Renowned military strategist and America's conscience on matters of public honor, Arianna Huffington, suggests on her eponymous website that should President Obama decide to deploy the forces to Afghanistan necessary to execute the counterinsurgency he authorized last March, Vice President Biden's only honorable course of action would be to resign in protest.

A recent Newsweek cover story suggests the Vice President's response would be more self-effacing. Should the President choose to agree to the force level his chosen theater commander, General McChrystal, has requested, Newsweek assures "He can . . . be confident that he won't be second-guessed by his vice president. Biden is determined to be a ‘team player,' says a close friend."

I'm doubtful. The steady stream of anonymous leaks from sources familiar with the Vice President's thinking since the President's March decision and throughout his heavily publicized reconsideration of it suggests that when the Vice President finds himself on the losing side of an administration argument, he's not likely to snap a salute and shout "yes, sir."

Of course, the ubiquitous publication of the Vice President's contrary views has not elicited the same indignant reactions from liberal columnists and Arianna's stable of dyspeptic scolds that the leak of General McChrystal's report and his London remarks provoked. Nor have I seen a report that Secretary Gates and General Jones have provided the same pointed reminders to the Vice President and White House staff about the integrity of the chain of command and the importance of discretion in discussing White House deliberations that they gave to General McChrystal.

No matter, in politics and the press there are always one set of rules for people you agree with and another for those you don't. We ought to be more concerned with the quality of the advice the Vice President is giving the President than with its frequent disclosure to reporters.

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.

Even the most ardent opponent of the surge in Iraq could not today seriously argue that Mr. Biden's advice looks less daft in hindsight than it looked to many at the time he offered it. And yet now, in Newsweek, on the front pages of major newspapers and on nightly television newscasts we are regularly belabored with assurances that he is single-handily forcing the administration to reconsider its commitment to winning "the war of necessity" with an adequately resourced counterinsurgency that proved its efficacy in Iraq as well as the unreliability of the Vice President's advice. For our sake and Afghanistan's, let's hope not.

But should our hope be dashed, and the President defers to his Vice President's war plan, I offer a counter recommendation to Ms. Huffington's. If the decision proves a disaster for the United States and its allies, as many fear it would, the Vice President should tender his resignation. It would be the honorable thing to do.