The three Senate candidates offer three alternatives to Iraq policy: Withdraw the troops now and quickly, withdraw them gradually but start now, or withdraw them when the Iraq situation stabilizes.
The most radical of the three positions is taken by Kevin Zeese, the Green-Libertarian-Populist nominee whose job is running a peace group called Democracy Rising.
Zeese favors an immediate withdrawal of both U.S. military and corporate contractors starting immediately and to be “completed rapidly and responsibly in no more than four months,” he said. “This is the only way we can bring stability to Iraq and undermine the insurgency.”
“Everything we fear in Iraq is made more likely every day the U.S. military stays in Iraq,” Zeese said. “This includes terrorism, civil war, theocracy and isolation of the United States.”
Zeese is sharply critical of Democratic Rep. Ben Cardin, who voted against authorizing using force in Iraq, but has repeatedly voted to fund the war effort since the invasion. “I?m supporting the troops,” Cardin, giving soldiers the resources they need for their safety. This is the same position taken by Sens. Paul Sarbanes and Barbara Mikulski, who voted against the war but for war appropriations.
Cardin favors a phased withdrawal from the country, with National Guard troops brought home first and others brought home over the course of the next year on a timetable to be set by military commanders. He would like to see the international community involved in training Iraqi security forces and providing humanitarian aid.
In Wednesday?s debate, Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele pressed Cardin for his plan “to bring our boys home.” But Steele offered no concrete plan himself.
Steele said that while he could “applaud” Cardin for his courageous vote, it was “wrong-headed,” and the U.S. should have gone in “to deal with the terror that was there.” But Steele has repeatedly said that the aftermath of the war has been badly handled, using “conventional tactics against an insurgency.”
He now advocates “putting down the discernable benchmarks for progress” by the Iraqi government, using the same term that President Bush used 13 times in a press conference Wednesday.
“It?s refreshing to hear that he?s supporting the president,” Cardin commented. “The only thing that has changed in the last 24 hours is ? the rhetoric.”
