The Friedman Unit (or FU) is the conventional measurement of how much longer the Iraq War will last. The smart people at the Center for American Progress have put together a visual aid to who has invoked the FU and some variation on it, both shorter and longer.:
The Bush administration as well as supporters and some critics of the Bush Iraq strategy have told Americans time and again during the past four years that the “next few months” in Iraq will be the “decisive, critical period” of the war—the one in which Iraq’s warring factions will compromise to share power; in which the bloody civil war among sectarian groups will ease into peace; and in which Iraq’s brutal violence will decline.
The implication has always been that U.S. military forces just need to hold on a little while longer for things to get better. They’ve been holding on a little while longer for more than four years—longer than it took the United States to win World War II.
The timeline here catalogues the broken record we’ve been hearing from our leaders.