OP-ED: “Standing By Stand-Up Iraqis,” by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 26 May 2006, p. A19.

Friedman remains one of our best analysts on the Middle East. It’s been so long since he was known for just that, thanks to “Lexus and the Olive Tree,” that you tend to forget that that is where he cut his teeth.

In this piece, he provides a vignette about a brave Iraqi member of parliament taking a bit of a dramatic stand for the future of his country, despite the personal danger to himself, and then says, “As long as I see Iraqis ready to take a stand like that, I think we have to stand with them. When we don’t see Iraqis taking the risk to build a progressive Iraq, then it is indeed time to pack and go.”

That statement is fair, it’s reasonable, and it’s moral.

The rest of the op-ed is given over to an astute Egyptian sociologist who compares Bush’s Big Bang strategy to Napoleon’s invasion of Iraq in 1798 (man that guy got around!). It says it “punched the first big hole through which modernity could seep into the Arab world,” ushering in a mini-Arab renaissance that stretched deep into the century.

What you are seeing in Iraq today is the “hard labor” of nation building in a country that has gone through almost 50 years of tyrannical rule, Mr. Ibrahim said. It is a naturally messy process, much messier than Easter Europe’s, with the outcome uncertain. “Everyone with a grievance for 50 years there is not breathing freely and wanting to act on their newfound freedom,” he said.

The reason that the violence in Iraq is so intense--mass executions, mosques blown up--is in part because of all these pent-up grievances. But in part it is also because two very entrenched forces in that part of the world--the theocrats and the autocrats; that is, the Qaedas and the Arab regimes surrounding Iraq, even the “pro-America” ones--are deeply worried that we might succeed.

“The theocrats fear modernity taking root in Iraq,” in the heart of the Arab world, “and the autocrats fear democracy taking root there,” Mr. Ibrahim said. Therefore, they are pulling out all the stops to make Iraq fail. America, Britain and their Iraqi allies must fail, the theocrats and autocrats say, so the Arab theocrats can tell their people that modernity is not an option and so the Arab autocrats can tell their people that democracy is not an option. The future of the Arab world is at stake here.

The killer line here: “Every major transformation since Napoleon in this part of the world has been the function of an external jolt,” Mr. Ibrahim said.”

That, in a nutshell, is why Bush’s Big Bang strategy was so visionary and so bold--and so dead-on.

And it’s why wasting it on things like Gitmo and the Iran isolation strategy is just so wrong.

Put Friedman’s op-ed on Iraq together with Ignatius’ (above) on Iran and you basically have why I still support the Big Bang strategy and favor the soft-kill option of connectivity with Iran. Taken together, you might it call it a blueprint for action in the GWOT (except I’d add strategic alliance with China and building an East Asian NATO on Kim Jong Il’s empty throne; then it’s on to Africa!).

These are seriously good signs: serious consensus emerging among the nation’s top opinion leaders (a strategy of connectivity and System Perturbations) and among the nation’s top military generals (the Long War and the “first war of globalization”).

Our side will win, but first the right definitions must prevail. Gotta know what you’re fighting for before you can win.