Why is obama continuing Bush's Iraq war debacle? I voted for him to end that war. He lied.

[Cal Carpenter]

12. It's not really about Obama, or even Bush for that matter

Not to let them off the hook in any moralistic sense, but that's beside the point anyway.

I think the better question is why would anyone expect that one president would or could change the trajectory of decades of US foreign policy?

The continuation of the interests of the US (economic and geopolitical interests which go hand-in-hand) will happen under either/both party, at a rate perhaps slightly more slow or fast depending on the details and who is in power, but it ain't just gonna stop. That would take a massive independent (eg nonpartisan, non-election based) movement and require much greater systemic changes, so that the interests of the US become the interests of most of the actual people here rather than the interests of the economically powerful.