Obama's Wars: Liberal Interventionism Makes a Comeback (Barack Obama) (Column‪)‬

SIX YEARS AGO, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama walked onstage at Chicago's Richard J. Daley Plaza and launched his national political career. "Although this has been billed as an antiwar rally," the Chicago Democrat said to the assembled, "I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances." He reminded the crowd of his grandfather's service in World War II. He admitted that "the world would be better off without" Saddam Hussein. "What I am opposed to," he said, "is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats." It was pure red meat, and the anti-Bush, anti-neoconservative crowd ate up every scrap. As Obama navigated a wide-open Democratic primary, he repeatedly pointed to this speech as proof of his fidelity on the war. "It was just, well, a well-constructed speech," the candidate later told his biographer David Mendell. "In some ways, it was not a typical anti-war speech."