Veteran national security reporter, Tom Ricks, was quoted in the Newsweek article asking: “When was the last time Biden was right about anything?” Good question, and, I assume, a rhetorical one. It’s certainly been a while since the Vice President offered sensible advice on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The last time he was heard from on a critical wartime decision it was to advocate the division of Iraq into three pieces, and argue against the President Bush’s decision to surge troops there to fight a counterinsurgency. That decision and its brilliant execution by Generals Petreaus and Odierno, and the soldiers they had the honor to command, achieved a greater measure of stability in Iraq in less time than its most confident advocates assumed it would. It spared the United States a devastating defeat and Iraq a humanitarian catastrophe of immense proportions.

The most likely consequence had the Biden advice been heeded would have been a bloody and endless civil war that destabilized the entire Middle East, as other nations rushed to help reconstitute the former Iraq under the authority of their favorite faction.