Thomas Friedman: Quotes about thinking

Thomas Friedman is American journalist and author. Explore interesting quotes on thinking.
Thomas Friedman: 62 quotes0 likes

“You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century—when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all—and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?”

Thomas Friedman

The Earth Is Full, New York Times, June 7, 2011, June 26, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/opinion/08friedman.html?_r=3&ref=opinion,

“We needed to go over there, basically, and take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble.… What they [Muslims] needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad and basically saying "Which part of this sentence don't you understand? You don't think we care about our open society? You think this bubble fantasy, we're just going to let it grow? Well, suck on this!" That, Charlie, is what this war was about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia! It was part of that bubble. We could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.”

Thomas Friedman

Charlie Rose (30 May 2003).

“Can Iraqis get this government together? If they do, I think the American public will continue to want to support the effort there to try to produce a decent, stable Iraq. But if they don't, then I think the bottom is going to fall out of public support here for the whole Iraq endeavor. So one way or another, I think we're in the end game in the sense it's going to be decided in the next weeks or months whether there's an Iraq there worth investing in. And that is something only Iraqis can tell us.”

Thomas Friedman

CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer (23 April 2006).
"The next … months" in Iraq

“I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq.”

Thomas Friedman

Today, March 2, 2006
"The next … months" in Iraq

“We've teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it's going to come together.”

Thomas Friedman

Face the Nation, December 18, 2005
"The next … months" in Iraq

“Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months — probably sooner — whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're going to have to just let this play out.”

Thomas Friedman

Hardball with Chris Matthews, May 11, 2006
"The next … months" in Iraq

“I think we're in the end-game now…. I think we're in a six-month window here where it's going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt, I think, the next congressional election — that's my own feeling — let alone the presidential one.”

Thomas Friedman

Meet the Press, September 25, 2005
"The next … months" in Iraq

“I think that we're going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any chance of succeeding. In which case, I think the American people as a whole will want to play it out or whether it really is a fool's errand.”

Thomas Friedman

The Oprah Winfrey Show, January 23, 2006
"The next … months" in Iraq

“We're at the beginning of, I think, the decisive, I would say, six months in Iraq, OK, because I feel like this election — you know, I felt from the beginning Iraq was going to be ultimately, Charlie, what Iraqis make of it.”

Thomas Friedman

Charlie Rose, December 20, 2005
"The next … months" in Iraq

“I think we're in the end game there, in the next three to six months, Bob. We've got for the first time an Iraqi government elected on the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Either they're going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that we aspire to in the near term, in which case America will stick with it, or they're not, in which case I think the bottom's going to fall out.”

Thomas Friedman

Unidentified CBS program (31 January 2006), quoted in American Armageddon (2008) by Craig Unger.
"The next … months" in Iraq