It's no surprise that Smith is opposing the troop surge - now that he's got the go ahead from the Mormon leadership. A troop surge would be hard to support given Mormon Prophet Gordon Hinckley's comments about war, "what a fruitless thing it so often is, and what a terrible price it exacts."

So did Gordon Smith’s recent announcement of his new-found opposition to the Iraq war happen because his feelings changed, because he came terms with the political realities in Oregon or because he was following the lead of the man he really answers to, Mormon Prophet Gordon Hinckley? There’s been much discussion about the motives behind Senator Smith’s about-face on the Iraq war, but all of it has missed one important factor in the Senator’s decision making – his serious commitment to the Mormon Church.

Smith’s Mormon commitment is real and deep. This commitment may be a part of what makes Smith the super straight-laced guy many admire, but it also means he has great loyalty to the Mormon leadership.

Damon Linker , writing about another Mormon political leader, Mitt Romney, in this week’s New Republic, asserts, “the man who holds the office of the president of the LDS Church is also considered to be a prophet -- ‘the mouthpiece of God on Earth,’ in the words of Mormon theologian and Apostle Bruce McConkie -- whose statements override both scripture and tradition.”

In my recent research, I found that President Hinckley, as he’s referred to in the church, had strongly supported the war in Iraq before the invasion and during the first phase of the occupation. President Bush showed his gratitude to Hinckley by awarding him the presidential Medal of Freedom – the nation’s highest civilian honor, and granting him several private audiences, the last of which was August 2006.

But by the time of their last meeting, Hinckley’s views had already started to change. Mike Wallace reported Hinckley’s growing discomfort with the war as early as the summer of 2005. And Gordon Smith recently told the New York Times that he began to move to opposition to the war soon after. Then on October 31, 2006, Hinckley delivered an address to over 20,000 students at BYU that was reported as a denunciation of the war in the Mormon-owned press. Just a month later, Smith, one of the nation’s most devoutly Mormon politicians, followed suit and denounced the war as well.

So was it change of heart, political expediency or allegiance to the man he regards as the “voice of God for our time” that motivated Smith’s reversal on the war?

In politics, timing is everything. Now we have another reason to wonder about the timing and motivation of Smith’s new found opposition to the war.