I have been curious for most of the week to read Thomas Friedman's take on the most recent hubbub in Iraq. I have always admired Friedman's ability to blend man-in-the-streets reportage with the "big picture" of global politics (especially as they pertain to the Middle East). As someone who has held a pretty strong sense of skepticism with regard to the Iraq mission (or lack thereof) from the outset, I have followed Freidman's relatively few posts on Iraq with some interest. See, Freidman's writings on this subject have played directly to that part of me that holds out hope that US intervention (whether justified or not) might create a transformation in a region that is marred by authoritarianism and other troublesome social architectures. Friedman (sometimes annoyingly) tempered my anger and distrust of the current administration's Iraq policy through his "realpolitik" support of the war against Saddam, but the part of me that defers to him on the SOP of Middle East politics (he coined the term "Hamas Rules") believed and, hell, I just plain respected him becuase he has operated in an environment characterized by such extremes and yet has never become politically polarized.

His column today, "Dancing Alone" (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/opinion/13FRIE.html?hp), represents what the Bush Administration "Mayberry Macchiavellis" ought to be very concerned about: the disillusionment of an supportive, influential opinionmaker who (and this is significant) has not thoroughly discredited himself by serving as an administration mouthpiece.

Friedman writes:

"It has always been more important for the Bush folks to defeat liberals at home than Baathists abroad. That's why they spent more time studying U.S. polls than Iraqi history. That is why, I'll bet, Karl Rove has had more sway over this war than Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Bill Burns. Mr. Burns knew only what would play in the Middle East. Mr. Rove knew what would play in the Middle West."

If there was ever a doubt that domestic politics drives foreign policy right now, it should be long gone. A rereading of U.S. history confirms that domestic politics almost always plays the primary role in major foreign policy decisions. Look my homeland during WWII: how did FDR persuade isolationist Mid-southerners to go along with his internationalist program of entering the War and postwar international institutions? He electrified the underdevloped Tennessee Valley with a series of federally-funded hydroelectric dams. In return he received a pass on the international agenda. What local leader could say no to such an outpouring of Federal funds?

Ever wonder if this was uttered: "Well Hell, Franklin, when you put it that way, I never liked them Nazis or Japs anyway!"?

The flip side is that while he was providing cheap electricity to a region wracked by illiteracy, flooding, disease and infant mortality, FDR routed a percentage of that electric generation capacity to Oak Ridge, Tennessee - where the government was secretly engaged in power-intensive uranium enrichment for the most profound international dynamic of the century: atomic weaponry. Pure politics: quid pro quo.

This is just one pointed example of how skillful policymakers were able to align the interests of domestic politics with an foreign policy, and American history is full of these deals. This may seem elementary, but I was a bit surprised to learn that TVA was as key to the WWII effort as the Atlantic Alliance.

While there is no doubt that there are current constituencies that stand to benefit from the Iraq mission just as the people of the Tennessee Valley did in the WWII era, moral outrage at shifting rationales and lack of procedure, planning and vision threatens to alienate an American public that is coming to grips with the incompatibilities of "serving as a beacon for freedom and democracy" and "acting as a global superpower". Without the pretext of unprovoked attack at Pearl Harbor, FDR's deal with the South would look less like politics and more like hush money, and if there's one thing that Americans don't like to imagine about themselves, it is that moral complicity can be bought. We need a moral absolute to justify, and the Bushies have utterly failed to provide that, since WMD is a joke and the Al-Quaeda/9-11 connection to Iraq is purely contrived. How on earth can Americans feel good about themselves? How on earth could the administration fail to recognize that, when provided with a solid sense of self-assuredness, Americans are capable of positive, transformational deeds. Without it, we feel contaminated by the ugly compromises of Old World empire - a contamination of spirit that contradicts the strongest fears of those who established and sustained this nation in its most formative period.

What we are experiencing right now has become as much about the American self-image of strength and righteousness (as well as - let's drag this one out of the 19th Century - Manifest Destiny) as it is about fighting terror, liberating Iraqis, taking the battle to the enemy or even the American reputation on the "Arab Street".

I am most disappointed that we have been forced by our leaders to face such profound questions of self-identity in this ugly, ham-fisted context. Timing is everything, and I am afraid that the administration has a pretty poor sense of it.