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Tavis: I am pleased to welcome Thomas Friedman back to this program. The three-time Pulitzer Prize winner is, of course, a widely-read syndicated columnist and best-selling author. I don't think it's at all overstating it to say that his most recent book, 'The World Is Flat,' is one of the most important texts of this young century.

It has remained now on 'The New York Times' best seller list for 91 weeks and counting. And now has been expanded and updated. He joins us tonight from Washington. Tom Friedman, nice to have you back on the program, Happy New Year to you.

Thomas Friedman: Great to be with you, Tavis, thanks for having me.

Tavis: Let me jump right to it. The president has a big speech tomorrow night, in case you haven't heard. (Laugh) Yeah, what do you expect this guy to say tomorrow night?

Friedman: Well, it's pretty clear, Tavis. What he's gonna do is make a proposal for a surge of troops to Baghdad, which he hopes will be able to finally bring some security and stability to that city so that the Iraqi government and some economic reconstruction will be able to take hold and gain some momentum. That's his plan. Exactly what words they're gonna use, we don't know yet. But that's basically what we're gonna hear from him.

Tavis: All right, that's what he thinks. What does Thomas Friedman think about what he thinks?

Friedman: Well, what I think is this, Tavis. When I hear people talking about this surge, you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of a couple; they get married, and the wedding never quite takes. The bond never quite takes. And then they say, 'You know what? Let's have a baby.' (Laugh) 'Things'll get better then.' Or, 'Let's buy a house.'

If you don't have the underlying bond, if you put a baby or a home mortgage on top of that, it tends to really collapse. So what I've really been focused on all along is do we have a real framework in Iraq of reconciliation between the Kurds and the Shi'a and the Sunni that you can actually build something on? And if we do, then something is possible there.

But if we don't, then nothing is possible there. And I think what's been troubling many Americans, as reflected in the last election, certainly been reflected in my own column, is that for the first couple of years in Iraq, Tavis, the war seemed like an elected government against insurgents. Now, in that fight, we had a dog in that fight. Ours was with the elected government, in hopes that it would emerge as a kind of progressive force there.

But what's happened in the last couple of years, in part because of the insecurity we allowed to take hold, is that it no longer looks like an elected government against insurgents. Rather, it looks like insurgents against insurgents, or one tribe against the other. And in that fight, we have no dog in that fight.

Tavis: Mm. Let me share with you some numbers you no doubt have already seen. But for those who've not seen these numbers, these are numbers from a 'USA Today' Gallup poll taken over the weekend. Sixty-one percent of those surveyed, Tom, think that the president has it wrong on this notion of troop surge. So in advance of his speech - again, we don't know what he's going to say with regard to detail.

We do know he's gonna press for a troop surge. And in advance of that speech, 61 percent of Americans believe, of those surveyed, believe that this increased troop level is a bad idea. It also shows in this poll that the president's policy on Iraq, specifically, is at a new low of 26 percent. How, then, does a guy stand in front of the American people to make the case for something, when overwhelmingly, the American people are still saying, even post-election, 'Your policy, your direction on this, is wrong'?

Friedman: Well, I think a couple of things are going on here, Tavis. I think what those polls are suggesting is that the American people intuit that we are no longer midwifing a Democracy in Iraq, but rather we're babysitting a civil war. And what they're saying is, 'We don't wanna send any more Americans, our brothers and sisters, our next-door neighbors, to do that kind of babysitting. Sure, it's a civil war. But it's not the north versus the south. It's the south versus the south. And we don't wanna be in the middle of that, okay?'

It's two anti-progressive forces. I think what people are also intuiting, that this policy in Iraq is less and less maybe being driven by the conditions on the ground there and what's really needed, and more and more by George Bush's personal circumstances and maybe even legacy.

