Although, I suppose the for-profit-immigration-prisons won't like it too much if fewer migrants are incarcerated....
And round and round it goes.
7
Friedman writes about the importance of demography from time to time, so why he doesn't mention it here is puzzling. One thing Tunisia has that most of the other countries he mentions as being a mess don't have is a near replacement level of fertility (2.3 children per woman). That means their population is growing at a slower and more manageable rate than the others, although still at 1.4% per year, but that will continue to slow if the fertility rate stays low or actually drops below replacement of 2.1. That gives their families a better chance to feed, educate and provide adequate health care to their children. That gives people a reason to hope for a better future for the children they do have. Consider as a contrast Afghanistan with a fertility rate of 4.8 children/woman and an annual growth rate of 2.8% per year that will cause their population to grow by 12 million people in just the next 11 years to 2030! 51% of women in Tunisia use modern forms of contraception, compare that to 20% in Afghanistan. What all these countries need is a massive infusion of reproductive health education and services to help them to voluntarily reduce their fertility rates to manageable levels. Peace will then, and only then, have a chance. All data from Population Reference Bureau's 2018 data sheet.
4
Look at the Fulbright program. No other US international educational exchange program has yielded such massive benefits to both the US and partner countries. And it's cheap compared to military programs. But US administrations have consistently taken funding from Fulbright, whose scholars have become leaders in both the US and partner countries in such areas as politics, education, science, the humanities. The list continues.
1
If the USA implements this plan many americans that work in the military industrial will loose their jobs. War means jobs and profits. It's a big part of our economy. As American as apple pie.
39
@Andrew
Unfortunately so true, Andrew. And many historians believe that the huge military buildup before our entrance into the Second World War - and our participation in that war - is what got us out of the Great Depression.
9
@Andrew
The fact that American jobs depend on the weapons industry should be a subject for debate. Surely, we could find better jobs for weapons makers - rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure for one example.
22
@John Otto Magee
The Forever War has been factored into our economy. The MIC profit margins and need for wars is factored into the choices made by the WH and Congress; MIC lobbyists are active on K Street and in the halls of Congress. Campaign finance reform is the answer; Democrats need to take the Senate and use Congress to make intelligent decisions. Trump will find that a gov't shutdown is bad for business, bad for parks, bad for maintenance of our infrastructure, and bad for our schools. Look at Kentucky, McConnell's State: miners sick from Black Lung with no ACA to help them; mtn top mining sludge piling up over small communities, polluted streams where locals used to fish; bad roads; poor schools etc. This corrupt man is now the power in the Senate, opposed by Pelosi who is smarter and more decent than he ever was, or will be. He kept a respected honorable Superior Ct Judge off the SC for one year, denying a sitting President his traditional right to appoint a SC Judge. Now we have a Catholic ideologue on the Court which threatens the Roe Decision. Trump is loading Federal Courts with conservative judges recommended by The Federalist Society. Nixon's EPA is under attack from mining and oil interests. None of the above will benefit ordinary Americans; it will shovel more profits to the already rich. The level of greed surpasses 1929.
23
I agree. It is time that soft power be put in action across the board. However, to do so requires two things:
1. Stop picking winners and losers - you cannot withdraw troops from one state, and then give massive amounts of arms to their next door neighbors. (that may or may not wage genocide)
2. NOTHING will change until a 2 state solution is implemented
It requires and all of the above strategy with ALL participants in the region involved and dedicated to prosperity and peace. We cannot be naive to think that within one border things are going to change dramatically, when just a few hundred kilometers away, strife is being waged.
I would submit the cost in lives and future lost is too great.
42
@FunkyIrishman
The two state solution will self-develop once changes occur within the Arab world. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the RESULT, not the cause of the issues in the Middle East. There was never a Palestinian issue when it was occupied by Jordan. It was a wedge to push the West (Israel is only the figurehead of Western ideals) out of the Middle East.
5
@Howie
I disagree.
I think all (or close to) ALL of the problems in the Middle East are the root cause of Israelis refusing to initiate a two state solution. It certainly doesn't help that they continue in their land grab and usurping human rights in the process.
Once that is achieved, then the dominoes fall across the board.
1
Doesn't matter if it's Afghanistan, the Middle East or some other star-crossed part of the planet. You know the US foreign policy establishment is up to no good whenever they start tossing around the term "Western values." Throw in the phrase "democracy promotion" and the bombers are likely already in the air. Yes, we talk a good "democracy promotion" game - our most successful propaganda campaign is waged on the largely disinterested or criminally delusional US population - but when it comes down to it the track record of America's fearful military is all about ensuring US business access to foreign markets on their terms and more recently and frighteningly an out of control corrupt military-industrial complex with direct unimpeded access to the national treasury. I mean if we were serious about "Western values" and "democracy promotion" we would have invaded Saudi Arabia not Iraq and Iran would be an ally. Until the US manages to get the leash back on its military-industrial complex which is not only making money hand over fist in Afghanistan -that 45 billion a year is sure not going to ordinary Afghanis - but directing US foreign policy we will be hearing a lot more of this bafflegab.
As to why these US foreign policy wars are "endless"? You have to understand that for the now unleashed US military-industrial complex the "endless" nature of these wars and increasing tensions is not a "bug" but a "feature".
76
@Belasco A concise, informative analysis of reality! Thank you.
4
@Belasco Didn't we do just what you speak of in Ukraine and look what that led to.
We don’t even adequately fund our own public school systems. And Friedman wants to spend tax dollars to invest in the education of other countries?
I agree war isn’t the answer, but when are we going to learn we can’t solve the world’s problems, especially if we don’t invest in our own children and future leaders first.
62
@Mike
We must invest our commitment to both! We are so affected by trade, the internet, movies, fellow citizens from other cultures. We live in an International world!!
23
@Mike
I believe he said that all but 2 of the $45 billion we spend in Afghanistan should be invested here.
8
If the United States sends Foreign Aid in the form of armaments purchased by allies from American manufacturers, the billions of dollars available is almost limitless. In fact, whether or not the recipient abroad is really our ally is an unimportant detail.
If the Foreign Aid to be provided to a country is in the form of agricultural supplies and technical assistance or school supplies with desks, cafeteria equipment and lap tops for the students or nutritional and prenatal assistance to pregnant women, the White House and Congress get very stingy.
Republicans are worse about this than Democrats, but both parties are guilty of favoring manly military hardware expenditures to bleeding-heart life assistance and education.
Extending an American helping hand to young democracies is not acceptable to our politicians in Washington as a means of strengthening American influence, unless the lobbyists for our weapons industry are completely happy.
90
@sdw
The lobbyists for the weapons industry seem to have done their job well. Fewer than 10 Democratic senators and fewer than 40 Congressmen/women voted against the increase to the military/defense budget last year. Whatever happened to the much vaunted "peace dividend" at the end of the Cold War?
37
@Ellen
Your question about the “peace dividend” from the end of the Cold War illustrates how America has often proven itself to be its worst enemy. The Cold War began in 1946 as a strategy of George Kennan, and it was a bipartisan foreign policy of the United States.
The Cold War ended on Christmas 1991 when Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved the U.S.S.R. The president when the Cold War ended was George H.W. Bush, and his relationship with Gorbachev was an important factor.
How ironic it is that the peace dividend from ending the Cold War was dissipated in 2003, when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney invaded Iraq under false pretenses and began the “perpetual war” of the Republican neo-cons. That unending war continues to this day.
11
@sdw
Thank you for the depressing history lesson on what happened to the "peace dividend". The tragedy of Iraq and our other military misadventures around the world has caused untold death and disruption and a severe lack of funds and attention to our myriad, pressing, and unmet domestic needs.
10
Certainly strengthening academic and cultural institutions across the Middle East is a better long term strategy for improving that region than is militarism. Yet, in addition to such development, several other things would have to happen.
The United States and Israel would have to stop cheaply treating Iran as a foil and a bogeyman; instead, resume the approach President Obama took, of making Iran less threatening through diplomacy, and also show that America can keep its word.
Sunni-majority countries, most notably Saudi Arabia, would have to move away from their fear of Shiite influence; it is this phobia which drives not only the hysteria towards Iran, but also the ruthless campaign in Yemen.
