Six more months for Friedman

Tom Friedman has this thing where he says that the war in Iraq will be won or lost in the next "six months." It's been well documented.

I thought maybe he had stopped, but he was at it again -- if subtly -- in Wednesday's column.

As for General Petraeus, I have no idea whether his military strategy is right, but at least he has one — and he has stated that by “late summer” we should know if it’s working. As General Petraeus told the BBC last week, “I have an obligation to the young men and women in uniform out here, that if I think it’s not going to happen, to tell them that it’s not going to happen, and there needs to be a change."

We need to root for General Petraeus to succeed, and hold him to those words if he doesn’t — not only for the sake of the soldiers on the ground, but also so that Mr. Bush is not allowed to drag the war out until the end of his term, and then leave it for his successor to unwind.

There you have it. General Petraeus at least has a strategy and is honest, and he thinks we'll know where Iraq stands by late summer. Oh wait. That would be 5-6 months from now.