Barack Obama on the South Side of Chicago. Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (; born August 4, 1961) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American to be elected to the presidency. He previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois (2005–2008). Obama was born in 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, two years after the territory was admitted to the Union as the 50th state. After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community
Middle Eastern foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration forces to Iraq in response to the rise of extreme Islamist non-state actors such as the Islamic State, and the deteriorating humanitarian conditions there. Before and after the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, some Jews, including United States Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, questioned Obama's commitment to Israeli security. Obama maintained that he supports Israel and said he would continue the U.S. alliance with Israel as president. The Democratic candidate ultimately carried the state of Florida, with its large Jewish population, in the general election, signaling that his efforts to assuage the concerns of Israeli