Friedman on "Tipping Points"

Thomas Friedman has an interesting column on Tipping Points a topic taken from a book written by Malcolm Gladwell.

While I agree -- a 100% guarantee that a positive "tipping point" will not be "tipped" in the opposite direction would be nice, life and history have no guarantees -- this is precisely why we must remain diligent... If recent history is any indication we only have to look back twenty-six years (1979) when an appeasement administration (Jimmy Carter) betrayed the then Pro-American Shah of Iran giving way to the Shah's fundamentalist enemies and revolution. This destabilized the Middle East further and opened the door for the Iran/Iraq war -- where the following administration had to choose the "lesser of two evils" -- Saddam or the Ayatollah... Appeasement put us in this undesired position of having to choose -- Appeasement is the root of horror that has manifested itself over the last 26 years -- and to avoid this yet again we must be diligent and support those that support us. This is a hard learned lesson and listening to liberals I feel that it is an "unlearned" lesson by many -- appeasement and isolationism have and will continue to have negative results… Some highlights:

I think that what's so interesting about the Middle East today is that we're actually witnessing three tipping points at once.

Thanks to eight million Iraqis defying "you vote, you die" terrorist threats, Iraq has been reframed from a story about Iraqi "insurgents" trying to liberate their country from American occupiers and their Iraqi "stooges" to a story of the overwhelming Iraqi majority trying to build a democracy, with U.S. help, against the wishes of Iraqi Baathist-fascists and jihadists.

In Lebanon, the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which Syria is widely suspected of having had a hand in, has reframed that drama. A month ago, Lebanon was the story of a tiny Christian minority trying to resist the Syrian occupation, which had the tacit support of the pro-Syrian Lebanese government and a cadre of Lebanese politicians who had sold their souls to Damascus. After the Hariri murder, Lebanese just snapped. Lebanon became the story of a broad majority of Lebanese Christians, Muslims and Druse no longer willing to remain silent, but instead telling the Syrians, and their Lebanese puppet president, to "go home." Lebanon went from a country where few dared whisper "When will Syria leave?" to a country where nearly everyone was shouting it, and Syria was having to answer.

The Israel-Palestine drama has gone from how Ariel Sharon will use any means possible to sustain Israel's hold on Gaza, which he once said was indispensable for the security of the Jewish state, to being about how Mr. Sharon will use any means possible to evacuate Gaza - with its huge Palestinian population - which he now says is necessary for saving Israel as a Jewish state. The issue for the Palestinians is no longer about how they resist the Israeli occupation in Gaza, but whether they build a decent mini-state there - a Dubai on the Mediterranean. Because if they do, it will fundamentally reshape the Israeli debate about whether the Palestinians can be handed most of the West Bank.

While all three of these situations would constitute tipping points by Mr. Gladwell's definition, I would feel a lot better about all three if I thought that they were irreversible - and couldn't tip back the wrong way. [Column here]