Ah, the new year is always a great time for a fresh start, a clean slate; a time for ideals of the past to become convictions yet again. Where better to seek that renewal than in the chaotic and devastated Iraq of the 21st century. Time to begin to end again the tragic catastrophe we keep engendering.

President Bush, after months of reviewing all the options on the table and hearing recommendations and dire warnings from the Iraq Study Group, finally became the Decider yet again, with a televised call for 21,000 troops to be sent to Anbar Province and the Iraqi capitol. Advisors clearly found this magic number not in the petitions of generals on the ground, who for months had said more troops would be counterproductive to the Iraqi government's strength and sovereignty, but rather found it in the Defense Department's stop-loss game whereby troops can be retained in theatre by simply extending their tour. Defense Secretary Gates sagely advised on continuing Rumsfeld-stlye word games in the War of ideological insinuation (Wii): the troops would be demarcated as a "surge" and most definitely not a Vietnam-style "escalation" that would excite the slumbering opposition.

It has become clear that Bush's new plan for victory was not a flash of inspiration, not another "God told me to do it" moment, but rather an exercise in the new American democracy, a choice of the lesser of evils, with a necessary evil on the road home. Failure, of course, was never an option, yet somehow all other options were perceived as road maps to failure--notably massive escalation and measured withdrawal, and thankfully, we should assume, nuclear obliteration. As my fellow Texans might say, "If ya put lipstick on a pig, you still got yourself a pig." So what distinguishes the new unimplemented plan as successful where others that haven't been tried so clearly link to a failed state?

Bush has shied from justifications for the "benchmarks" of success or even elucidating a hopeful outcome, and instead focused on what failure would look like:

BUSH: . . . failure in Iraq will embolden the enemy. And the enemy is al-Qaeda and extremists. Failure in Iraq would empower Iran, which poses a significant threat to world peace. Failure in Iraq would provide safe haven, and the extremists still want to attack us. And failure in Iraq, defeat of America, in quotes, will then embolden these extremists. They'll be able to recruit more. . . . if we do not succeed in Iraq, we will leave behind a Middle East which will endanger America in the future.
PELLEY: Instability in Iraq threatens the entire region?
BUSH: If the government falls apart and there is sectarian enclaves and violence, it'll invite Iran into the Shia neighborhoods, Sunni extremists into the Sunni neighborhoods, Kurdish separatist movements.
. . . if we just isolate ourselves from the Middle East and hope for the best, we will not address the conditions that had led young suiciders to get on airplanes to come and attack us in the first place.

So again it seems America is making decisions based on fear, not information or inspiration. The only bit of comfort I take from this interchange is that it is the first time I have seen Bush talk about 9/11 in terms of the conditions that led to suicidal behavior other than the standard boilerplate "They hate our freedom." I do believe there are more peaceful ways to change those conditions.

The notable change in strategy with Bush's new plan is that Prime Minister Maliki apparently has given the green light for the US to attack both Sunni AND Shiite militants in Baghdad neighborhoods. The other incredible change is that having survived two elections, Bush now has been freed by his handlers to accept retrospective responsibility for making colossal errors of judgement:

And the reason I brought up the mistakes is, one, that's the job of the commander-in-chief, and, two, I don't want people blaming our military. We got a bunch of good military people out there doing what we've asked them to do. And the temptation is gonna find scapegoats. Well, if the people want a scapegoat, they got one right here in me 'cause it's my decisions.

Hooray! A scapegoat was clearly all the American people needed to go about their business as usual. But to me it seems playing the blame game is a tad bit counterproductive when the stakes are so high, and especially so when we can't seem to count on one Administration to get us out of the mess simply because it's his fault. I myself couldn't say what the solution in Iraq is, but I sincerely believe that we must do all we can not to abandon the people, and that we can have influence in this regard in a non-punitive, non-militaristic fashion. A real change would involve extreme, possibly financial incentives for peace, withdrawal to the borders with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, and Syria, and negotiations for a truce with at least the homegrown insurgency and Shiite militias, who no doubt have both clear demands and excellent intelligence on their insatiable, unrelenting foreign counterparts. Democrats need teeth to their opposition in Congress, and pulling the purse strings may be the least worst option indeed. As a country we need to find common ground, even if it means accepting the ignominy of defeat and reaching out to help the world with our riches again.

But don't listen to me, it's MLK Jr. Day, listen to a real source of inspiration:

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer.

We must not engage in a negative anti-communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove thosse conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. . . . Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept -- so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force -- has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. . . . We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says : "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word."We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.

In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out deperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world -- a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the callling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.