"EVERYBODY has won, and all must have prizes" [1]

To begin with, Mr. Bones, who can doubt that Rear-Colonel Kagan and the American Ideological Enterprise and weekly standardisation in general have won?

(...) Throughout the operation, the Iraqi Government acted calmly and purposefully, the ISF reported for duty (the number of reported "defectors" etc. was trivial compared to the tens of thousands of forces that fought loyally), moved and fought as directed, mostly with minimal Coalition support. (...) This operation offers a number of extremely positive signs about the willingness of the Iraqi Government to address a fundamental challenge that has been plaguing it (and us) since 2004, the ability of the ISF to absorb country-wide efforts to light up the Shia community, and the increasingly overt malign role Iran is playing in the conflict. It can provide us with a critical opportunity to increase our influence in Shia Iraq and help encourage the development of local political movements there as we have done in Sunni areas. Most of all, it is the most overt and decisive recent engagement between our Iraqi allies and their Iranian foes. We should have no doubt about where our interests lie.

Fat Freddy and Mizz Kimberly are comparatively restrained (as well they might be), which allows them to look a little better than certain lunatic doves and donkeys whom we will get to in a moment. Yet you can see, Mr. Bones, how AEI is beginnin’ to rot Master Kagan's brain and reduce him to the level of rear-colonels V. D. H. Blimp and R. M. G. Spook. The great merit of his original scheme for the Ever-Victorious Surge of ’07™ was, as Freddy said himself, that it tried to limit the bushogenic quagmire in a way that might make winnin’ (in some sense intelligible outside the Party of Grant) possible. Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology were to be at "war" with six million of their neo-Iraqi subjects, not twenty million. Only the Arabophone Sunni TwentyPercenters were actually practicing the black arts of muqáwama at that time. Indeed, prior to last week, this continued to be the fundamental correlation of forces, with both poor M. al-Málikí and the Rev. Señorito as-Sadr rather on the sidelines watching as Boy George and the extremist GOP duked it out with Al Kayduh. Al K. was in difficulties, no doubt about it, many of them resulting from the nifty Bribe-a-Tribe™ scheme. [2] But then suddenly . . . !

Now the Six-Twentieths Solution has been tossed out the window like an amblongus pie. Rear-Colonel F. Kagan proposes "to light up the Shia community" (huh?) and "increase [AEI-GOP-DOD] influence in Shia Iraq" and generally go for a grand slam, relyin’ especially on those components of the Ever-Victorious Surge of ’07™ that were somebody else's idea in the first place.

If fat Freddy wore a uniform, he'd be accused of "mission creep." Perhaps one may accuse him of it anyway, and add that it combines oddly with his not bein’ altogether certain who won the Second Muqtadan War. Beyond that, we may pass over his piffle about the evil Qommies in silence as mere Big Party banality.

Also at Wingnut City, success and victory are acclaimed by Big Party neocomrade E. Morrissey in a passage that may interest the historians of Princess Posterity some day:

When the Iraqi government finally took the long-expected action to establish control of Basra after the British pullback left it in the hands of militias and gangsters, suddenly the media declared that the country had reached the brink of collapse. They highlighted stories of defections from the Iraqi military and opined that the surge had failed. Moqtada al-Sadr would finally achieve his goal of controlling the South and would expose the Baghdad government as a house of cards. Guess which side just sued for peace? (...) Sadr now wants to disavow anyone with a gun. The Mahdis, which found themselves on the short end of the stick, have just watched their Fearless Leader surrender — again — and this time leaving them twisting in the wind. That isn’t the action of a victor. Perhaps our media would like to explain that in the context of their clueless reporting so far.

Compared to Rear-Colonel Kagan, Mr. Ed is only an e-guttersnipe. He wastes a lot of that ellipsis bein’ at "war" against the MSM fiends rather than the jihád fiends. But his sub-McCarthyite attitude is characteristic of many clowns at W.C. and Rio Limbaugh, after all, so future annalists ought to be aware of it. He wrote that guff after Sadr Tertius’ supposed "surrender," notice.

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[1]

What I was going to say, said the Dodo in an offended tone, was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race. What IS a Caucus-race? said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that SOMEBODY ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything. Why, said the Dodo, the best way to explain it is to do it. (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.) First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (the exact shape doesn't matter, it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no One, two, three, and away, but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out The race is over! and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, But who has won? This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, EVERYBODY has won, and all must have prizes. But who is to give the prizes? quite a chorus of voices asked. Why, SHE, of course, said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, Prizes! Prizes! Alice had no idea what to do . . . .

[2] Bribe-a-Tribe™ was not part of fat Freddy's own plans at any point, although it fit in with them nicely. Furthermore, as regards military and secret state police matters proper, Dr. Gen. Petrolaeus of Princeton, who probably knows more about the violence profession technically than Freddy, has never been a completely orthodox Kaganite.