Least probable, but still necessary, the United States would have to take ownership of the troubles we have launched in the area. From the Iraq war which created ISIS, bloodshed and chaos; to having supported Osama bin Laden when he seemed useful; to the onesided treatment of Israel; to interfering with Iran's leadership when it suited us; and more. A painful reckoning with the past has to happen for progress to be possible.
126
@NM
The lack of facts behind your Iran comment stings.
If Iran wasn't spending tens of millions monthly to destroy the West, there would be no antagonism.
Iran has set its violent goals to replace Western and Eastern countries with an Islamist caliphate.
1
@happy I think you would do well to go further back in history, at least as far as the 1950's when Iranian Prime minister Mosaddegh was overthrown by a CIA/MI-6 coup over --no surprise -- oil.
Here is a link to start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh
If the US is so enamored of democracy, why is it that Pakistan is an ally and India is not?
3
They don't want our schools. They don't our presence. They want us out and everywhere. The only people that want us there are the autocrats and dictators that use our power to maintain their power.
Of all the ideas mentioned here, the only one that I think has any hope of succeeding is educational and cultural exchange. Some kind of foreign exchange program where their young spend time here, go to school here and learn what a liberal democracy is first hand. They can study the liberal arts, all the stuff that our students don't want but desperately need. Then go back home and spread the word. We need thousands of John the Baptist's to preach modernity in the Arab and Muslim lands.
But no. We can't do that now. We must build walls. We must isolate. We must withdraw. We must post KEEP OUT signs along all our borders.
Our increasing isolation will not lead us anywhere, but it will make the defense contractors a lot of money.
168
@Bruce Rozenblit Bruce, I teach dozens of international students at a prestigious business school. Youth from countries like Iran, Tunisia, Botswana, Egypt, and yes, Russia and Saudi Arabia, bring scintillating energy and refreshing perspectives to class every day. I have no doubt of the value of their transformative participation in our culture, both for them and us domestics. This rich exchange is threatened by the xenophobic policies of the Trump-Miller-Coulter administration. It’s more than sad that self satisfied louts like them could crush such a hopeful outreach.
45
@Bruce Rozenblit
Sadly it is NOT the educated students that turn to jihad. And since there are many educated citizens in these countries it doesn't seem like it makes any difference.
The money is in the hands and at the discretion of the rulers of each country. They decide who is educated and has a future and who does not.
Let's spend our money here at home instead. Educate AMERICAN childre. Give FREE health, vision and dental care to all AMERICAN children.
7
@Bruce Rozenblit -- as someone who spent nearly 5 years in Qatar, let me say that 'them' wanting 'us' out isn't true everywhere in every country. It BECOMES true when somebody like Trump (or Bush or Cheney) tries to override cultural considerations with military ones. People in the Middle East have long memories.
13
Here’s an idea for “Wall” funding. Send $5.7B less tanks to the Middle East. In other words, take the money out of the Militaries bloated budget. A drop in the bucket.
3
Make schools, not wars. Please
Thank you Tom for returning to subjects that you know more about than most NY Times readers as well as the broader public.
Your basic theory is right on. Hopefully,
Trump will find your line of thinking credible and take action accordingly.
And $6 billion of the remaining $40 or so billion can be used to build more secure fencing along our Southern boarder as well as funding additional infrastructure projects.
1
January 23, 2019
Seek and you will find. What is it that the leaders of a given nation of interest soliciting American connectivity as a package for its deals. We are best to require joint statements for public inspection as to diplomatic transactions and / or with military intentions be known - Does one not live by - the truth shall all free and live well.
So it is what does the schooling offer to guide the transactions in full understandings - and not the endless conspiratorial intrigues that dull, distract and spoil the good intentions to relief violence and soiled information in a full spectrum of on the street chatter......
1
"The U.S. should send more soft power and less hard power to the region"
Maybe a better idea would be to stop meddling entirely and to tend to our own affairs, which are badly in need of some focused attention. We are after all only 5% ot the world population centered in one fourth of its global surface -- one which does not include any part of Asia. In short, we are not an Asian nation -- Middle Eastern or Far Eastern.
11
I agree with the general premise but I know that implementing anything like this is no more than wishful thinking. To support that kind of transformative change requires four things that are impossible for us to accept:
1. We need a plan that involves each country in the planning of their unique educational needs, and our willingness to accept their priorities, even if we disagree with them.
2. A long-term commitment, say 30 years or longer. This is truly impossible in a country like ours that changes leadership and political ideology every 4-8 years, with absolutely no respect for a prior administration’s commitments.
3. Accepting occasional animosity or disrespect, while we continue to pay for their betterment.
4. Doing it all with no expectation of any payback from that country, other than their goodwill.
I can’t imagine a US administration, or the tax-paying public, that would be willing to follow these four points, or even one of them. This is particularly ironic given the potential benefits, while we spend a hundred times more every year in pointless wars that only bring us more grief.
3
Has Thomas L. Friedman thought this through? Spending $2 billion could help educate a lot of Middle Easterners about democracy. They could learn exactly how many innocent people it has killed in Iraq. In Syria. In Afghanistan. Etc. When they compare that with the ethically acceptable number, they might learn something about democracy that even Friedman doesn't yet know.
4
Tom, as usual, misses the main point. Step one is to end our support for the despots in Saudi-Arabia, who are responsible both indirectly and directly for most of the terrorism in the world over the last quarter century through their madrases, money and Saudi terrorists. Force an end to the horrible humanitarian crisis in Yemen caused by the Saudis and the equally corrupt, despotic partners in the Gulf States. Step two is to end our support - financial, military and diplomatic - for the Likud regime and their immoral, illegal apartheid policies until they grant full citizenship to all the people they control and work out a real program for the refugees.
The next step is to stop demonizing Iran and realize that they are closer to American values than anyone else in the middle east and are, therefor, our natural allies. We should sever all ties with regimes that support unAmerican values including apartheid, repression, secret police and slaughter of opposition.
More education is not the answer, it is part of the problem. The vast number of highly educated, unemployed or under-employed in the middle east are another ticking time bomb. I don't pretend to know the answer to creating economic development to utilize that vast pool of talent, but what we have done so far has not worked. when I visited Tunisia I was struck by the great willingness of their people to keep democracy in hopes of a better life. But time is also running out there.
15
Why would we be training Iranians in the sciences? This would be aiding and abetting the enemy. Friedman is still holding on to the failed Obama policy of supporting Iranian terrorism.
Very few Arab countries other then Tunisia want there people especially their woman to be open minded and grow intellectually emotionally and spiritually. The Muslim world is a closed monolithic society without freedoms. This week an Egyptian TV host was sentenced to one year in prison for interviewing an openly gay man. If the Arabs didn't have oil they would have rotted out a long time ago. It's to late for them now. A few educated ones will only make the ruling class stronger and that will only making the plight of the person on the street worse. Solution no solution. o they will be continuing warring against each other. Better we hould be bystanders and not take sides unless it is in support of Israel and the Kurds the only peoples that share our values.
2
@Henry Blumner, don't worry. The Iranians have been going to India to earn university degrees in science engineering medicine journalism pharmacy and many many other subjects. They never stopped studying, their thirst for knowledge science learning is deep rooted. India provides them english speaking environments, they are welcome and they usually return to their country after their education. No need for America to invest in Iranian education and Henry, you are not depriving them of anything, they are doing fine without your help.
2
@petey tonei
Ask the average Iranian if they are doing fine. It' the fat cat the member of the Revolutionary Guards who may be doing fine. The rest of the Iranians are fed up with their theocracy except there are afraid to speak up. If you call living with gun at your head doing fine lots of luck.
1
Yes, soft power and a repatriation of all those military dollars home. What stands in the way? Primarily, the American voter. They don't pay enough attention, know little history. The foreign policy elites who pull our chain about the Middl East, making us like the defenders of the once imperial states of Europe. The media which sells Elm Street scenarios to a public with no natural enemies. How can an intelligent and benign foriegn policy emerge from a bumbling Republican colossus like our own when an idiot like George Bush can launch preemptive wars against Iraq and Afganistan that last forever with blatantly false testimony and a pathological Trump can convince so many that a parade of women and children seeking the statue of liberty requires an army on the border and a Maginot Line of failure? What can be done with a people who follow malicious men who launch such expensive wars that kill thousands of 'collateral' lives because they are 'pro life'? Yes, we should withdraw from the Middle East and let Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran work out their contest.
