Consistency is really not the forte of Barack Obama or his cheering section, Abe. We have this today from Andrew Sullivan about the Iraq vs. Afghanistan debate:

I don’t buy a zero sum argument that we cannot do both, but the drain in resources in Iraq cannot be sustained indefinitely, especially as the Taliban seems to be regrouping in parts of Afghanistan.

His point about not sustaining two large fronts indefinitely without adjusting the size of the military is well taken (although John McCain’s answer is to expand our armed forces.) But not “doing both” is the sine qua non of the Obama approach to this issue. At every turn (or at least once in each sentence) he tells us of the distraction of Iraq and the harmful impact our deployment of troops there had and continues to have on Afghanistan.

Perhaps if Obama won’t listen to Michael O’Hanlon or Lee Hamilton or Christopher Hitchens or the Kagans on the subject of Iraq’s impact on the wider war against Al Qaeda, he’ll listen to Andrew. (He reads blogs, you know. Or maybe he doesn’t. Another shift in emphasis perhaps.)