Even the New York Times is starting to get it, although Thomas Friedman is normally fairly sane on foreign policy anyway. Friedman argues against letting the UN dictate the timetable for Iraqi sovereignty as thoroughly impractical:

Would the U.S. handing power to an interim Iraqi government really stop the attacks on U.S. forces, Iraqi police, the U.N. and Iraq's interim leaders? I doubt it. These attackers don't want Iraqis to rule themselves, these attackers want to rule Iraqis. Why do you think the attackers never identify themselves or their politics? Because they are largely diehard Baathists who want to restore the old order they dominated and will kill anyone in the way. Will the U.N., which has basically left Iraq, not flee again when its officials get attacked again — which will happen even after Iraqis have sovereignty? Could the Iraqi Governing Council agree now on who should lead an interim government? Will the Europeans really pony up troops and billions of dollars for Iraq, if the U.S. hands the keys to an Iraqi interim government? Will the U.S. public want to stay involved then, as is needed?

Until we are sure these questions can be answered, without Iraq spinning out of control, I'd stick with the status quo as the least bad option — in part because genuine sovereignty means running your own affairs and the U.S. has already done more to build that at the grass roots than most people realize.

Friedman then goes on to outline some of the successes in Iraq that we don't hear from mainstream media, including and especially his own paper. In the case of Iraq, the blogosphere is way ahead of the mainstream media, and at some point the mainstream media is going to have to answer for it.

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