Operation Chin Ho! is a complete success.

MARKHAM • On the deceivingly peaceful and bucolic rolling greens of a Markham golf course, the Canadian Alliance enacted its devastating secret plan to unite the right. And the foie-gras intoxicated Tories didn't even see the attack coming as they were incinerated by the friendly fire of the Alliance's stealth cruise missile, Brian Mulroney.

The Alliance's perfectly timed, laser-guided parachuting of the "most hated man in Canada" and his aircraft-carrier-sized ego back on to the national stage is guaranteed to have the positive effect on Tory party membership of a neutron bomb.

And Mr. Mulroney's smarmy cosa nostra embrace of Joe Clark was so effusive and thorough that there was no room for even one more knife in Mr. Clark's back when he had finished.

Under the watchful smirk of soon-to-be Alliance Ontario MP Jim Jones, Mr. Mulroney then gleefully administered cyanide-laced kool-aid to any Tories who hadn't already run screaming to exit the party.

Many analysts have concluded that this stunning offensive was masterminded by its main beneficiary, the Preston Manning campaign. By attacking Mr. Manning with every weapon in his vast arsenal of smug arrogance, Mr. Mulroney virtually sealed the Reform Carnival Queen's victory in the Alliance leadership battle-- and may even make him Prime Minister.

Some in the Alliance no doubt regret the collateral damage caused to Tom Long by the reemergence of his universally reviled former mentor and boss but there's no victory in war without casualties.

The only remaining question is whether Mulroney's doomsday effect on the Tories will be enough to let the Alliance form the next government. In a serious tactical error, the Gucci General could not resist administering a self-serving chin lashing to Prime Minister Jean Chretien which is sure to increase the Liberal's lead in the polls by at least ten percentage points. If only he'd stuck to the script and sung "When Irish Eyes are Lying" instead.