Thomas Friedman

The Iraq war will be decisively won or lost within the next few months (by about mid-2005).

“Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months.”

Said on

28 November 2004 · New York Times column "The Last Mile"; quoted verbatim by FAIR's "Tom Friedman's Flexible Deadlines" (2006)

Source

Tom Friedman's Flexible Deadlines · FAIR (Extra!)

Should come true

May 2005

How sure they sounded

will (stated as fact)

Categories

Geopolitics

Importance

3 of 5 · The outcome of the Iraq war mattered greatly to the US and Iraq.

Outcome

Inaccurate

Nothing was settled by mid-2005. The insurgency went on, sectarian civil war peaked in 2006-07, and US combat forces stayed until December 2011. Friedman himself kept setting new "next six months" deadlines through 2006, as FAIR documents.

Evidence:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
• https://fair.org/extra/tom-friedman8217s-flexible-deadlines/