3
Finally, a Friedman column that makes sense—at least the Afghan part
3
Your asking man whose entire life has been devoted to developing hard power strategies and in his person, wordshipping these strategies, and you are expecting him to see the value of soft power---dream on. Education, in Trump's world, is for chumps---
1
I suppose that this is as close to an apology as we will get from Mr. Friedman for his war mongering stance with the Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.
4
You don't get it, Tom. For all your worldly travels, you still think in meddlesome ways. Wonder why, what happened in your childhood that leads you to believe that it is ok for a country like America to interfere meddle in other sovereign countries' affairs. It is some kind of insecurity perhaps you have inherited over generations. And perhaps you are terrified that middle east = Israel and the region needs to be manipulated in such a way Israel stays safe, even if it means disrupting lives in the region, thrusting democracy in un-natural ways, "The U.S. (myself included) wanted to rush the necessary cultural transformation of Afghanistan and Iraq".
Can I ask you, are you a God given authority (?), as an American Jew, claiming to be an expert in Arab-Persian matters, wanting to fix an age old problem? "ISIS is a direct byproduct of the wider regional struggle between Sunnis and Shiites, led by Saudi Arabia and Iran. ISIS arose as an extreme Sunni response to the extreme efforts by Iran and pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria to ethnically cleanse and strip power from Sunnis in Iraq and Syria."
1
No. Corruption will bleed it dry just as in the West Bank and Gaza.
2
Tom...I've read your books, most of your articles, and with the exception of your rantings on the invasion of Iraq - I usually agree with you. But to any relatively well-educated person on Middle East issues, this article is so superficial, I don't know where to begin. Of course we haven't defeated AlQueda (or whatever their latest name is) in Afghanistan. Bombs and murders are happening every week! As soon as we pull out from these countries, the Choose-A-Name hardliners will be back. Tunisia? Tunisia appears to be on the brink of war even though they are trying so hard to invest in their people. None of these countries should can be discussed without mentioning Syria, Iran and Israel. Let me give you some advice. When you don't have the time to write a well-researched and well-written column, just give it a rest. Your educated readers deserve more.
Stop appropriation of American money to help improve the conditions of Barbarians.
1
Very dear Mr.Fredman:
This morning your wait up call was full of generosity,
According with the disribution of billions all over the arab countries. Just remember Tom, $$$us economy is not as fruitfull as it used to be. However looks as a good investment, with some exceptions. regards.
1
Thomas Friedman has been moaning about the middle east for twenty years. I bet he would be missing inside 6 months if all he has ever preached + written here -- he actually took to the streets to sell in Saudi Arabia , IRAQ , Iran ,etc.
1
Tom Friedman should brush up on his geography. Tunisia is in North Africa not the Middle East. In Tunisia I'm sure they don't know anything about Thomas Jefferson and they really don't care. We forget that our values aren't their values.
1
Excellent proposal, spread freedom and justice around the world by helping with U.S.'s 'know-how' expertise in building schoolsand hospitals and even helping find jobs according to what the 'locals' deem priorities. Certainly one thousand times better than dropping bombs...that recruit ISIS fighters, a lose-lose proposition that only an idiot can envision. Warmongering instead of diplomacy smacks as dumm and counterproductive, just ask the military, as they know better than the civilians 'a la Trump'.
No Tom. Tunisia, is NOT the only Middle East country to achieve the ends that we so badly desired for Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan.
Israel. Israel has full empowerment for women, for minorities, has complete freedom of religion, has never needed US Peace Corp workers (in fact Israel sends its own citizens abroad to help many countries). Israel does not have dictator for life, Israel is not "For now .. holding together". Israel is not in danger of falling apart (although it is in constant danger of attack and Iran, just yesterday, publicly restated its vow to "annihilate Israel".
Why do you claim that *Tunisia* is the only Mideast country to achieve .... various democratic goals and stability. Slipped your mind? Bias?
1
Its a shame, a well aware jurnalist Mr Friedman blinded himself from SEEING Arab autocrats cooperating above and under the table to subvert the Arab uprising agains corruption and tirany .... they all feared the outcome of Tunisia diposed tyrant...!
All those autocrats had misslesd their people that religion is the solution they all put annoying loudspeakers on mosks
They all gave licesnce to ignorant with distorted mind to preach their populations over the past decads while the free world is supporting them directly and indirectly....
its a shame
3
Friedman, the loudest of cheerleaders encouraging the invasion of Iraq, denies that catastrophe helped create Isis. He probably thinks it was the right thing to do to knock out Israel's then biggest enemy--in the minds of the Israelis and Friedman.
Yes, he is right to get US out of Afghanistan.
3
I once worked for a company that quoted Peter Drucker in constant inspirational emails. Company went bankrupt - just say’in.
While we’re refocusing on soft power why not look to assist Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador? You know, the caravan people. These people live in countries with high crime and failed economies.
The dollars we’ve burned through in Afghanistan and Iraq could have been put to such better use. Maybe, if we really tried, the people of Flint could have clean water some day.
The simple fact, which is NEVER debated, is this: our Federal government is captive of the military-industrial complex. People in South Georgia send their children to crumbling schools, while 25 miles south is Tyndall AFB, home of the planet’s most expensive fighter aircraft. Notable in their inability to get out of the way of a hurricane.
6
President Trump, Trump’s base, GOP and Dems in Congress: are you LISTENING? Did you HEAR this? Did it make any impression on your minds?!
Are those 5000 graduate scholarships going to be added to the US system or do 5000 American youth get denied admission to graduate school? And how many of those 5000 Iranian graduates will even want to go back to Iran? What about a pilot program of 100 scholarships first?
I guess I am asking if America is going to go broke trying to run the world because after all they all should be "just like us". Didn't the Soviet Union go broke trying to run just half of the world? Just asking.
Thank you, Mr. Friedman. Great Op-Ed in principle, but optimistic on reality. You write:
"it’s time for us to negotiate with the Taliban and Pakistan the best phased exit we can — and take as many people who worked for us as we can. Afghanistan has hard countries around it — Russia, Pakistan, India, China and Iran — and they have the ability to contain and manage the disorder there. We gave at the office."
The problem is that you, the U.S., have been demonising and undermining the only major power in the region that has been dousing the flames lit by your nation. Just in the past 48 hours you forced Germany to ban flights by Mahan Air, a civilian airliner that may or may not have been sending troops and weapons to Syria to fight the ISIS you created. How else is Iran to send weapons and supplies to Syria? By camel?
And why didn't the U.S. and Germany target the airlines of Saudi and Israeli planes, whose nations bear far greater responsibility than Iran for the global rise of Radical Islam -- a Wahhabi Islam against which Iran is the sole opponent? And how about the main instigator of global chaos: The U.S. itself? Were 9/11, Madrid, Paris, Nice, Orlando, Barcelona, London, Manchester, Bali, Mumbai, Saudi genocide in Yemen and numerous other atrocities really worth Saudi kickbacks and support of illegal Zionist expansion?
While I applaud the message I wholly disagree with your suggestion that your nation's enemies should alone extinguish the numerous fires you have lit.
3
I wish you would also advocate sending soft power to Baltimore and Chicago. Really I also would love to save the world from hunger,ignorance and famine. But! What about our forgotten citizens? Trump won because he lied to White People and told them he would think of them first. When in real life Trump can only think of people of wealth first. If I was an inner city child in a school with no room and no books I would find this column insulting.
I know Mr. Friedman didn't write the headline or the tag directly underneath it. Clearly, though, the US needs fewer tanks and more schools for themselves, too and especially.
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," the so-called Golden Rule, says nothing about trying to find out what others would have done to them, absolving the doer from the task of that discovery. Powerful doers, the US chief among them, are mostly clueless -- willfully ignorant -- of what is going on in the hearts and minds of the rest of the world. It's like we're drunk on power.
Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria? We only do the right thing when we've run out of military options.
"He who strikes the first blow has run out of ideas."
"The ends we so badly desired",the hubris of Pax Americana,!We have our own dysfunctional government ,yet we wish to meddle in other countries politics ,and way of life! America is at a crossroad,and Syria and Afghanistan must solve their own internal problems! No? Do you want Russia to solve our internal problems?
1
As long as Republicans remain in the White House, “hard power” will dominate “soft power.”
Pompeo and Bolton continue the work of Vice and Rummy, to fund the defense industry—BAE, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Honeywell.
These and many other affiliated industries—which include the increasing likelihood of the major telecommunications and social media companies—employ hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world.
The current administration is gearing up to meet the new challenge of the Russian hypersonic missile.
The Middle East and South Asia have their own “hard” institutions, including madrasas.
Can modernization prevail over feudalism, tribalism, and authoritarian regimes? Eventually—through its ability to uplift and improve the living conditions of diverse populations.
In the meantime, let us not be naïve.
"I’d keep our special forces in Syria, though, but not because we’ve yet to defeat ISIS."
You have children or grandchildren whom you would encourage to join the military? They could then take the fight to ISIS, right?
2
Mid-east culture is very complex whose roots run deep. The legacy of Western Cultural assumptions wrecking more havoc in the region is tragic. We assume, for example, that a democratic political system is what should take hold in every culture and manipulate to that end. How is that working out over there? Ya right! We do need to stay involved because as Tom has pointed out in the past, the world is flat. His view that it needs to be "soft" involvement is well taken. Hey, I recall our countries overwhelming fear that if the communists take over Viet Nam, the dominos would fall. Well, guess what? Are we arrogant or just very ignorant?
1
As a former Peace Corps volunteer in Afghanistan, I've often wondered if we had immediately pulled the troops out after the Taliban were initially beaten and replaced the military with more Peace Corps volunteers, money, and aid in constructing schools, civic infrastructure, and mosques. As Friedman points out, it would have been far cheaper and the end results could not possibly be worse.
3
Friedman's common sense suggestions are right on target with what our own Founding Fathers probably would be doing And, hopefully, the Democratic Party will make them a key part of its Party Platform as we move toward 2020 and beyond. Soft Power is the most sustainable way to build democracies.
2
All well & good, Mr. Friedman, but if one alleges (as many do) that the US is controlled by a handful of very rich people, and that the size of our military and the amount of military hardware we export is a fairly clear indication that some of the most powerful voices in our government come from military suppliers, then that of course begs a significant question: why give up all of the profits to be found in arming the warring factions in places like Syria and Afghanistan?
Don't get me wrong - I completely agree with your conclusions. And I'm not sure if others noticed that Tunisia did the most to educate its populace, including girls, which probably has more to do with its current climate than anything else. The question is whether our political leaders will recognize the truth represented in this editorial and act accordingly.
K Street and I suspect that this may not actually occur.
2
Not much for infrastructure, not much for the middle east. What western values shall we promote-separating families, building walls, foisting hardship by government shutdown?
1
I don't know where to begin.... Actually I do. This article is so deeply wrong on why (historically) Tunisia is Tunisia. It's not a simplistic explanation about the "founding father" (ugh) Bourguiba and "choices" he made. There are much deeper, more complicated explanations about the country's pre- and colonial history, the country's political economy, and the ways in which its military was not steroided by the US and NATO during the Cold War (à la Egypt).
And then the article gets wronger on why Afghanistan and Iraq are, well, Afghanistan and Iraq -- it's not because of THEIR culture and corruption. (THEIR corruption? Oh my goodness.)
And don't get me started on the conflation of decency and western values...
Friedman's biggest problem -- there are so many -- is his lack of analytic precision. He interchangeably uses "we" and "our" when referring to the US, the US government, US culture, the US military... Sure, he's a US citizen and a US journalist. Fine. But the analytic elision and amalgamation in his "we"-style writing has undermined his analyses for years.
4
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence is a book by Swedish-American cosmologist Max Tegmark from MIT. Life 3.0 discusses Artificial Intelligence and its impact on the future of life on Earth and beyond. Wikipedia
Perhaps, a look at the wealthy getting too wealthy and the future of work should be part of any discussion.
2
It's really time this whole notion of American exceptionalism, with all its glorified language of freedom and democracy is cast aside and we take a good hard look at what it is that influences people.
If you kill my relatives at my wedding with a drone strike, even in error, I will seriously consider joining the Taliban.
If you give my leader billions of dollars because he holds a strategic piece of land, but this leader uses that money for nice vacations in France, I will seriously consider leaving my dilapidated school and join a band of rebels.
The people in the countries we try to influence aren't stupid: they see clearly that the US doesn't act according to the ideals it professes.
You certainly don't win hearts and minds by supporting heartless and mindless governments.
33
@Eric "You certainly don't win hearts and minds by supporting heartless and mindless governments."
No, but if you're part of the military-industrial-congressional* complex, you'll make lots of money and/or gain power from it. And that's what drives American foreign policy. And some of the domestic, too. Has since FDR. The Exceptionally Callous Nation. To find a rogue nation, the US need only look in the mirror. And in the financial statements of the MIC, its CEOs and its friendly politicians.
* Eisenhower's draft term, which he revised so as not to offend some congressional friends. That he didn't dare make the speech warning of the MIC until days before he retired shows where the real power lies in this country.
5
@Rocky
"Has since FDR."
Are you suggesting that FDR was wrong to start arming the US in 1940?
1
Love it, and all the men and women in the military will come back and be paid by tech companies a living salary and these men and women will volunteer at all schools refurbish homes and neighborhoods clean up industrial sites install solar/wind through out the US help clean up our drinking water help clean up drug neighborhoods and take on the drug cartels because if a sitting president can be bribed with millions of dollars like what we are learning in the El Capo trial then a wall is just a diversion. Just think how many pounds of drugs could be coming back into the US through vacation trips like Carnival
Problem - An intelligent learned historical perspective married to short and long term competent and management driven strategies; and with the substance to achieve well balanced humanitarian objectives -as you outlined here:
Has a zero chance of being implemented as long as a completely self indulgent weak minded - morally rudderless -unprincipled grifter is running the show with a bunch of weak bootlicking apparatchicks in tow.
I recommend "The Death of Stalin" on Netflix - just substitute Trump for Stalin and watch his incompetent lackeys run and disassemble and fawn over the psycho-in-chief to hold onto power for one more day.
1
Tom Friedman: What are your thoughts on programs that used to be run under USAID such as the IESC? I did a stint for IESC in 1995 in Armenia. I was told, and I believe, that it was successful. I understand that funding or lack thereof, reduced or eliminated USAID type activities.
Do you know what happened?
The fallacy of your entire world view is that it is the job of the US to help countries “transition to Democracy” or be bombed into oblivion.
How about we just let them decide how to manage their own affairs?
6
Tom, I have been following your reports and then op-ed pieces for quite a while, I wonder what has changed that a war monger is realizing that we should invest in education, culture, and soft power instead of overturning elected parliaments to instigating coups so that our favorite dictator/Sheikh/King comes in power or outright attack on foreign government. As we were the sole so called superpower in the world we started invading countries on false pretenses in South America, Middle East, South East and now Africa.
These actions were the result of our so called Capitalistic System being run by the Military Industrial Complex. MIC is not just in our country the US, but has tentacles in UK, Germany, France, and Russia. The world revolves around the almighty dollar. Our social/moral values went by the wayside. The unnecessary wars became routine for our Military and the executive started using them for political reasons. It is becoming very clear that this administration is also working towards a military confrontation with Iran (just in case it needs one for political reasons)
Tom, yes I do remember the USIS and US cultural centers throughout Asia, in India, Pakistan, Thailand, Bangladesh (East Pakistan) and many Middle Eastern countries. They work but they do not provide profits to the bottom line of MICs. They worked and made America Great. A country everyone looked up to for what is possible. The MAGA clan needs to learn from history.
1
Refreshing, its education, and not isolation or an insular tact that is going to win the day not bombs or divisiveness.
3
I agree with most of Friedman's imaginary distribution of the funds that could be diverted from our futile military adventures in the Middle East.
