“US TROOPS RAPIDLY PREPARE FOR NON-RESPONSE TO IRAQ SECURITY CRISIS.” That was the headline up earlier this week on one of our favorite publications, the DuffelBlog, the satirical Web site that calls itself the “American military’s most-trusted news source.” A flavor of DuffelBlog can be gained from one of its famous headlines, “Meet the Trailblazing Army Psychiatrist Treating PTSD With Hookers and Cocaine.” Let us just say that DuffelBlog is in the great American tradition of sardonic soldiering.

“According to top Pentagon officials,” DuffelBlog is reporting, “American military units around the globe have launched into inaction following news that radical militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant had seized several major Iraqi cities and were on the move towards Baghdad.” It quotes a “senior defense official” as saying, “Each and every service member has been alerted to stay in their home or workplace and do nothing.” It quotes Secretary Hagel as saying he reacted to the fall of Mosul with a “big old alligator yawn.”

Yet one would be hard-put to come up with a story as bizarre as the strategy that seems to be unfolding of turning to the Iranian mullahs to bail out the administrations policy Iraq. This emerged after Secretary Kerry “signaled that the Obama administration was open to cooperating with Iran on Iraq, raising the possibility of seeking help from a country that the United States has often described as a state sponsor of terrorism that must be prevented from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

That characterization of Mr. Kerry’s signal, incidentally, was not from the Duffelblog but from the New York Times. We understand that Winston Churchill once said “If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” But he didn’t say he’d go into an alliance with the Devil. Or with Hitler. We also understand the Machiavellian nature of post-World War II diplomacy, such as President Nixon’s entente with Communist China in pursuit of a settlement of the Vietnam War. We, for one, rue result.

Mr. Kerry, in any event, is prepared to go treat with the Mullahs on Iraq. Yet we are not rooting for the administration’s failure. On the contrary. There is a moment in the movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis, “Thirteen Days,” when General Curtis LeMay says to President Kennedy, “You’re in a pretty bad fix, Mr. President.” Kennedy, who had been turning away from the general, turns back and says: “What did you say?” Repeats LeMay: “You’re in a pretty bad fix.” That’s when JFK says: “Well, maybe you haven’t noticed, you’re in it with me.”

Which is to say, we don’t have a big appetite for the blame game that is so lively at the moment. Our interest is in victory and in a democratic Iraq. This newspaper has supported the Iraq Liberation Act and the movement it inspirited, or the Iraq National Congress that inspirited the Senate that passed the Iraq Liberation Act almost unanimously. We supported the move into Iraq. Our view is that our GIs did a fabulous job. We covered Free China. We covered Korea, post-war Germany, post-war Japan. We’d have kept our forces in Iraq as long as needed to prevent what is happening now.

Neither are we un-nerved by the sardonicism of American GIs. We thrilled to Willie and Joe. We admire their creator, Bill Mauldin, who, as a GI, won a Pulitzer Prize for a cartoon to illustrate a news item that said “Fresh, spirited American troops, flushed with victory, are bringing in thousands of hungry, ragged, battle-weary prisoners.” The drawing showed four soldiers, American and Germany, each muddier and more ragged than the other. Such cartoons may have panicked Patton but they buoyed the GI. We would rather turn to GI Joe and GI Jane than to the Iranian regime.