Speaking last night to an overflowing auditorium, New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman explained the real reason the United States invaded Iraq: "Because we could."
Friedman said the direct American motivation for war was the defense of the open society we have built over 200 years against the terrorist threat.
"We came over to burst the terrorism bubble in the face," he said. In this year's Sanford Institute Lester Crown Lecture in Ethics, Friedman discussed American foreign policy in the Middle East and the crucial importance of building democracy in Iraq.
Friedman, who began his journalism career 20 years ago, has served as the Times bureau chief for both Beirut and Israel, in addition to chief White House correspondent, among other positions. He has won three Pulitzer prizes, most recently in 2002 for Distinguished Commentary.
Drawing on his years of experience in writing and traveling in the Middle East, Friedman said he decided to support the war in Iraq after listening to young Arabs and Muslims, who quietly expressed their hope for American action to change the political situation in which Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism thrive. As a result, Friedman said, "Doing nothing was not a option."
This committed ability to listen to many points of view and integrate them into his own realistic perspective characterizes Friedman's columns and stood out to those who attended the lecture. "His message for us is that we should learn to listen," Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Political Science Albert Eldridge said.
Friedman emphasized the cultural "poverty of dignity" and "sense of humiliation" prevalent among young Arabs that served as fuel for the Sept. 11 attacks. To address the continuing, social deficits in freedom--the empowerment of women and modern education--Arabs and Muslims must counter their governments in ideology.
Criticizing the Bush administration for being "criminally negligent" in its post-war strategy, Friedman cited insufficient troops and lack of planning as evidence of its shortcomings.
He said the U.S.--due in part to the shortcomings of the press--underestimated the devastation of Iraq prior to U.S. involvement. "We defeated the Flintstones, inherited Bedrock, and then allowed it to be looted," he said.
Friedman designated the rehabilitation of Iraq the largest nation-building project in history, stressing the critical task America now faces. Within the wider context of reversing the trend of reigning Islamic ideology, the responsibilities of the U.S. include diffusion of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which Friedman said the Bush administration has not properly tackled.
He also called on liberals, conservatives, Republicans and Democrats to take more seriously their responsibilities to commit substantial resources to Iraqi reconstruction.
"This is no time to turn around, or shortchange ourselves," Friedman said.
President Nan Keohane and Bruce Jentleson, director of the sponsoring-Sanford Institute of Public Policy, introduced Friedman's lecture, which overflowed into five classrooms where audience members could watch the speakers through a closed-cable television network. Some students complained about the size of the venue and the poor scheduling of the lecture on the same evening as "20/20" anchor John Stossel's appearance in Page Auditorium.
The Lester Crown Lecture in Ethics was established by the Crown family, several members of which attended last night's event. The lecture is intended to encourage "scholarly discussion of ethical issues across many disciplines with a real world bite."
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