Friedman, however, does not mention the massive amount of money to be had by diverting some of the money we give to Israel to Tunisia and other Middle Eastern countries that are trying to develop democratic institutions.
A Congressional Report asserts the obvious truth that "Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. To date, the United States has provided Israel $134.7 billion (current, or noninflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding (www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=809504). Israelis have universal medical care, low cost education through the university level, and many other amenities that Americans don't. Despite the argument repeated every time this topic is addressed--that the US gains from giving money to Israel by way of the jobs Americans have in making weapons for Israel and by way of Israeli "improvements" in American supplied weaponry--we give Israel money and support in many ways other than armaments.
Our financial support of Israel allows them to kill Iranians in Syria, and to engage in many other nefarious actions that I do not want to support with my tax dollars.
5
"Since 9/11, we’ve relied almost entirely on hard power. Some was needed, some is still needed, but most of it failed."
This shouldn't surprise anyone. Since Reagan, our "defense" policy has focused on two things: (1) refighting Vietnam so we can feel like winners and (2) making defense contractors a lot of money.
4
For years I wanted an end to our imperialist,military endeavors. But with the leadership of a sane man and a responsible Congress. Trump and the Republicans have no motif except to muddy the waters.
3
@Donald Forbes
It's worth making sure we know where candidates for the presidency in 2020 stand regarding the bloated military budgets and "imperialist" adventures around the world. If it's not a conversation, we need to make it so.
1
Thank you for this, Thomas. I'm a Vietnam Era vet, and have long thought that we could accomplish much more by sending our young people overseas to build, rather than to destroy. The use of the military is necessary, and unavoidable, in some situations; but, unfortunately, it has been misused and overused, and were are paying the consequences (as well as the exorbitant bills).
7
What a relief to read about a policy that actually makes sense! And the contrast with what has actually been done (and will probably be done in the future) in the Middle East is beyond depressing. I wonder if the new progressive movement might make a difference.
7
It has been shown in a great number of polls that many citizens and a majority of Republican voters currently believe more than 30% of the Federal budget is spent on foreign aid. This is of course false (actual ~1%). It would have been better for Mr. Friedman to include this.
1% of soft power is much better than 40% of hard power. If we want to rebuild America, its not hard to see where the savings should come from.
10
Tunisia is a beautiful country with warm hearted and curious people. I did a road trip through the country about ten years ago and was enthralled with it's stunning coast line, Roman ruins, The Bardo museum, friendly people, food, and magical places like Sidi Bou Said & Tabarka. We had many exchanges with everyday people on this trip and we were always met with smiles and good will when we told those we encountered that we were from New York City. As Mr. Friedman suggests, this is a country that we should be supporting and encouraging.
11
The more education for women, the lower the birth rate. A lower birth rate in the whole region is a necessary condition for anything good to happen. Excellent article.
16
Stop sending arms around the world to begin with. Make this a priority for every nation.
Schools and health clinics are great as long as they are done with the cooperation with the local people. Lots of real diplomacy needed here.
5
14,000,000 dying currently in Saudi Arabia, 70,000 babies and children already dead? Two and three generations all over the Middle East have known nothing but fighting. Our military budget is growing, while our State Department has been hollowed out. Say what you want, we are heading strongly to "all military" solutions to social problems.
10
Agree, but your statistics are for Yemen, not Saudi Arabia.
Could we send this sensible column to the President? He needs some new ideas. If he could, in fact, settle the middle east down, get us out and home, his name would be praised in the history books. The rebirth of Roosevelt! Please, Mr. President, forgedaboddit, the wall that is.
8
Mr.Friedman I love your ideas. Unfortunately, the policy of American administrations was never to help the ordinary people in the Middle East , Asia or in Africa but help the butcher dictators and the war lords. I am a big Obama fan and hardcore Democrat but I can say without hesitation that Obama administration killed innocent people in Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan with drones than anyother president.
8
"has eaten alive the U.S. democracy efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan."
So very true Mr. Friedman, if the arsenal of the "democracy efforts" weapons has guns of total destruction, Quantanamo and the defence department deciding what democracy should look like in those remote areas of the globe.
Imposing traits of western culture in the east is a doomed effort. Have you ever thought that the people of these countries do not want schools or hospitals or research centers by any outsiders. Historicaly, they have proved that they can provide those to themselves.
1
It's certainly refreshing to see the topic of guns versus butter raised here on the pages of the New York Times. Voting to mindlessly increase our bloated military/defense budget is bipartisan in nature, with fewer than ten Democratic senators (and fewer than forty Democratic Congressmen/women) voting nay for last year's billions more for the war machine.
When is it that "we" finally have a national conversation about where all these tax dollars go and see a frank debate about it in the halls of Congress?
8
"ISIS arose as an extreme Sunni response to the extreme efforts by Iran and pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria to ethnically cleanse and strip power from Sunnis in Iraq and Syria. As long as Iran pursues that strategy, there will be an ISIS in some form or other."
No. ISIS arose from the beating heart of Saudi wahabism, which dictates the destruction of all infidels, including shiite Muslims.
It's what the Saudi clergy have been preaching around the world for decades, backed with oil revenues.
Every terrorist act in the west, including 9/11, was carried out by sunni terror groups inspired by wahabi philosophy.
5
More schools will do no good if all they teach is religious doctrine. The Mideast, like the rest of the world, needs a paradigm shift in human thought. While it seems impossible, this transformation will come or we will destroy ourselves.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a linguistic "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of all. When we understand this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
2
Sociologists should fight our wars.
3
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Yep, and it will continue to do so whether the U.S. uses "soft power" or "hard power" in any of these regions. I'd turn Drucker's adage around to see how political, religious, quasi-journalistic/SNS, and military strategies
have eaten whatever 'U.S. culture' is for breakfast. Deploying all those assets and resources abroad while neglecting education, infrastructure, and the legislative process within the U.S. is tantamount to hypocrisy, especially considering what an exceptional democratic republic most U.S. citizens believe they're living in. They're not, and the exceptionally daft excuse to bring others abroad into the U.S.'s hypocritical fold-of-decency-and-democracy is, as it always has been post-WWII, the pipe-dream of
the military-industrial-congressional-complex planners: the shortcut of shortcuts to keep those big-ticket sales of death machinery rolling off the assembly lines. Note the patent numbers on Saudi missiles entering Yemen, the hellfire missiles in Somalia, and the shell-casing floor in Afghanistan. If the "war on terror" is a strategy, let's start with domestic, U.S. firearm terrorism and slaughter from coast-to-coast FIRST.
4
There is one reason not to get out of Afghanistan: The horrible treatment of women under the Taliban, and it is a must, if we do, to make sure women will be safe and empowered there. If they aren't, what happens if something terrible happens? Do we invade again?
2
Education always works. Yet, it is often the last category of development to get support. Note: there is no real discussion of education or schools in the article.
Military action, health initiatives, shelter and food get the lead and the bulk of the funds.
Bandaids are not cures.
https://vimeo.com/278210675
2
Let me start my statements with a resounding "I don't Know."
I don't know what will allow outsiders to really broker some peaceful sanity into Islamic societies.The ties to religion are so great that stepping into the Sunni vs Shiite abyss is fraught with every terror imaginable. The "Demands" of many (most?) Islamic religious leaders is so powerful that even the most liberal educated Muslim would practically never incur their wrath. Hence I have fright, even in America, with the close proximity of divergent Islamic populations.
My fright is based on the influence, in back room settings of how easy, many in the religion, can be channeled towards horrific deed. I love peace but can't embrace someone known to carry hidden knives in their garbs.
Having lived in the culture, I have first hand experience with smile on the face and 180 degree of reverse ethics culturally in the heart. The smile stays intact as the long knives cut ever so deep.
So, I end as I started, I really don't know. Europe, mainly Germany really tried to do an open arm embrace and 2 years on, the results of that is still a work in progress. The jury is still, sanely, out.
