http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/22/6527/Obama vs. Clinton – October 2002
by Stephen Zunes
In determining which of the two leading Democratic candidates would make the most competent and credible commander-in-chief, it is revealing to compare the public statements of U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama during October 2002, when Congress voted to authorize the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Former President Bill Clinton, at a recent rally on behalf of his wife, insisted that Senator Clinton and Senator Obama had had virtually identical records on the Iraq war and that Obama’s claim that he “had the judgment to oppose this war from the beginning” was “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”
The record from that fateful month, however, shows that there were indeed major differences between the two presidential contenders, with Senator Clinton supporting the Bush administration’s push for war and its exaggerated claims about Iraq’s alleged military prowess while Obama was opposing a U.S. invasion of that oil-rich country and openly challenging the administration’s exaggerated claims of an Iraqi threat.
Though under no obligation as a state senator to make any public statements on foreign policy, Obama took the initiative to speak out against the prospects of war at an anti-war rally in Chicago.
snip//
Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Obama was observing how “even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.” He also recognized that “an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda.”
In summary, on the most critical political question of the decade, a freshman state senator from Illinois was able to figure out what an experienced member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee could not - that Saddam Hussein was no longer a threat and that an invasion of Iraq would harm America’s national security interests. Over the next few weeks, Democratic voters will have the opportunity to decide whether which of these two leading candidates has the best judgment to lead this country during this next critical period.