Christopher Hitchens is notorious for the speed with which he finishes copy, and the evidence for this facility is apparent in the shoddiness of his argumentation.

1) Hitchens analysis is backwards. We did not go into Iraq to overthrow Al Qaida, we went to liberate Iraqis from a brutal dictator. Al Qaida's attempts to destabilize Iraq can't be used as a premise for waging the Iraq war. They were an outcome of the Iraq War that military commanders have had to adapt to. So, it is not clear whether or not he thinks the Afghanistan War is a "War of Choice", because as he sees it the Iraq war wasn't.

2) More American casualties are currently being suffered in Afghanistan than in Iraq therefore, Hitchens suggests, there must be enough resources directed there anyhow. This is a weak, nonsensical and rhetorically dishonest point. Let us remember, the Surge worked for a reason. And yes, the whole credibility of the Afghanistan War is that it has an international consensus and isn't unilateral. Thank you for the update.

3)"Many of the most successful drives against the Taliban have been conducted by American forces redeployed from Iraq." And this proves what, exactly? That misallocating military resources sometimes has unintended operational benefits. What of the vulnerabilities it has created?

It is not a "small-minded and zero-sum exercise" to debate the feasibility of conducting two difficult wars at the same time, it is a mater of national security policy of which vexes many concerned military commanders, politicians and policymakers.

Then Hitchens adds another burden. Because rouge countries will do anything to disrupt the Israel-Palestine peace settlement, the likelihood of peace will only come about with the rouge's removal from the equation. Quite absurdly, Hitchens seems to be advocate for all out war.

But there's more. Troops level don't matter, Pakistan's ISI is the problem. Hitchens neglects to mention that it is the Bush Administration that has to treated Pakistan as an "Ally ", and that it was Barack Obama who said that he would "take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan." If my math is correct, you could count that as either one or two wars, not three. What's wrong with going to where the terrorist actually are?

Finally, Hitchens offers us his well-trodden and dubious counterfactuals as argument. If such and such were the case, the terrorists would be eating our children. For someone so alert to the self-dealing casuistry of corrupt religious institutions, it is little wonder why Hitchens hasn't become an apostate to his own brand of political casuistry.