It's Paradoxical

"Patience: (n.) A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue"
--Ambrose Bierce

I recently came across a Thomas Friedman column from last year--"The 11th Hour," and you know, I think I'm finally understanding this thing.

In it, Friedman, on March 30, 2006, definitively closes the article on our possibility of success in Iraq with the warning, "it is five minutes to midnight." Strong stuff for the source of the "Friedman Unit" (FU), defined as the indefinite six-month stay needed for the success of coalition partners in the Iraq venture (or generically, any six-month unit.)

The image that came to mind was that of the runner in the Pre-Socratic thinker Zeno's paradox. In order to get to the midway point, you must reach the one-quarter mark, and so on, leading to the conclusion that since there are so many fractional marks to hit, one will never reach the end of the race. The poor runner will simply be slowed down by the necessity of reaching infinitely smaller marks. And so this is the position in which the U.S. finds itself in Iraq.

March 30, 2006, was the last five minutes, and January 15, 2007, is 4 minutes and 59 seconds. Think of it in cosmic terms, with the late great Carl Sagan explaining how the last 60 million years have been maybe five minutes on the clock since the Big Bang went off. It is good to have some generalist perspective on the thing.

--by Lisa