Barack Obama Quotes

We must have a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces - or at the very least a plan for it - something the administration has incredulously failed to do for over two years.

Voting against the resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq was one of my proudest moments as a senator. It is long past time to close this tragic chapter in American history.

I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and - you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows - (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.

We are not interested in a proxy war. Our objective is to change Russia's behavior.

I don't know about [Rex] Tillerson, but I do know that John Bolton doesn't get it. He still believes in regime change. He's still a big cheerleader for the Iraq war. He's promoted a nuclear attack by Israel on Iran. He wants to do regime change in Iran. So, I think John Bolton is so far out of it and has such a naive understanding of the world. If he were to be the assistant or the undersecretary for Tillerson, I'm an out automatic no on Bolton.

The United States must reach out to the world community with a new plan to stabilize Iraq, bring U.N. peacekeepers in, and bring U.S. troops home.

I'm not saying that George W. Bush did everything right. But even if you take a skeptical view of his Iraq war, [Barack] Obama made the more serious error of withdrawing his troops from Iraq early.

I believe that the president's (Bush) leadership in the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience in making the decisions that would have been necessary to truly accomplish the mission without the deaths to our troops and the cost to our taxpayers.

When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances for waiting and for patience is over. Too many lives have been lost, too many billions of dollars have been spent for us to trust the president on another tired and failed policy that's opposed by generals and experts, Democrats and Republicans, Americans and many of the Iraqis themselves.

Our safety at home and the cause of freedom abroad is largely contingent upon our success in Iraq.

The war in Iraq has been extremely divisive here at home, and has also divided the world community.

I believe in a strong national defense. But it's my belief that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan poses a threat to national security, and we shouldn't be involved in either area.

The U.S. Forces are winning in Iraq. It is to be hoped that they will win at home also.

In 2005, I was the first member of Congress to introduce legislation calling for an immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq.

I saw the president make the tough calls in the Situation Room - and today, our troops in Iraq have finally come home so America can do some nation building here at home. That was the change that we believed in. That was the change we fought for. That was the change President Obama delivered.

Our opponent and many in Congress criticized our decision to end the Iraq war.

We must win in Iraq. If we withdraw, there will be chaos; there will be genocide; and they will follow us home.

I thought Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time and have been fighting to get the Administration to stop its failed policy and bring our troops home.

This is not going to be decided by public opinion polls. It is a national security issue.

I could have been very popular if I had launched a military attack on Iran but I chose patience.

No American witnessing the way that President George W. Bush and his generals have bungled the Iraq war can deny that our leaders, civilian and military alike, will have to get a lot smarter if the U.S. armed services are to persuade the Islamic world to embrace the blessings of democracy.

I’d rather build highways here then try nation building in Iraq

Most people are disturbed by the shift from deterrence to preemption but the fact is that in international relations, deterrence has a poor track record

I would never seek foreign conflicts just to distract attention from domestic difficulties; that would be frivolous.

Preemption, democracy promoting and nation building have all been sullied by association by association with the War in Iraq.