It is now conventional wisdom that CPAC this year has been a triumph for conservative hawks, and that, while Rand Paul is still popular in the hall, his extended moment as the lead act in that particular hootenanny finally may have passed. Folks are up there wanting to get their war on, and the laptop bombardiers in the audience are lapping it up. (This shebeen is in the market for any photo of the audience taken at that moment when Princess Dumbass of the Northwoods asked for all the veterans in the house to stand.) ISIS is coming for all of us, and most of the potential Republican candidates are waiting for it with Leadership, Authenticity, Exceptionalism, and a vast arsenal of featherweight banalities. But all of this substance-free talk is driven by a serious -- and rather dingy -- new argument that was best summed up by the Princess herself, and by Dakota Meyer, the Medal Of Honor winner who introduced her yesterday. Ostensibly, the two were there to talk about how our veterans need better care and better job opportunities. (Oddly enough, neither of them mentioned that bipartisan veterans benefits bill that Bernie Sanders shepherded to a vote last year only to have the Republicans in the Senate kill the bill dead.) For his part, Meier said,

"We're not afraid to fight. Trust me. But how about give us a fight that we can win. A fight where politicians and bureaucrats stay out of our lane."

Thus inspired, the Princess was more explicit.

"Did we actually win in Iraq and Afghanistan before we waved the white flag? The jury is still out..."It doesn't look like victory...the Middle East is a tinderbox, and it is coming apart at the seams...[the rise of ISIS] "was predictable. Military brass warned the left: Do not pull out without residual force...The rise of ISIS is the direct result of this administration's refusal to heed that warning...We must provide our troops the political will to win and the rules of engagement to win. How many Americans are harmed today because of politically-correct rules of engagement?...Aside from God almighty, what's the only force that can keep these forces at bay...The only thing standing between us and savages - its the red, white, and blue! It's the United States military!" "We are in a long-term civilizational struggle against the forces of evil, and if we're going to beat them we better get serious about victory"

(The Princess is getting high marks for finding her way to a verb most of the time on Thursday. She began her remarks by citing Washington's farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavernin New York City. Of course, if the Palins had rolled up there, they likely would have been scratchedfrom Fraunces for life.)

You don't need a backhoe to dig out the subtext here, the one that likely is going to be both a primary line of attack for the Republicans, and also their attempt to whitewash in history the colossal blunder committed by the previous Republican administration in launching the war in Iraq. We've already heard quite a bit from the John McCain-Huckleberry Butchmeup axis of weebles about how everything was going swimmingly after the surge until the president made the blunder of abiding by a Status of Forces agreement signed by his predecessor. This is the inevitable second act of that drama -- that our troops were hamstrung by civilians and kept from achieving "final victory," whatever the hell that was supposed to be. The fact that there wouldn't be an Islamic State had we not by our blundering allowed it to be born in Iraq will be drowned out by however it is that you say Dolchstosslegende in Arabic. It will be ugly. And it will be heard.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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