1
Friedman lived in the Middle East so long ago, and his predictions for the Arab Spring were so completely wrong I've stopped taking anything he says seriously. He championed the Arab spring in Egypt and the results were a disaster; economy shrinking, churches burned, terrorists in Gaza enabled, and a scene at the Israeli embassy in Cairo which nearly turned into a Mideast War when Israel threatened military action rather than letting demonstrators reenact Benghazi on their diplomats.
While nothing Friedman says in this article sounds unreasonable, closer reading indicates he hasn't really accepted why he got everything so wrong. Tunisia has an Islamist government. So did Egypt. Islamists don't leave power willingly and they don't promote democracy. Tunisia looks like a success but let's see what happens at election time.
Absent from his initiatives is any consideration of the promotion of due process or the consideration of the values of the people he wants to educate here. A champion of Palestinian determination he has been blind to the lack of due process and the rights of minorities. Constantly demanding Israel make more concessions, he ignores that the people of Israel have rejected his path for 19 years.
Israel learned concessions =weakness, pursuing national interests means security, geopolitical and economic success. Friedman hasn't learned this. Until he does he will always and consistently be wrong.
Been gone too long Tom, you're not an expert any more.
2
Why waste anymore money on the Mideast when we have our own problems here? LA Teachers are on strike, teachers where I live just got done striking, and we should hurry up and help some other country with their problems?
Sorry, but nope.
2
Here's a novel suggestion--how about nothing for the Middle East.
Checkbook diplomacy doesn't work.
3
Your article highlights the problem with American politics. As is always the case with respect to the Middle East, your insights and opinions are informed, intelligent and worth significant consideration. But which Senator, Congressperson or member of the POTUS staff will even read your article? And if they did, who would take action to implement the suggested policies? We are governed by the worst and the least intelligent, certainly not the best and the brightest. Oh, and how do you think your various "aid" proposals would fly with the "Core?"
This wasn't obvious 15 years ago?
5
America has superb technology, hard power - missile, bombs, soft power and an army of intellectuals who has super power to disseminate any kind of information either for propagation or to defend any strategy.
Arab spring did not succeed, not because Arabs didn't like it rather west didn't want it. Regimes that runs middle east survives because of west's support and that is mainly US. The struggle for democracy is suppressed all around, people languish in jail or get killed makes little different to the greatest democracies. What become more important is making money, creating jobs. Profiteering or profiting from these countries become the fundamental of strategies. You could sell a submarine, freegate, missile system that is more interesting. Getting cheaper apparel makes America not to look into the rigged election and so on. I have developed a distaste of the author reading his article while he was in Riyad eating 'capsa' until past midnight. So is the president of yours who trained the world how to behave with least humility. A disgraceful time indeed!
1
Yes, I would like to see us bring our troops home from Afghanistan and I hope we will bring the Afghans who worked for us too. We owe it to our troops to bring them home. And we have a debt of honor to the Afghans who worked for us.
Sadly, I am not optimistic that we will bring out the Afghans who worked for us. The Republicans are hostile to all immigrants. The Democrats are embarrassed by our failure in Afghanistan and don't want to relive that failure by supporting the Afghans who worked for us. Just as in Vietnam, Cambodia and Iraq we will leave almost all of them stranded and fighting for their lives.
Leaving Afghans behind will educate people around the world and they will learn the lesson that supporting the United States and democracy is a hazardous path with little hope for survival let alone a better life.
1
This means we need to give more support to the State Department and less to the military. Trump has weakened the State Department and has ignored its personnel needs as well as it's funding.
The need to leave Afghanistan is verified by history. No one has been able to militarily dominate it.
7
The only way to really build democracy is through education. Guns, rancor, and conflict don’t build democracy, but that seems to be what we are real good at presently. Too few people here in the US don’t seem to be able to understand this need to reestablish learning programs as our own democracy crumbles around us. That education needs to work at all levels not just for children, to focus on all aspects of democracy not just voting, and it needs to start right now!
12
Lindsey Graham will not be re-elected by donations from people building schools. He will be re-elected by donations from wealthy people building weapons. Such is America.
52
Good article. Summary, for the most part, get out. It is your part of the world, not ours. Let their young see our world, maybe they will bring some ideas home which will help. Use the savings in the U.S.
9
Mr. Friedman notes that Tunisia is the only Middle East country to achieve "the ends that we so badly desired". Presumably meaning a civil, democratic society.
Unfortunately, this is not the goal of the current administration. Trump has made it clear that he prefers to associate with brutal dictators, "strongmen" and autocrats. Our president has made it clear that he does not favor constitutional democracy.
We need to clean our own house before we can help the rest of the world achieve democracy and freedom.
13
It should be added that educating females is even more effective. The US should be supporting local organizations that promote female education. One of the best is in Pakistan, The Citizens Foundation, winner of a Skoll Prize for social entrepreneurship.
12
People need to open their eyes and see what will happen if we leave, build walls here, and think we can simply ignore the rest of the world and let them work it out for themselves. We originally had interests over there due to our reliance on the oil they had. With the ability to use our own coupled with the inevitable shift to non fossil fuel technologies, what do we think they will do over there? Educating their people will only help the situation IF they have something to do after becoming educated. We don't want them here. Europe is fighting their immigrating there. And Republican orthodoxy now is to redistribute wealth upward here "where it belongs". Many of the leaders of their radical groups are educated in the west and return to their home countries to find nothing to do. As the market for oil decreases, we not only ignore them, but degrade them and allow the leaders over their to step all over their human rights. Throw in a college degree. I don't see how you can look at that as a recipe for success.
1
Maybe someday an article will explore the possibility that we can’t spread abroad a democracy that America seems to lack because it has been dominated at home by a form of laissez-faire capitalism that depends on perpetual war. Now there’s something worth reading.
58
Tom, as always your ideas are refreshing and well thought out. Unfortunately, neither Trump or any presidential candidate are up to the task. The military-industrial complex will not allow a coherent soft policy to flourish. For them there is no money in such a proposition.
25
@Leon
If just a handful of politicians - unbowed and unbought by the military-industrial-complex - stood up and conducted a guns vs. butter conversation with the American public, I suspect we would start to see a policy change.
2
The question should be: why does the US spend hundreds of billions of dollars (trillions, over the decades) in far away places like the Middle East -- that actually have little real impact on the the lives of ordinary Americans -- and hardly none at all in its own backyard, Latin America? US should do a Marshall Plan for Latin America, create a trade union and strengthen diplomatic ties. This would achieve three objectives: 1) strengthening the US economy by increasing trade and prosperity in the region; 2) reducing illegal immigration; 3) keeping China out.
26
Wait, everything we've touched has turned to dirt, and your advise is more touching. If the West is toxic to the Middle East then how is more 'West' good for the region? They've got enough problems of their own without having to worry about us wanting to change them. And make no mistake about it we do want to change them. The best we can do is make sure this Sunni-Shia sibling rivalry doesn't spill over on to us again.
5
Good ideas, perhaps, but what stands in the way of implementation is the arms industry. A significant part of our geopolitical strategy is based on the massive revenue generated by arms makers. Arms proliferation is "good" for the economy and creates jobs in every state. There is plenty of money to spread around. It's cheap to buy politicians. We have lax weapons export laws. It's so easy to export weapons from the US that some European arms makers now manufacture their products in the US. This is a root cause of global instability.
14
@James
Is there any real impediment to turning the U.S. from being an arms industry nation to one that makes quality domestic goods, other than will (and bribes to politicians)?
1
Tom highlights the importance of a country's culture in defining its openness to change. The US had presumably benefited from more than two centuries of immigration of diverse peoples to build a unique "American Culture" of openness and change-embracing only to see it rendered by the accidental election of a xenophobic and incompetent president. The internal battle between Shiites and Sunnis will play out for a few centuries more unless modernization is embraced within Islam. The US should just move on from its crusade and let Islam sort itself out. This message was not approved by AIPAC.
2
Thomas you do not discuss Egypt at all in this column. Our approach to Egypt for as long as I remember is to provide funding via the military. I think the parallel is Pakistan. This has led to the militaries in both countries having control of both so-called democracies. Accompanying your calls for moving Afghan military spending to soft power approaches, it would be good to transition military funding to Egypt and Pakistan to other forms of aid. Of course, the likelihood of this happening in the near future is unlikely. The predominant view is that problems in these regions are security based so of course military solutions will continue. When you see every problem as a nail then you only need a hammer to solve them.
