If you ever wondered why the Iraqis are grumpy
 

Friedman's got the answer.

Iraqis aren't upset because they got invaded, had hundreds of thousands (maybe even a million) of their countrymen slain, and after half a decade still lack electricity and water. Nope, they're just a bit annoyed that the Americans got there before them. In liberating them, that is.

You know how people in the Middle East are, Friedman reasons, it's in their culture to find it humiliating to be rescued. Now they're like "damn, we should have thought of it first!"
A not-so-initiated layman would probably assume that said humilation had more to do with stuff like the Abu Ghraib events or similar, but Friedman knows better.

Tom Friedman is also the man who finds it fitting that American soldiers habitually knocked on doors around the region delivering diplomatic messages such as "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?" and "Well, Suck. On. This." just to prove how benign they are in their quest of liberating Iraq.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOF6ZeUvgXs

Friedman, a hawk who talks the talk.