Thomas Friedman nails the argument about Israel and Iran in today’s New York Times. One of the clear indicators of which side we should be on in Iran vs. Israel is to compare Iranian economic stagnation with Israel’s flourishing economy. He writes:

From outside, Israel looks as if it’s in turmoil, largely because the entire political leadership seems to be under investigation. But Israel is a weak state with a strong civil society. The economy is exploding from the bottom up. Israel’s currency, the shekel, has appreciated nearly 30 percent against the dollar since the start of 2007.

The reason? Israel is a country that is hard-wired to compete in a flat world. It has a population drawn from 100 different countries, speaking 100 different languages, with a business culture that strongly encourages individual imagination and adaptation and where being a nonconformist is the norm. While you were sleeping, Israel has gone from oranges to software, or as they say around here, from Jaffa to Java…

Ahmadinejad professes not to care about such things. He was — to put it in American baseball terms — born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. Because oil prices have gone up to nearly $140 a barrel, he feels relaxed predicting that Israel will disappear, while Iran maintains a welfare state — with more than 10 percent unemployment.

Iran has invented nothing of importance since the Islamic Revolution, which is a shame. Historically, Iranians have been a dynamic and inventive people — one only need look at the richness of Persian civilization to see that. But the Islamic regime there today does not trust its people and will not empower them as individuals.

As usual, Friedman’s worldview is colored by his belief that everything boils down to economics. To the deeper questions such as why is Israel so much more economically creative, he offers no insight, indeed scarcely notices that such a question is worth asking. But the international community is often open to materialistic arguments such as Friedman’s, and given such a worldview, this is precisely the argument for him to be making.