Obama and Iraq

An Attempt to Settle the Issue.

Clinton (both of them really) accuses Obama of flip-flopping on the war. Did he?

Let's see.
Obama in 2002:

One thing everyone agrees on is that Obama made a speech in 2002, as an Illinois state senator who strongly opposed a war with Iraq. It was one week before Clinton voted in the Senate to authorize the use of force against Iraq.

Obama in 2003:

Obama did say in a campaign speech in 2003 that he would have voted against $87 billion in war funding approved by the Senate.

Obama in 2004

From the July 27, 2004, Chicago Tribune article:

Barack Obama, who will deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, said Monday that he believes the Iraq war will be the deciding factor in the presidential contest, but that he does not think there is a great difference "on paper" between presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and President Bush on the issue.

Instead, Obama, the U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois, said he believes the Bush administration has lost too much credibility in the world community to administer the policies necessary to stabilize Iraq.

"On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago," Obama said during a luncheon meeting with editors and reporters of Tribune newspapers. "There's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute."

[...]

Obama, a state senator from Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, opposed the Iraq invasion before the war. But he now believes U.S. forces must remain to stabilize the war-ravaged nation -- a policy not dissimilar to the current approach of the Bush administration.

Well, that's new.

Obama in 2006:

Obama did not give a floor speech against the war until June 2006. He did, however, introduce legislation a year ago — around the same time he opened an exploratory committee for a presidential bid — that called for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by next April.

Obama in 2008:

Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.

Oh so NOW he wants us out of Iraq.

Funny how a few bad years can change a position. Or is it that, in 2002, he wasn't in the Senate, in 2004 he was, and in 2006-08, he's running for President, or was preparing to do so.

It's almost like his hatred of the Iraq war increases whenever he's getting ambitious, and retreats whenever he needs to make a safe vote.

Sources: NPR
Media Matters
Barack Obama 2008