Peace nixed: antiwar movement retreats.

• Author: Cavanaugh, Tim
• Position: Citings

IN OCTOBER 2002, Barack Obama, then a state senator in Illinois, addressed a Chicago rally against the proposed invasion of Iraq. The young politician denounced the "dumb" and "rash" war as a "cynical attempt by ... armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne."

Today President Obama is commander in chief of that same dumb war, which he shows little interest in winding down. But while the change in Obama is notable, it's not as striking as the change among his ardent antiwar supporters. A new study in the political quarterly Mobilization suggests that the election of Obama in 2008 dealt the left-wing antiwar movement a blow more severe than anything Karl Rove could have cooked up.

"The Democrats and the antiwar movement struck a useful alliance from 2003 to 2006" write the University of Michigan political scientist Michael T. Heaney and the Indiana University sociologist Fabio Rojas. "By early 2009, however, it was abundantly clear that Democrats were no longer interested in this alliance." That includes not just Democratic politicians such as Obama and members of...