Walk softly:
Getting back to the claim in the title of the Post article, to suggest that the elections represented a victory for a "US ally" obscures the fact that the elections also represented a defeat for a US ally: namely ISCI. Oddly enough, to the extent that Max Boot was correct that Iran suffered a setback in the elections because its preferred partner, ISCI, was trounced, it is also the case that the US suffered a setback because it, like Iran, had primarily backed ISCI as its preferred partner. Maliki has received the support of the US, but not to the same extent that ISCI has. Hopefully, that will change.