Just when it seemed Thomas Friedman realized the destructive nature of Dick Cheney’s foreign-policy vision, the New York Times columnist suggested yesterday that the VP’s approach is not only healthy, but should play a role beyond 2008 if a Democrat succeeds Bush. Specifically, Friedman seems excited by the prospect of an “Obama-Cheney ticket.” (Friedman goes so far as to say “they complete each other.”)
Even before going further, one really has to wonder what on earth Friedman is thinking giving Cheney any praise at all. His tenure as Vice President has been without redeeming value. Confronted with various challenges, Dick Cheney has managed to get every question wrong, with every decision making matters worse, all in the midst of unprecedented secrecy and legally-dubious power-grabs. He is, by any reasonable measure, the worst VP in the history of the country, and one of the most destructive political forces of his generation.
Responding to Friedman’s notion that we should keep Cheney in a position of power beyond January 2009, hilzoy suggested Friedman might next week “recommend that the Democratic nominee make the disinterred corpse of Richard Nixon Attorney General, or Typhoid Mary the head of the Centers for Disease Control, or Pol Pot the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.”
As for the specific political argument, Friedman argues:
I think a President Obama offering to go to Tehran would have a huge impact on that country and create lots of internal debate, especially if we made clear that America would be satisfied with a verifiable change of Iranian behavior.
But Mr. Obama’s stress on engaging Iran, while a useful antidote to the Bush boycott policy, is not sufficient…. Mr. Obama’s gift for outreach would be so much more effective with a Dick Cheney standing over his right shoulder, quietly pounding a baseball bat into his palm.
Glenn Greenwald had a great post on Friedman’s bizarre affinity for a belligerent foreign policy: “As Friedmans’ column this morning demonstrates, this is exactly the same mentality which our pundit class continues to embrace today: America can only succeed in the world if we run around constantly threatening countries that we will invade and incinerate them.”
That’s absolutely right, but I’d add that on Iran specifically, Friedman’s recommendation is completely nonsensical.
As hilzoy’s post documents nicely, there are two tragic flaws in Friedman’s thinking. First, he envisions a divided presidential administration — in this case, Obama’s — in which a reasonable approach to foreign policy is counterbalanced with a lunatic that scares foreign governments.
In other words, Friedman has watched the divisions between Powell and Rice on one side, and Cheney and Rumsfeld on the other, and concluded that we need more of this in the next presidential administration. I’m not sure if Friedman’s noticed, but this dynamic hasn’t exactly worked to anyone’s benefit the last seven years.
Second, and just as important, Friedman’s notion that Cheney is specifically a credible actor on Iran is absurd given that our current predicament is largely Cheney’s fault.
As hilzoy concluded:
[Cheney] has tried to block every diplomatic initiative we might have taken, just as he did with North Korea. He and the rest of the hawks in the White House are responsible for the fact that we now find ourselves confronted with an Iran seeking nuclear weapons, and virtually no leverage to use against them.
This is the guy Tom Friedman thinks Barack Obama needs on his team, to help him negotiate with Iran. And Tom Friedman is a person we’re supposed to take seriously.
No, I don’t understand it, either.