Obama on Terrorism is a Cipher in Pre-Election Months
Obama's probable views on terrorism were ideologically distinct, while blurry on specifics in the early part of the 2008 presidential campaign. He was perceived as left of his primary competitor, Hillary Clinton, and therefore generally understood to have liberal views. Much of the momentum of his campaign came from his anti-Iraq War stance. In the final part of the campaign, he has come out strongly in favor of beefing up the war in Afghanistan and pursuing Al Qaeda.
War on Terrorism:
In the early part of his campaign, Obama funneled many of his comments about the "war on terrorism" through his concerns with human and civil rights issues that it has raised. His
campaign website establishes both small weapons proliferation and potential
nuclear terrorism as significant U.S. priorities.
Obama responded in strong terms to the passage of the Military Commissions Act in September 2006, which granted the Bush Administration wide latitude to define what would constitute the torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. He joined critique of the bill's suspension of habeas corpus for potentially innocent detainees with the accusation that the government was not addressing the actual issues:
"
We have
Al Qaeda and the
Taliban regrouping in Afghanistan while we look the other way. We have a
war in Iraq that our own government's intelligence says is serving as Al Qaeda's best recruitment tool. And we have recommendations from the bipartisan 9/11 commission that we still refuse to implement five years after the fact."
Once he all-but-gained the nomination in the early summer of 2008, Obama became much more specific about his objectives regarding the 'war on terror.' In
July, Obama told audiences that the
war in Afghanistan and the potential of a nuclear Iran were high on his list.