FRIEDMAN’S PARENTING TIPS
Thomas Friedman argues, correctly I think, that Baghdad is “Our New Baby” and that we need to put aside our domestic squabbles that led up to the war and deal with that fact:
Friends, whether you like or hate how and why we got into this war, the fact is America–you and I– has assumed responsibility for rebuilding Iraq. We are talking about one of the biggest nation-building projects the U.S. has ever undertaken, the mother of all long hauls. We now have a 51st state of 23 million people. We just adopted a baby called Baghdad–and this is no time for the parents to get a divorce. Because raising that baby, in the neighborhood it lives in, is going to be a mammoth task. If both Republicans and Democrats don’t start looking clearly and honestly at what is evolving in Iraq, we’re all going to be in trouble.
Indeed, if parents of actual babies felt this much responsibility, we’d be much better off.