That is, is he just kind of playing out this string so that he'll be able to take Iraq to the end of his Presidency with us there, and then turn it over to the next person? Tavis, I've been feeling for a while that if we had a twenty-eighth amendment in our Constitution and it was just called 'Can I Go Now?' (Laugh) Okay, something less than impeachment, but more than resignation.

Just 'Can I Go Now,' I'm not sure that George Bush wouldn't exercise that amendment. So I think he's gonna have a real problem here. because I think what the election told us, and what the public seems to be saying in those polls you've quoted, Tavis, is that people are kind of feeling that this is no longer about Iraq and which side can win, and who are the progressives and who are not.

It's actually about our country or theirs. That is, if we continue to pour manpower, womenpower, and economic resources down that Iraqi drain for another year, it's actually gonna start to affect our country. And since I love my country a little more than they seem to love theirs, if it's my country or theirs, the polls seem to be saying, then, it's gonna be mine.

Tavis: I read you religiously, never miss one of your columns, and I'm trying to recall, Thomas, whether or not I have heard or seen you say this, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong here. But there are writers, of course, who for some time now, not just writers. Indeed, U.S. senators - Ted Kennedy comes to mind immediately - who have started to compare what we're in now with Vietnam. I don't know that you've made that comparison. I don't recall it. But what's your sense of whether or not we're headed in that direction?

Friedman: The analogy is, there's something to it, but it's not quite perfect. I was actually the one who wrote before the election that this was starting to resemble the Tet Offensive, and Bush reacted to that and said, 'Yes, there is a parallel.'

What's always bothered me about that early on, Tavis, is that we're not fighting the Viet Cong. That is, if I thought we were fighting the authentic carriers of Iraqi nationalism, and that we were standing in the way, as we were in Vietnam, the authentic carriers of Vietnamese nationalism, then I would say we're in the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time.

But what's always troubled me and pained me, and why I always thought from the beginning that something important was at stake here, is we're really not up against the Viet Cong.

We're up against the Khmer Rouge. We're up against some really murderous forces there who only care about one thing, Tavis. That we must lose. That we, as the carriers of modernism, pluralism, must lose. And it's very hard to defeat an enemy who only cares, who is ready to kill as many of his fellow countrymen, so we lose.

There was a very important day in Iraq that really had an imprint on me a year ago, Tavis. It was the first day of Ramadan. Not this last Ramadan, but about 13 months ago. Ramadan of last year. And on that day, a Sunni jihadist suicide bomber went into a Shi'ite mosque in Bakuba and blew up what was a funeral service. A memorial service.

And I sat back and I watched that and I said, 'Think about the barriers that person went through,' Tavis. On the first day of Ramadan, in a mosque, blew up fellow Muslims in a funeral. And you realize that we're up against some really - they are up against some really, really depraved forces. Unfortunately, that war of kind of progressives against these really bad anti-modernist forces has gotten now all mixed up with a Sunni-Shi'ite civil war.

And so we're in the middle of both of those things. And that's why I've resisted kind of it looks like Vietnam in a lot of ways. I don't reject the analogy, but it's a little more complicated than that.

Tavis: Let me go back to something that - every time you speak, you say something fascinating. But let me go back to this Friedman formulation of a moment ago, this comparison to the Tet Offensive. If I heard you correctly, and for that matter, I had one of your colleagues on this program last night, John Burns, the 'New York Times' Baghdad bureau chief.

Burns: Yes, great guy.

Tavis: Burns and I were talking last night on this program about whether or not there are enough troops. Whatever the president says tomorrow night, the number we're hearing, 20, 30,000, something in that range, whether or not that's enough to get the job done. I've heard John McCain and others suggest that that might not be enough to get the job done.

So let's assume for the moment that whatever the number is, it is. One could argue, I think, back to your earlier point, that no number is great enough. If what you're fighting is a war that is based on ideology, to the point you made a moment ago, maybe no number of troops is great enough. And so then, how do we ever win? What, I ask you, is the definition of victory?

