The escalating conflict between Israel and terrorist groups in Lebanon has the Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate in Maryland concerned about the threat of a wider conflict in the Mideast and urging President Bush to take quick action to defuse the violence.
Several candidates blamed the president?s preoccupation with Iraq for the Mideast turmoil.
“If the Bush administration had devoted just a fraction of the time, effort and resources squandered on the feckless Iraqi war establishing a secure Israel and a viable Palestinian state, then the Middle East and the world would be a far more stable and safer place today,” said Allan Lichtman, a political science professor at American University.
Lichtman wants his fellow candidates to call for an immediate cease-fire, much as President Dwight Eisenhower did in the 1950s over another regional conflict with Israel.
And the other candidates agree. Rep. Ben Cardin supports Israel?s right to defend itself and go after organizations attacking it. “They have a right to go after those organizations, groups and those networks that are financing them,” Cardin said. “It?s important the United States plays a crucial international role to stop the attacks.”
There needs to be more than a cease-fire “in a traditional sense,” he said.
Cardin said he will meet with other members of Congress today to discuss the situation.
Dennis Rasmussen, the former Baltimore County executive, said that even though Israel?s “response is justified, they have to be persuaded and cautioned to use restraint in their reactions.”
“Without some kind of peacekeeping force, it makes it very difficult to resolve that kind of conflict,” Rasmussen said. But that is hard because the United States is “totally preoccupied with Iraq. I think we need to do as much as we can diplomatically in order to try to bring about a cease-fire.”
“It?s an extremely volatile situation that has the potential to spinning into a full regional conflict. ? I?m sorry that the president took so long to act,” said former Congressman Kweisi Mfume said.
“We ought to find a way to better use the [U.N.] Security Council ? before there?s an all-out conflict,” Mfume said. He also said would he hopes that “military strikes would be concentrated on military targets,” not civilian roads, bridges and airports.
Mfume believes Marines should be sent to Lebanon to remove thousands of American civilians.
