“I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.”
~ Barack Obama

Barack Obama is currently a US Senator from Illinois campaigning for the Democratic Party Nomination as President. When he first entered the primary race in 2007, he was one of the few candidates who could say that he had opposed the US involvement in the war in Iraq from the very beginning. In fact, as far back as 2002, he made a now-famous speech in Chicago where he made the following war saying, “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.”

In that speech he mentioned some of the wars in the history of the US that he did support. He explained that even though the American Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, it was necessary to keep the nation unified and end the “scourge of slavery.”

He also talked about his own grandfather who joined the army the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed and fought with General Patton in World War II. Obama believes WW II war was fought in the name of a larger freedom and that his grandfather became part of a force that helped democracy triumph over evil.

Obama cited the invasion of Afghanistan and the search for Osama Bin Laden as actions he supported as well. He said that the destruction and sorrow he witnessed on September 11, 2001 convinced him that the US should hunt down those responsible. He said he would be willing take up arms himself “to prevent such tragedy from happening again.”
On the other hand, Obama considers the current war in Iraq to be a “dumb war” and a “rash war” based on passion rather than reason and politics rather than principle. Obama said that he knew that Saddam Hussein was a brutal and ruthless man and that the world would be better off without him, but he also felt that Saddam was not a threat to the US or his neighbors. He believed that Hussein could be “contained” until his dictatorship fell apart of its own accord. He said, “I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.”

Since that speech in 2002, Obama has remained opposed to the Iraq war. He has become popular with anti-war voters because of that stance and has spoke often in the Senate about the need to curtail it. In January 2007 when President Bush announced that he was sending a “surge” of troops into Iraq, Obama opposed that as well. He visited the White House on Jan 5th and told reporters afterward that he ”personally indicated that an escalation of troop levels in Iraq was a mistake and that we need a political accommodation rather than a military approach to the sectarian violence there.”
Even now, when some people say that the surge has been successful in reducing violence and encouraging more involvement by the Iraqi military, Obama does not agree. While admitting that conditions have improved slightly in Iraq, and crediting the improvement to the bravery of the American forces, he said in a debate in February of 2008, “this is a tactical victory imposed upon a huge strategic blunder.”

He maintains that the US should draw down the number of troops in the country and use diplomatic measures to pressure the neighboring countries to help keep the peace.