President Obama's Legacy Of War

President Obama accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 2009. Since then, he has tried to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

Mark Landler, New York Times: For Obama, an Unexpected Legacy of Two Full Terms at War

WASHINGTON — President Obama came into office seven years ago pledging to end the wars of his predecessor, George W. Bush. On May 6, with eight months left before he vacates the White House, Mr. Obama passed a somber, little-noticed milestone: He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president.

If the United States remains in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria until the end of Mr. Obama’s term — a near-certainty given the president’s recent announcement that he will send 250 additional Special Operations forces to Syria — he will leave behind an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war.

Mr. Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 and spent his years in the White House trying to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate, would have a longer tour of duty as a wartime president than Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon or his hero Abraham Lincoln.

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WNU Editor: It is not only all the wars that are now occurring .... but also how these wars may expand or spread that should be raising alarm bells. My biggest fear is that President Obama .... by trying his best to avoid major military confrontations .... may be giving the next President an environment where major wars will be the inevitable outcome of current U.S. policy. I hope that I am wrong .... but I have never seen the environment being what it is today where there are many players on the world scene who are now viewing military options as a solution to their political problems and/or policies.