Why Barack Obama's Iraq Votes Don't Matter...As Much

As the presidential race on the Democratic side has grown increasingly more contentious over the past month, a number of anti-war progressives have made it very clear that they believe that there is no discernable difference between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on the question of Iraq. The logic behind this position is that both candidates have voted to continue funding the Iraq occupation and are therefore equally complicit in the perpetuation of that disastrous policy.

This is simply not true. There is a qualitative and substantive difference between voting to invade a country in violation of international law and to continue to provide funding once the occupation has commenced. One is overt support for an act of aggression, the other is not. As Steve Zunes wrote in another essay (called "Why Hillary Clinton's Iraq Vote Does Matter") recently published on CommonDreams.org, “In voting to authorize the invasion of Iraq, Senator Clinton has offered a clear demonstration of how she would approach international affairs and security policy: the United States need not abide by its international legal obligations, including those prohibiting wars of aggression.” This is not a minor point. Senator Obama’s votes for continuing funding, as disappointing as they may be to the anti-war left, were not open support for the violation of international law. It was Clinton’s bad judgment that made the bills for which Obama voted possible. Had the invasion not occurred, the question of funding the occupation would be irrelevant.

Furthermore, even if Senator Obama had made a principled stand against the Iraq occupation by voting against continuing to fund it, the vote would have been of no strategic consequence for the policy. As progressives widely acknowledge, what must be changed is the paradigm about war as foreign policy. A negative vote by Senator Obama would, unfortunately, not have had that effect. In fact, it would have worked against him politically because it would have provided an opportunity for his critics to say that Obama was taking out his opposition to Bush’s policy on the troops. And in fact, there is some justification for that argument. To end the occupation, the troops need to be brought home, not made more vulnerable. Cutting off funding (assuming that option had any realistic chance of passing) would not have accomplished that end. From that vantage point, Senator Obama’s decision could be characterized as the most humane of the very bad options presented to every U.S. legislator opposed to the Iraq policy.

The truth is we don’t know whether Senator Obama’s votes were based on principle, pragmatism or both. But what we do know is that they showed reasonable judgment. And if Senator Clinton had not helped get the United States into Iraq in the first place, principled people would not have been faced with such a catastrophic set of options.

The two choices being dangerously conflated by anti-war progressives– voting to invade and voting to continue funding– are not moral equivalents. Senator Clinton’s vote to invade Iraq was immoral and illegal, simple as that. This is not to suggest that Senator Obama is blameless (in fact, we are all complicit in allowing this to continue for so long), but that Clinton is directly responsible for helping to legitimize the invasion in the first place, and that makes her a far worse option for anyone opposed to the war and occupation of Iraq. Continuing to portray the Iraq positions of Clinton and Obama as indistinguishable does all anti-war voters a serious disservice.