Whether or not you accept the Bush administration's claim that the Iraq war ties directly to the 9/11 attacks, you should watch Thomas Friedman's chilling television report, Searching for the Roots of 9/11, airing on the Discovery channel this week. A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, New York Times columnist Friedman parlays a lifetime of Mid-East contacts into a penetrating look at the rage many Muslims feel toward the United States.
Representing pro- and anti-U.S. views, Muslim diplomats, scholars and poets explain to him the "rivers of rage" that fed the 9/11 attack. In interviews made before the Iraq war began, the issues and circumstances they cite seem certain to be massively aggravated by the attack on Baghdad.
Like a wrecking ball swung, the war cannot now be reversed. But Friedman's piece underscores the fundamental importance of what happens in Baghdad (and the West Bank) after the bombing stops. Regime change will do nothing to abate that rage.
12:34:22 PM 
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