"Virginia's U.S. Senate race could become the nation's marquee referendum on President Bush's Iraq policy as George Allen and James Webb offer voters stark differences about a war that polls show is increasingly unpopular.

Though the candidates have been sidetracked for weeks by questions about character, the war is a major issue in a state that is home to the Pentagon, the world's largest naval station, at Norfolk, and tens of thousands of veterans. The Democratic candidate in the Virginia Senate race is one of the few running this fall who is a decorated Vietnam War hero whose son is serving in Iraq with the Marine Corps.

The war is dominating Senate races across the country, but Bush easily won Virginia in 2004 and Democrats are hoping to prove that public attitudes about the war are changing.

"Webb and Allen are essentially reflecting what seems to be the two national party positions on the war," said Mark Rush, a political science professor at Washington and Lee University. "You essentially have Allen saying 'Stay the course.' . . . The Democrat is saying, 'We can do it better and differently,' but doesn't really say how."

Republican Sen. Allen, who in 2002 voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq, has been a steadfast supporter of Bush's decision to invade, remove Saddam Hussein and turn the country over to an elected government. Allen, who won't rule out sending more troops to Iraq, said the United States cannot afford to withdraw without a decisive victory that guarantees that the country will not become a haven for terrorists.

Webb, a former Marine, opposed the conflict before it began. He calls the war a "strategic blunder of historic proportions" and wants to reposition troops to other Arab nations, out of harm's way. "We didn't go into Iraq because of terrorism. We have terrorism in Iraq because we went in there," Webb says.

But beyond the contenders' backgrounds and TV sound bites, foreign policy and political analysts say neither candidate has provided comprehensive plans for either a victory or a quick withdrawal. Absent those, voters could be left to make decisions based on each candidate's position before the war started in 2003 and which of the two offers the best hope for getting the troops out as quickly as possible, foreign policy analysts say.

"It is really a referendum on decisions made years ago rather than presenting the voters with two different, viable set of options," said Nathan J. Brown, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Webb wants the United States to involve Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria, in discussions about how to bring stability to the region. Allen chides the idea, saying the United States should not talk to sponsors of terrorism.

On the campaign trail, Allen, who says he keeps a slain Virginia soldier's dog tags on his mirror at home, is fond of saying "there is no substitute for victory" and troops need to come home in "victory, not defeat." Webb says the troops have a victory because they deposed Hussein and concluded the hunt for weapons of mass destruction.

Webb, who says that the U.S. presence is inciting attacks on American troops, has also called for a clear statement from Bush that the country has no plans to occupy Iraq. Webb has accused Allen of supporting plans to build four permanent military bases in Iraq.

Allen counters that the bases are needed to protect troops, but he discounts Webb's assertion that the bases are there to stay. Allen notes that he recently voted for a congressional resolution stating that the bases are not permanent.

The candidates' positions on Iraq have been evolving.

Allen has embraced Bush's sound bite that the United States cannot "cut and run" in Iraq. He says troops can start withdrawing when Iraqi forces are capable of protecting the country.

In the past week, Allen has been trying to link himself to Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.). Warner, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, returned last week from a trip to Iraq and said the United States may have to change course if the level of violence does not decrease within the next several months. Iraq is "drifting sideways," he said.

Webb seized on Warner's assessment, saying Warner proves that Allen is out of touch on the war. Allen tried to deflect Webb's attack by appearing with Warner on a conference call with reporters during which the two senators tried to play down any differences between them.

"I'm working in the Senate with Senator Warner on this issue," Allen said of the war. "I have said on many occasions I am concerned about it. I have seen how tough it is for families. . . . But these terrorist threats we face are real."

Allen then accused Webb of playing a "political game" by trying to make an issue of the war, which polls show is a top concern of voters. In an interview later, Warner declined to criticize Webb, a former Republican who served on his staff when Warner was secretary of the Navy in the early 1970s. In the 1980s, Webb was secretary of the Navy.

Webb was drafted into the race by antiwar bloggers who thought his military résumé and background as an author gave their movement credibility in relatively conservative Virginia.

Webb has shied away from embracing calls for a timetable for troop withdrawal and he opposes Congress cutting off funding for the war.

Webb instead says he thinks the United States can be out of Iraq within two years "with the right kind of leadership."

"The people who failed to prevent this disaster are not the ones you can count on to fix it," Webb says in a television commercial he is airing that tries to link Allen to Bush on the war issue.

Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who worked as chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell between 2002 and 2004, said Webb's approach is one of "diplomacy because bombs, bullets and bayonets aren't going to work anymore."

"A lot of this insurgency is anti-occupation," said Wilkerson, who has endorsed Webb and has criticized Bush.

James Jay Carafano and James A. Phillips, two analysts at the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation, published an article last week predicting chaos in Iraq if U.S. troops leave without finishing the war.

They say the ensuing civil strife would strengthen Iran and Al-Qaeda, escalate energy prices and cause a catastrophe for the Iraqi people.

"There is an assumption if we pull out, we won't have to go back in," Phillips said in an interview. "But I will argue we will have to go back in again and again not only to fight al-Qaeda, but if full-scale civil war breaks out, there will be calls for humanitarian intervention."

Richard K. Betts, director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, said there is no good option for those wanting a quick end to the war, which has claimed the lives of more than 2,700 service personnel and wounded 20,000.

"The people who got us into this and the people who were against this from the beginning are stuck with a situation they can't find a way out of where it doesn't look as if it's going to pose severe damage to our interests as well as Iraq's," Betts said.

Betts says this year's Virginia Senate race bears a resemblance to past presidential races.

In 1968, Republican Richard M. Nixon successfully ran for president railing against two successive Democratic administrations that he blamed for entangling the United States in the Vietnam War. Nixon pledged to end the war but did not spell out how he planned to succeed. The last U.S. troops left Vietnam in 1975. In the 2004 presidential race, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a Vietnam veteran, argued that voters should trust him instead of Bush to resolve the war in Iraq but declined to set a timetable for withdrawal.

Unlike Kerry, who voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq, Webb spoke out against the war six months before it started. Webb wrote an editorial in The Washington Post in which he warned that U.S. troops in Iraq "would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets."

"If voters send Webb to the Senate, especially if the Democrats have a majority in the Senate, they may be forming a national spokesperson for the party on Iraq," said Brown of the Carnegie Endowment.

Phillips said that would only undermine the effort to finish the job in Iraq.

"It would be total paralysis if you had 100 secretaries of state," he said, referring to the number of U.S. senators." (Tim Craig, The Wsahington Post, October 12, 2006)

Editor's Note: An index to coverage of George Allen on the Loper website may be found at http://loper.org/~george/archives/2006/Aug/925.html