Right-wing pundit Michael Barone has published a column on the surge in Iraq that may be the clearest expression so far of the American triumphalism over the U.S. military and Iraq that emerged in 2007. The current popularity of that idea reflects the degree to which the apologists for war, having been discredited earlier on Iraq, are now on the offensive.

Barone's theme is he "lessons to be learned" from what he calls the "dazzling success of the surge...