Tom Friedman says the debate about a war with Iraq is upside down. We're concentrating on the weapons of mass destruction angle, and what we should be focusing on is regime change.
I have no illusions about how difficult it would be to democratize a fractious Iraq. It would be a huge, long, costly task [~] if it is doable at all, and I am not embarrassed to say that I don't know if it is. All I know is that it's the most important task worth doing and worth debating. Because only by helping the Arabs gradually change their context [~] a context now dominated by anti-democratic regimes and anti-modernist religious leaders and educators [~] are we going to break the engine that is producing one generation after another of undeterrables. [Friedman says that Saddam Hussein is deterrable, but the young Islamic fanatics are not.]
Unfortunately, it sounds as if dealing with Iraq post Saddam is an afterthought at best. If this is true, rather than immediately diving into a military action, we should be concentrating most on making the Afghanistan situation work out so we can learn as much as possible about building a democratic state out of a bunch of factious groups in Iraq.
1:02:29 PM 
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