8
The US should get out of the region and stop wasting its time and money.
Build schools and roads in the USA for the USA.
5
@Michael..but but but...Tom Friedman only advises what other governments should do, what US government should or should not do, because he considers himself a sage, born to guide direct supervise lecture dictate command. Someone appointed him that role.
3
Good thoughts but still thoughts from a man who believes in his empire USA. But time is running out for that empire and money is scarce or in the hands of the ultra-rich. If only.... but each country must make its own decisions.
6
Yes, soft power is under-rated and education is important.But Tunisia with its high literacy rate and level of education demonstrates something else: the need for jobs, even in the most 'advanced' Arab states. Without jobs there will be constant pressure on the government and a continual drive for emigration.
7
Every empire would use soft power it they could.
The reason the USA doesn't do a Marshall Plan 2.0 is because it can't. It doesn't have the resources anymore, it's overstretched.
By the same logic, we could posit the USA should be fighting China with a technological and manufacturing alternative to dissuade the rest of the world from the BRI. Well, it doesn't even have the $ 90 billion to rebuild Puerto Rico.
4
"Since 9/11, we’ve relied almost entirely on hard power. Some was needed, some is still needed, but most of it failed. It’s time we tried more soft power. It’s time we focused on giving more Arabs and Iranians access to the ingredients that enabled Tunisia to transform itself by itself into a democracy without a single U.S. war fighter."
"Yes, it will take a long time. But there was never a shortcut, and the approach we tried with the Pentagon in the lead has only led to multiple dead ends."
___________________________
I'm not sure if schools teach social studies or civic classes anymore in the United States. If not they should and continue to teach cursive writing.
I remember when in Cerveny Jr. High School in Detroit, Michigan in the 1969 I took a Social Studies class taught by Mr. P. Stopke in Grade 9B and found the Babylonia civilization fascinating.
It's not too late to learn no matter where you are from and where you live now. Just because you may not want to remember back then does not make it less relevant. It's just as important the past as the present and what happens in the future. And that we are a melting pot of ethnicities.
7
Cursive writing is taught to children in India in kindergarten and they are perfect with it by the time they reach first grade. Social studies is a compulsory subject upto high school.
3
"Since 9/11, we’ve relied almost entirely on hard power. Some was needed, some is still needed, but most of it failed."
Close. Actually, all of it failed. If Trump had done as he said and brought all the troops home from Syria, the four who died last week would still be alive. Turkey is planning to invade Syria, and 2,000 Americans would be under fire by the NATO ally with the largest army if they don't leave. Nothing useful can be achieved by leaving those 2,000 soldiers in Syria to die from terrorist attacks and/or Turkish attacks.
3
And will the US monitor what is being taught in their funded schools? The EU has finally awoken to the reality of the hate and lies being taught and have decided to reduce funding until the situation improves.
9
Mr. Trump just isn't a soft power kind of guy, especially after running against a former sec. of state who was very big on its advantages.
One of the most pernicious myths of the last three or four decades involves the cost of foreign aid and the perception that it consumes a big portion of the U.S. budget. Aside from the fact that it's never been a very large amount, this misconception obscures how extremely cost-effective soft power can be.
23
There's nothing "Middle" or "East" about Tunisia. It is a country that lies to the West of Italy and Greece in North Africa! They got lucky there, because they have no oil and gas.
I think the US should Brexit the "Middle East" altogether and build a virtual wall, instead of the one on the Southern border and cease all relationships including trade and cultural exchange until everyone evolves (including the US) and restart relations at some point in the future when the bad blood is completely drained. No need for any more loss of life for natural resources.
3
Though I strongly support rebuilding infastructure in the Middle East, the U.S. also needs to address how it has perpetrated numerous human rights abuses in the region. Throughout decades of war in the Middle East, civilians suffered the most as poorly directed drone strikes and war's destructive nature arbitrarily killed civilians and ravaged cities. If anything, I would love for the U.S. to adopt policies that offers financial compensation to the families whose homes and loved ones are destroyed in U.S. wars. Additionally, the U.S. needs to address its involvement in perpetuating the crisis in Yemen through financially and militarily supporting Saudi Arabia. I would hope part of that $45 billion goes towards providing humanitarian aid to the Yemeni people.
14
Could I please put in a plug for support for the striving, talented youth of Central Asia? My daughter is on a Fulbright there and is deeply struck by the ambition of bright, talented young folks there to advance their nations and engage with the global market economy, through education.
11
It seems like all of Mr. Friedman's articles must go through someone's desk in Riyadh before publication, because he regularly either acts like the personal PR representative of MBS, or completely ignores Saudi Arabia's role in creating Sunni terror groups like ISIS and the Taliban. Instead, he describes these terrorist groups as a "byproduct" and a response to Iran, therefore indirectly blaming the latter for their existence. It Saudi Arabia that has for decades been funding madrasas (Islamic schools) in the region that teach their violent and sectarian interpretation of Islam, not Iran.
35
"Bourguiba was unique in other ways: He kept his army very small and did not waste four decades trying to destroy Israel; he was actually a lonely voice calling for coexistence."
Let's remember though that life was not always a bed of roses for Jews there. The Jewish population of Tunisia, estimated at about 100,000 individuals in 1948, was only 1,500 in 2003, less than 0.1% of the total population. These Jews lived mainly in Tunis, with communities present in Djerba, Sfax, Sousse and Nabeul. As of 2011, 700 Jews were living in Tunis and 1,000 on the island of Djerba.
"That’s why the only peace process that could have a stabilizing effect across the Middle East today is not between Israelis and Palestinians — but between Iran and Saudi Arabia."
Mr. Friedman is correct. And the chances of this are not very good. The antipathy and animosity between Iran and Saudi Arabia are far greater than between Israel and the Palestinians in any form. "Peace" between Israel and Palestinians, under Arab prescriptions of peace would just get Israel destroyed but the Sunni Arabs and Shiite Iranians would continue fighting and that will be the situation as long as there Sunnis and Shiites.
What it boils down too is that there are some good and correct points here. As usual, though, re Mr. Friedman's ideas, the chances of implementation are quite limited.
8
@Joshua Schwartz
The Tunisian Jewish community left when the state of Israel was created and when economic situation worsened in the 1950's and 1960's (apart from a few incidents that led the Jewish community to feel unsafe). They were never expulsed and Bourguiba protected them and nominated a Jewish (André Barrouch) as minister in 1957. Just for info.
Best Regards
3
@Mehdi
I appreciate your attempt to white wash the situation , but things were not as you describe and the few isolated incidents were not so "isolated". See below. Isolated incidents? Not in my book.
"In Tunisia in January 1952, riots occurred in the hara (ghetto) of Tunis, with one person killed. In 1956, attacks on Jews took place at night. The old Tunis Jewish cemetery was expropriated in 1957, and the great Tunis synagogue was destroyed in 1960. Violent acts were perpetrated after the Bizerte affair of July 1961, in which the Jews were accused of having fought alongside French troops during bloody clashes between Tunisian and French troops around the French military base. A wave of departures of Jews ensued (15,000 in 1961 and 10,000 in 1962, all to France). The Tunis Jewish quarter was plundered on 6 June 1967, and the great synagogue was ransacked. Jews were murdered in Djerba in 1982, and the Djerba synagogue was attacked on 11 April 2002."
http://jcpa.org/article/the-expulsion-of-the-jews-from-muslim-countries-1920-1970-a-history-of-ongoing-cruelty-and-discrimination/
2
Yes. It’s time we rethink the limits of hard power and the limitless impact of soft power, which is generational.
10
Take a look at whats happening in the countries north of Afghanistan. That is starting to look as promising as Tunisia. The question is, if the west leaves Afghanistan, will that continue? Or will those countries clamp down for fear of islamist militants?
I think you have rushed to judgement too early on Afghanistan, Mr Friedman.
2
Overall most excellent. One quibble/worry: the science & engineering degrees for Iranians. I'd want some assurance that they don't go to people who go back and use their degrees in support of the (current) Iranian government (e.g. nuclear or missile engineers).
