Obama's views on Iraq and Afghanistan have ranged from the inconsistent to the incoherent. He'd have us believe he supported defeat in Iraq because he wanted victory in Afghanistan. Yet his subcommittee has held no hearings on Afghanistan, and when he was part of a congressional delegation that visited Iraq in 2006, he passed on the opportunity to continue on to Afghanistan.

On May 24, 2007, Obama in fact voted to cut off all funding for all our military efforts in Afghanistan (H.R. 2206, CQ Vote #181). His support for a surge there seems predicated on stopping alleged U.S. atrocities.

Three months after he voted to cut Afghan funding, Obama said on Aug. 14, 2007: "We've got to get the job done there, and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure there." Shades of John Kerry and John Murtha.

Obama was asked by ABC's Terry Moran recently: "If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge?" Obama replied: "No, because keep in mind that . . . ." An incredulous Moran asked, "You wouldn't?"

Obama continued: "Keep in mind . . . these kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult. Hindsight is 20/20. But I think that, what I'm absolutely convinced of, is that at that time we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with."

Huh? Knowing we would win, he'd still oppose the surge and suffer defeat in Iraq just because he just didn't like George Bush? 

Before the war, Obama opposed military action in Iraq. It was in his political interest to do so. As Obama’s Senate campaign manager has acknowledged, to win the Democratic race for the Senate nomination, Obama needed to become the darling of the left.

In his autobiography, Obama wrote that, as he watched footage of the toppling of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad, he “began to suspect” he had been wrong about the war. Yet Obama managed to keep these suspicions to himself until he captured the Democratic Senate nomination.

Immediately thereafter, in April 2004, Obama said of Iraq, “we’ve got to make sure that we secure and execute the rebuilding and reconstruction process effectively and properly, and I don’t think we should have an artificial deadline when to do that.” At the time, Obama’s friend and financial backer, the corrupt Tony Rezko, was seeking multimillion-dollar contracts to build and operate a power plant in Iraq.

In July 2004, Obama went so far as to say, “There’s not that much difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage.” By September 2004, Obama was declaring that to pull out of Iraq “would make things worse” and that therefore he “would be willing to send more soldiers to Iraq if it is part of a strategy that the president and military leaders believe will stabilize the country.”

In 2005, however, Obama’s position evolved again. He argued that instead of sending more soldiers to Iraq, we should reduce, but not fully withdraw, our troop presence. By 2006, with the war increasingly unpopular and a possible presidential run in his future, Obama argued in favor of a phased full-scale withdrawal. In September 2007, Obama insisted that the withdrawal begin immediately.

We’ve seen further “refinement” in 2008 as Obama prepared to face the entire electorate. Thus, Obama promised to keep a “strike force” in Iraq even after our “withdrawal,” though he repudiated that pledge (and denied having made it) when it drew criticism. Meanwhile, Samantha Power, a top Obama foreign policy adviser, offered assurances that his promise to withdraw in 16 months was subject to change based on the situation on the ground.