Friedman: Absolutely. Well, again, I had a different definition when this war started, when I thought it was, again, progressives against anti-modernists. But now that it's a war between Shi'ites and Sunnis, a tribal war, then that's not a war we can win or we should be part of whatsoever. I wanna go back to your troop number.

Bill Maher in his book 'When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden,' he had a phrase in there that really echoed something I've felt for a long time. And the phrase was basically, I may not be quoting it exactly right, make them fight us all. Make them fight us all. And what he meant by that, and what he meant by that, and what (unintelligible) resonated with me is I've said from the very beginning, if this war is as big as George Bush presented it as, as a real struggle for the future of the Middle East, then why don't we have a rational energy policy?

Why have we put it all on 140,000 American fighting families, okay? And now maybe 20,000 more? If we're up in this, if we're involved in the fight of our life, Tavis, why are we doing it with our pinky? Why isn't every American called on, okay, to conserve energy so we bring down the price of this oil? So we aren't funding both sides in the war?

We're fighting a war, and we're funding both sides. The U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force with our tax dollars, Al-Qaeda Islamic jihad and all these people with our energy purchases. Make them at least fight us all. And one of the things that so angered me is that the president says, 'We're in the fight of our life.' But go shopping, and we'll put it on 20,000 more families now. And that's just, it's not only impossible, it's immoral.

Tavis: But you know the answer to your question. It's not a rhetorical question. You know why they won't fight us all, is because what you're suggesting isn't sexy. What you're suggesting doesn't poll. But this appeal to patriotism, or in mind, at least at some point, nationalism, but this appeal to patriotism and we gotta make the world safe for Democracy. When you couch it in those ways, isn't that what's more sexy? Isn't that what sells?

Friedman: Oh, there's no question that that's what sells, but that's not what works. And what is...

Tavis: What do you mean it doesn't work, Thomas? It got this guy elected.

Friedman: Oh, yeah.

Tavis: It got him reelected.

Friedman: Oh, it works for Bush, but it's not gonna work for America. And at the end of the day, Tavis, it's not gonna work for him. History, oh, it's the last chapter for George Bush, if this thing goes down, it's going to be absolutely devastating. And he will have earned it, because what he sacrificed for a good poll this week is something that's gonna haunt him for a long, long time.

Tavis: But what he believes, obviously, is that if he can turn the tide against this kind of religious fundamentalism in that part of the world, then Thomas Friedman is wrong. That history will be very kind to a guy who stepped out like Ronald Reagan did in front of that wall and created a moment in history that generations from now will be thanking this guy for.

Friedman: Well, Tavis, as you know, I believed also from the very beginning, we talked about this once before, that this war, from the very beginning, that there was something to it that was really important, really worth fighting. Because if you can take a part of the world that is really, when you talked about the world is flat, when the world is flat, you can fall off.

And parts of the Arab Muslim world today are really falling off in a dangerous way. And I've felt very much from the very beginning that it was really important. If we could collaborate with people there, to take a part of the world that was heading that way and turn it that way? Because that's where 9/11 came from. That was really important.

There's just one thing that I thought different from George Bush. I thought it was really important and really hard. And history will damn him for thinking it was really important and really easy. That, to me, is the travesty, going back to the very beginning. They wanted to move history with their pinky. They never wanted to call on the American people; they never wanted to summon all of us.

They never wanted to put any burden on their own constituency. They put it all on America's fighting families, 140,000 of them, and now they wanna continue that by putting it on 20,000 more. It's wrong, it's impossible, it's immoral.

Tavis: He's provocative, he's thought-provoking, he's one of the best at what he does, and I promise between now and the next time he comes on this show, I'll get him to come out of his shell. (Laugh) Thomas Friedman, syndicated columnist. Thomas, nice to have you on, man.

Friedman: Anytime, pal.

Tavis: Be well.

Friedman: Thanks.

Tavis: That's our show for tonight. Catch me weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Our radio podcast available now at TavisTalks.com. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from L.A., thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.