Friedman's main arguments are that the Bush administration's approach to dealing with al-Qaeda has so damaged the US image abroad, has so inconvenienced foreign travelers and visiting business investors, and has so diverted spending from essential US infrastructure such as bridges and airports, that it risks making the US economically backward in a globalizing world.

The column is significant because it argues that Bushism- Cheneyism is bad for business. The United States is the world's foremost business society, and virtually everything in the society (low taxes on the wealthy, no health care for the middle classes and poor, no protections for labor organizers, favoring of certain kinds of international trade over lower middle class job security, etc.) is arranged for the convenience of the business classes. If Friedman's conviction becomes widespread in that community, the pressures to abandon the 'War on Terror' will be irresistible.

Bushism-Cheneyism has aspects of Bonapartism, whereby the state rules in an authoritarian way and disregards the people, representing itself as the true representative of the business classes. [.]
Friedman writes:

' I'd love to see us salvage something decent in Iraq that might help tilt the Middle East onto a more progressive pathway. That was and is necessary to improve our security. But sometimes the necessary is impossible -- and we just can't keep chasing that rainbow this way. '

In other words, the Iraq War was a business investment, which was a bit of a risk but entirely justifiable at the time (you can hear the nervous CEO explaining to the Board of Directors). But the investment has gone south, isn't working out, and no successful businessman throws good money after bad.

I ain't thinking about Iran other than to definitively say as an American peasant if they go into Iran I will become an enemy of the state.

My latest problems include the Gestapo that is Mass Health and their Nazified nursing home entrance requirements.  Should my 78 year old mother by chance seek to enter a nursing home seven years of records have to be produced assuring that she didn't give my daughter 50 dollars for Christmas.
http://www.elderlawcenter.org/

In Europe they actually get something for their tax dollars.

The U.S., that bastion of freedom.
For what Halliburton raked in on this scam they could have easily taken care of my father, who flew bombers in WWII and my mother who now has her hands full taking care of my father.  And me, cleaning out my father's garage with a broke rib(from flipping the pony cart) because they need a new oil tank in the garage.  She can pay a stranger to do this (and many of these tradesmen have literally drooled over the stellar collection of tools(real ones and not those Chinese import crap) in my father's garage) and they have "offered" for a fee to "clean" it out.

What I learned most from Sy Hersh's article was that the US occupation of Iraq could have been an opportunity for the US and Iran to work together on shared goals, to share information, and to give Iraq a regional ally.  The cooperation would have been based on the selfish motivations of each country, but it could have been an opening for relations with Iran.

But the US couldn't allow Iran to grow stronger as a result of our actions, and had to fight against Iran's interests, which to some degree meant fighting against Iraq's interest.  US incompetence in Iraq always seemed so willful.  Now we have one reason why.