Kevin Drum tracks Republican Hawk evolution

This is definitely one of Kevin Drum's more insightful posts. He tracks how the Republican Hawks have evolved to succeed in the varying and rapidly downward spiralling environment of the Republican war in Iraq. From primitive "War Hawks", they have evolved first to become "Pottery Barn Hawks." But as the Republican War in Iraq spiraled even further downward, they have now morphed into what Kevin calls "Chaos Hawks." Here is Kevin's analysis:

In the beginning were the War Hawks, and much did they counsel the powerful to do battle against the evildoer Saddam. Then came the war, and the looting, and the Heritage Foundation hordes, and the hawks lamented exceeding loud and many soon repented of their ways. Yea, verily, they presently transformed themselves into Pottery Barn Hawks, eager to fix the disaster they had helped create and thus redeem themselves in the eyes of the faithful. In the fullness of time, though, the disaster ripened and flowered and became impossible of resolution, and the hawks despaired. Success had become unachievable, yea unto their own generation and the generation to come after them. In short, life sucked.

So what's a Pottery Barn hawk to do? The answer, lately, is: become a Chaos Hawk. First, admit that Iraq is hopeless, thus demonstrating that you're not completely out to lunch. After all, the surge has produced only tiny gains in a few highly localized areas and has no chance of replicating those successes on a wide scale. The Iraqi government is dysfunctional, the police forces are dysfunctional, the army is years away from competence, militias are engaged in a ruthless campaign of sectarian cleansing, infrastructure is declining, and refugees are fleeing the country at a rate of thousands per day.

Having admitted, however, that the odds of a military success in Iraq are almost impossibly long, Chaos Hawks nonetheless insist that the U.S. military needs to stay in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Why? Because if we leave the entire Middle East will become a bloodbath. Sunni and Shiite will engage in mutual genocide, oil fields will go up in flames, fundamentalist parties will take over, and al-Qaeda will have a safe haven bigger than the entire continent of Europe.

One question Kevin does not address is whether the hawks have evolved into an entirely new species yet.

I doubt it. There is little reason to believe that a modern "Chaos Hawk" could no longer interbreed with a primitive "War Hawk."