2
BruceS, the guarantee is for the U.S. to resume It's participation in the completely successful Iranian nuclear deal which has a great verification regime.
8
In 2003 on the Charlie Rose show, Friedman said, "Well, suck on this! That, Charlie, is what this war was about. . . . What they [Muslims] needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad."
So now he tells us not to send tanks. Send teachers. Now he tells us.
Is there no mistake that has consequences. Do we just keep reading, and think, "Well that's nice, he's so smart, that is what we should do."
How did it ever get this messed up? Guys like Friedman, and he was very prominent among them with his Friedman Unit of "just keep going six more months and it will all come right."
Sure education is a good thing. "5,000 scholars" is not going to fix the mess Friedman and company made.
We HAD their students in our schools. I had some from Iraq and Iran both in my dorm in 1972 at U of Mich. We did that.
Why would this be different?
How would it undo all that Friedman and company have done?
John Bolton is National Security Adviser, still doing it. And whenever wars come up, Friedman is all for staying in. "Don't abandon the Kurds." As if he cared about them when he was telling them all, "Suck on this."
One more quick fix. Just do this and it would all come right. Nauseating.
55
@Mark Thomason
I don’t agree with Tom Friedman on everything in this column nor do I think he (Or anyone) gets it right every time. That said, he’s made some valid and provocative points.
Friedman’s a pundit/writer of opinion pieces NOT an official advisor or politician. IF we want to blame some guilty people (and I do), I’d start with Cheney/Bush, all their NeoCON advisors, and the morally bankrupt republican leadership who enabled them. Not to mention these days, trump and his klown car kakistocracy and mcCONnell, et al.
15
@Howard Beale
You should add the liberal politicians and pundits who supported and in some cases initiated our various military interventions. Clinton supported the Iraq invasion, the Libyan war, and wanted us to be even more involved in Syria. Obama had the drone wars in several countries, poured weapons into Syria which often ended up in the hands of ISIS or Al Nusra, and helped the Saudis when they bega commits war crimes with our support no matter who is in office.
Democrats who only notice our interventions when Republican Presidents are in office are part of the problem. Yemen was already a catastrophe when Trump came in— he of course made it worse.
10
@Mark Thomason, Yes, Friedman was a cheerleader for the Iraq invasion.
The US under many administrations and Congresses has not figured out the limits of power of various types.
In my lifetime, the US has pulled hard on the military power lever. When that doesn't work (Vietnam, Afghanistan) the leaders double down and pull harder.
The US leaders don't know how to use soft power. They don't realize that it requires vision and a multi-generational pull to change anything -- and results will be slow in materializing. But what's the alternative?
For example, our so-called leaders don't realize that the presence of migrant asylum seekers at the southern border is connected to US economic and foreign policy in Central America. (How could it be disconnected, anyway?) In say, Honduras, the US's power supports US corporations and the oligarchs of the country first and second. And the US's power exceeds the power of the local gov't by far.
The beam is in our eye as we try to get the speck out of the eyes of our neighbors (and the whole world are our neighbors now).
6
And while we're dreaming, as America is transforming itself from the home of the industrial military complex to that of the industrial educational complex it could usefully employ the millions of highly skilled workers currently working for defence contractors to provide the US with an infrastructure befitting the citizens of the wealthiest country in the world.
17
"The U.S. should send more soft power and less hard power to the region."
Something Friedman and I can heartily agree on. Thus, I doubt anything like it will happen.
13
@Thomas Zaslavsky: Obama's red line in the sand was pretty soft. How'd that work out?
1
Why about Syria? Should we have intervened there earlier in the war, when the promise of their revolution still had a chance? Syria had a similarly modern society like Tunisia, it had a legitimate revolution and a parallel power structure in place, ready to take over before Russia and Iran intervened to save Assad’s hide.
Yes, the U.S. shoulders a disproportionate financial burden of global defense. Yes, other countries that share our values need to help in the cost sharing. Yes the UN Security Council needs reforming so we can legally remove brutal dictators. But absent these changes, which our outside the US to unilaterally decide, we—as the worlds leader—must still act. Time doesn’t stand still while the international order evolves to tackle modern challenges. Inaction (or insufficent action) has consequences too, as Syria continues to prove.
The lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan are not that we should never intervene humanitarianly promote democracy, or defend ourselves (Afghanistan). Rather we need to be careful when and what type of aid to provide. Sometimes (most of the time) it is soft power, but sometimes, as a last resort, it must be military intervention. We have to be wise enough to identify these times, and brave enough to use it when the time comes, or else we are left with the consequences of our inactions as well.
@Ben
"We" have no business removing other people's brutal dictators. I can't think of many cases where it didn't lead to a disaster. The same goes for "our" removing democratically elected non-dictators as in Iran, Guatemala, Chile, ....
14
@Ben
“ it had a legitimate revolution and a parallel power structure in place, ready to take over before Russia and Iran intervened to save Assad’s hide.”
This is false. The most effective fighters against Assad have always been ISIS and Al Nusra. The “ moderate” rebels fought alongside Al Nusra and wer3 often little different. A rebel victory meant likely genocide or ethnic cleansing for religious minorities. Assad is a war criminal, but try looking up what Robert Worth had to say in the NYT Sunday magazine about the rebels back in an article in the summer of 2017.
1
Very refreshing. It's easy to be pessimistic and say that the US foreign policy will always prioritize lucrative military sales, but the first step towards making a better world is to imagine a better future. Mr. Friedman has made a good start. Bring on the conversation, and more like it!
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Mr. Friedman writes, “The mainstream Syrian and Iraqi Kurds have been, for the most part, forces for decency and Western values in that corner of the world.”
The arrogance and conceit of that statement is why we have been in Afghanistan for 17 years and counting, and why we struggle in other Middle Eastern countries with the exception of Tunisia – where we kept out and did not impose “Western values.” Trying to bring some of these nations into the modern age has to be done like we used to in the post-WWII era through economic aid and soft propaganda via Hollywood films, USIS libraries and documentaries.
Back when I was growing up as a kid in Mumbai – most of us never ever went to the Soviet House of Culture, but we often frequented the USIS library. We need to win people over with facts, truth, love and respect for their cultural differences. We can never claim the moral high ground through military might and occupation. Afghanistan might still be won the old-fashioned way, but the rest of the Middle East is anybody’s guess.
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@Jack Nargundkar
Afghanistan defeated Alexander the Great, the British, and will probably defeat us, too. The Afghans are an old warrior culture; they are home, we are not. The Chinese up on the Northern border have made their deals, as they always do. They are going to build a pipeline for natural gas to be offloaded in Iran. There are rare earth minerals as well which are used in cell phones made in China. Not sure how Trump will deal with this. Depends on what Coulter and Hannity advise, given their foreign policy chops. We could not have a less stable President in a difficult complex world. Putin, however, is stable. How much money does Trump owe Russians?
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@Jack Nargundkar
But what if those cultural differences (that you think we should respect) are anti-democratic and anti-feminist? I'm an atheist who thinks religion is madness and that theocracy is disaster. I'm in favor diversity, so long as it doesn't involve religion, which means I am not truly in favor of diversity. To my mind, the earth cannot survive two forces: Religion and unmitigated greed. I see religion as moral greed.
I'm not a moral relativist. I would strongly support schools instead of bombs, as long as the education is secular, feminist, and democratic.
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@Linda Miilu
Even if Mr. Trump mangled the nuances in his account, it also defeated the USSR (didn't the U.S. fund the Taliban fighters?).
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That was my reaction when both China and Trump talked about new super sound weapons. If they only used the money to improve the lot of the masses that are knocking at their walls, they wouldn't need these weapons. And that, of course, goes for Trump's wall. Use the near 6 billions to improve the lot in Central America and you don't need a wall. Failing that, the number of desperate individuals will always come seeking entry, one way or another.
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@Frank Casa
Sure, but what happened to the welcome to the "teeming masses", such as my and many other Americans' grandparents? Most of whom came as refugees from oppression and poverty (both, usually).
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Al Qaeda or some successor will always be there, and who knows whether or how Trump's order to withdraw from Afghanistan will be implemented, but this place is not worth one more American life or dollar.
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