Obama’s latest military action at odds with campaign promise to end Iraq war

World Today

President ObamaUS President Barack Obama speaks during the Global Health Security Agenda Summit at the White House in Washington,DC on September 26, 2014. AFP PHOTO/Nicholas KAMM

U.S. President Barack Obama ran for office vowing to end the American-led wars. Since then, he has repeated pledges to keep the United States from “being dragged back into a war in Iraq.”

For seven weeks, an anti-war president has ordered military advisers and air strikes back to a conflict-prone part of the world. CCTV America’s Jessica Stone reports on the evolution of Obama’s foreign policy.

Five years ago, a newly elected U.S. President Barack Obama echoed a promise from the campaign trail: To end the American war in Iraq. He went on to announce a pivot from a Middle-East-focused foreign policy to a focus on Asia.

By the end of 2011, Iraqi forces took control of the last American military base. As recently as May, Obama pledged a path forward where international coalitions, not lone U.S. combat troops, would confront global conflict.

“As frustrating as it is, there are no easy answers – no military solution that can eliminate the terrible suffering anytime soon.” -U.S. President Barack Obama

Two months later, a president who had received the Nobel Peace Prize and hoped to be a post-war leader ordered military air strikes in Iraq and Syria to combat the Islamic State terror group.

“I think progressives are baffled at what [Obama’s] become and the rhetoric that he’s using that is almost identical if not worse than the republicans rhetoric in the previous White House,” said Michael Shank of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the lobbying arm of a pacifist religious group.