Thomas Friedman’s insanely bigoted view of the Middle East is not only racist; It should never have been published
The New York Times has done it again. This time, comparing nearly the entirety of the Middle East to a kingdom of animals. While there has been a variety of arguments surrounding the Middle East and the ongoing conflicts there—ranging from what to do about Houthi attacks on foreign vessels in the Red Sea to the ongoing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza—few could have been more belligerent and downright prejudiced as the infamous warmonger and columnist Thomas Friedman.
In his piece, “Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom,” Friedman demonstrates his irresponsibility as a commentator and unmitigated condescension to the people affected by the views he so flippantly espouses.
Starting, Friedman starts with an introduction that one could only describe as repeating information his audience already understands. He reminds his audience that America is likely to attack Iranian proxy groups for their involvement in an attack in late January, which resulted in the deaths of three American soldiers. He also notes that the Biden administration is attempting to negotiate a recognition of Israel with the Saudi government, something that surprises nobody.
Instead of attempting to analyze or explain why he thinks this collection of already established information is significant now, Friedman instead decides to turn this basic reiteration of information into a comparison to, of all things, Animal Planet.
“The U.S. will probably retaliate against pro-Iranian forces and Iranian agents in the Middle East that Washington believes are responsible for the attack on a U.S. base in Jordan that killed three soldiers on Jan. 28. At the same time, we could get a Gaza cease-fire deal, with an exchange of Israeli hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. And Secretary of State Antony Blinken is going to try to bring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel an option: normalization with Saudi Arabia in return for a commitment to engage with the Palestinian Authority on a long-term plan for a Palestinian state.
How all of these are going to interact, I do not know. Personally, I sometimes prefer to think about the complex relations between these parties with analogies from the natural world.”
Thomas Friedman, Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom, February 2nd, 2024
Friedman, deciding to take on the now anthropomorphized reality of his own making, argues that America is “…an old lion” that is “…still the king of the Middle East jungle — more powerful than any single actor.” However, the American lion is increasingly weakened by “…so many scars from so many fights that we just can’t just show up, roar loudly and expect that everyone will do what we want or scamper away.” To Friedman, America was in a position of immense power in the Middle East and still is but is incapable of acting to control its once obedient kingdom adequately.
This thinking is not new to Friedman. Friedman has long treated the Middle East as an inherently American realm to control and influence. In 2003, Friedman appeared on the Charlie Rose show to defend the Iraq War, arguing that certain parts of the Middle East were part of a “terrorism bubble” that needed to be popped. The way to go do that, Friedman painfully argued, was to over to that part of the world and take a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble.” Under Friedman’s vision, Americans would be “…going house to house — from Basra to Baghdad — and basically saying… suck. on. this.” That kind of thinking didn’t age well.
Despite the obvious flaws in his thinking, Friedman seemingly hasn’t learned a thing. He continues with this unending desire to control people. Friedman asserts America’s inability to control the region as a kingdom leads to dangerous actors like Iran, which he compares to a “…parasitoid wasp,” taking control and infecting the once properly ruled kingdom with their destructive influence. Using a description by Science Daily of the parasitoid wasp, Friedman argues that Iran is like a parasite-like creature, injecting various countries with its eggs and eating them alive from within, with their parasitic offspring “…bursting out once they have eaten their fill.”
According to Friedman’s strange metaphor, the American lion cannot deal with the parasite and fails to uphold its kingdom. What this means for the lion, Friedman doesn’t say, but he does seem to like his comparison even if it illuminates little and demonstrates his willingness to reduce the humanity of entire groups of people to mere animals with only instinct to guide them. Instead, he continues by comparing Hamas to a “trap-door spider” and Netanyahu to a “…sifaka lemur,” meandering through various warnings without providing any insight into how to react in terms of policy. He finishes his argument with perhaps one of the strangest things I have ever read, saying, “Sometimes I contemplate the Middle East by watching CNN. Other times, I prefer Animal Planet.”
That’s it. Nowhere throughout this meandering piece of 19th-century anthropomorphized paternalism and bigotry does Friedman ever explain or contextualize the history of the people he talks about so derisively. By comparing Iran, and by extension the many nations it influences, as animals and parasites, Friedman not only disregards the basic humanity of the millions of people affected by American foreign policy, but he also ignores how Iran became the way it is today.
Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon are all just prey for the Iranian parasite to consume, and the American lion, through its weakness and age, is no longer able to protect its kingdom. Of course, America isn’t a lion that prowls around its kingdom and fades with age. America’s influence far extends beyond its borders and, in many cases, abuses the influence it has at the expense of the very people that Friedman decided to compare to animals.
From our disastrous involvement in overthrowing Iran’s democratically elected government in 1953 to our overtly illegal invasion of Iraq, America has acted less like a lion ruling over its kingdom and more like an invader that claims to care about the rules but fails to uphold them when it becomes inconvenient. Anthropomorphizing entire countries obscures that reality.
This kind of rhetoric wasn’t appropriate in the 18th and 19th centuries when it was used to justify imperialist interventions, and it certainly isn’t appropriate for a major newspaper like The New York Times to publish in 2024. If we, as Americans, are to overcome this kind of thinking and create a more humane and just foreign policy apparatus, it must start with acknowledging our responsibility as a nation for creating the environment of which we now complain. Friedman’s piece is another obstacle to a better, more humane world.
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