HISTORY: 6 Times Obama Was Against Military Action in Iraq. “MSNBC, which is today wondering if Obama doing enough to take on ISIS, applauded the president in 2011 for ‘keeping a major campaign promise’ by getting America out of Iraq. . . . To be fair, in 2013 the president was bogged down by Syria – which some were saying would be his Iraq. He insisted it wouldn’t, because all he wanted to do was some tactical airstrikes on Syria… which is totally different than him announcing tactical airstrikes on Iraq.”