In the spectrum of antiwar groups, there are hard-liners who call for Americans to leave Iraq right now, and those who espouse a softer course, essentially asking the White House to outline a specific exit plan, including a timetable for eventual departure from Iraq. Sheehan is a hard-liner. Parents of soldiers in Iraq "want their kids home yesterday," Sheehan says, and waiting a few months or a year to bring troops back "is not near soon enough." Sheehan's position is echoed by a number of antiwar groups, notably United for Peace and Justice, the umbrella coalition of progressive organizations that has sponsored some of the largest street demonstrations against the war. But the three groups that organized Wednesday's vigils -- Democracy for America, MoveOn and True Majority -- do not go as far as Sheehan. Instead of calling for Bush to remove the troops now, these three support the plan outlined in the so-called Homeward Bound Act, a law proposed by some in the House that would impose a deadline of October 2006 to begin to remove troops from Iraq.

The range of opinion among war opponents over what to do in Iraq is important because it reflects a larger national uncertainty over the options. Polls show Americans to be thoroughly discontent about the effort in Iraq. But Americans are not yet settled on what we ought to do. The most recent Gallup survey shows a large group -- 33 percent -- calling for immediate pullout, but significant numbers also call for troop levels to remain constant, or to be drawn down gradually.

In the personal tragedies of Sheehan, House and other military families, the antiwar movement may have finally found what it needs to turn mainstream Americans against the war and galvanize the Bush administration to bring U.S. troops home -- either now or in the near future. The antiwar movement has shifted, for the first time, from the left to Main Street. Many of the more polarizing voices of dissent -- like Michael Moore or International ANSWER -- have been drowned out by a larger sea of opposition. Many of the criticisms of the war in Iraq that were once heard only on the far left -- that the invasion was based on lies about weapons of mass destruction, that American-style democracy could not be easily transplanted in a country historically riven by rival sects -- now echo across suburbia.

At the same time, antiwar groups are wary about endorsing Sheehan as a powerful new way to oppose the war. For one thing, they point out, Sheehan's story is not new. Sheehan has been speaking out against the war since her son was killed in April 2004; she's well acquainted with many in the movement. That Sheehan's protest has caught on with the media now is not so much a testament to the power of her story as it is to the caprice of the national media, they say, which has long ignored opposition to the war and only now -- when Americans seem finally ready to oppose the war -- is changing its tune.

The groups also worry about being accused of taking advantage of Sheehan -- a worry borne out by right-wing attacks that paint Sheehan as a naive stooge of the left. Matt Holland, the online organizer of True Majority, the liberal organization that hired the P.R. firm Fenton Communications to handle media for Sheehan, took pains to stress that his group's part in Sheehan's activism is minimal. "In summary our role is to ask her how we can be helpful and to try to be helpful," he says. "She was a private citizen who got surrounded by this media maelstrom, so we helped with that. I want to be crystal clear about this: At no point have we suggested to her what her message ought to be or what she ought to say."

Yet as they deny that they are using Sheehan, many also acknowledge that Sheehan's story is useful. At the most basic level, it breaks your heart; everyone agrees with that. But different corners of the movement also see different strengths in Sheehan's protest. For hardliners, what Sheehan symbolizes is defiance and urgency. "She's been very bold and very determined," says Ai Mara, the national coordinator of the Not in Our Name project, "and that's something others in the movement have a hard time doing. She's not taking no for an answer. Ultimately what she's calling for is for troops to get out of Iraq. This is something that the rest of the movement can learn from."

More moderate groups, meanwhile, choose to focus not on Sheehan's call for troop withdrawal but instead on her demand to talk to the president about the mission in Iraq. "More than anything, she's a powerful symbol of the administration's refusal to face the facts about Iraq," says Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org's political action committee. "That's what brings so many people to her side. She's finally demanding accountability from the administration for the deception that led to war."

Jim Dean -- who is the chairman of Democracy for America, the political group that grew out of Jim's brother Howard's presidential campaign -- says much the same thing. "I'd truly like to see this war over, but I'll be honest with you, I don't have a silver-bullet solution to this whole thing," Dean says. "But if we want to get these troops out of there in a hurry, the first thing we should start to do is have a discussion about accountability. This is about accountability. That is something that most Americans understand. What she's doing is born out of sorrow. People see the common sense and fairness in what she's asking for. Just because you have troops in battle doesn't mean you don't have to account for what's happened."

It's not clear which of Sheehan's demands -- to meet the president or withdraw from Iraq -- might prove more attractive to the American public. It could be that people will agree with both; that they'll essentially follow the prescription to leave Iraq now. Polls do show that the nation is moving in that direction, and at the vigil in Oakland, this position certainly seemed to be the prevailing attitude. "If it were up to me? Yeah, I'd bring them back," said Peter Lee, a 60-year-old man at the protest. Arguments that Iraq would descend into civil war if the U.S. withdrew didn't hold much sway with Lee. "We can't tell what forces will shape it," he said. After all, just about every other prediction we've made about the war has proved off the mark.

Of course, this vigil was held in the San Francisco Bay Area, in Rep. Barbara Lee's district, about the bluest spot in the nation, and not a place to go for an indication of what the nation thinks about war and peace. A better sense of the antiwar movement's policy ideas about Iraq might be found in a survey MoveOn conducted of its members in June. In an e-mail headlined "What should we do about Iraq?" the group asked members if it should put its resources into pushing for passage of the Homeward Bound Act, which calls for troops to begin to come home by next fall. An overwhelming share of MoveOn members -- more than 80 percent -- responded with approval of the plan.

MoveOn's Pariser speaks enthusiastically of setting a deadline for troop withdrawal. Doing that, he says, would set the conditions to compel various factions in Iraq to create a working government. "The theory here is that the best shot that we have in creating stability in Iraq is creating a political climate where Shiites and Sunnis can cut a deal," he says. "Right now the Shiites in the government have the full force and weight of the U.S. military behind them, and as long as we're there, the Shiites won't have the political reason to cut a deal."

Pariser's theory is a good deal less provocative than that of hard-liners in the antiwar movement, who see the U.S. presence in Iraq as not only an obstacle to a stable government, but as the main source of all the violence there. "The U.S. occupation is the primary cause of the death and the cause of violence there," says Phyllis Bennis, a Middle East scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington think tank that sits on the steering committee of United for Peace and Justice. Bennis believes that while there is a hard core of fighters in Iraq who are motivated by religious extremism, the insurgency in Iraq is not primarily sectarian or religious, but rather "Iraqis who support the occupation vs. those who oppose the occupation." The majority of the fighters, "as far as we can tell, are motivated by nationalism," she says. If the occupation ends, the nationalistic fighters will put down their arms, and Iraqis will turn against the religious extremists who target civilians, Bennis believes.

Bennis acknowledges that her theory of what might happen if the U.S. leaves Iraq is not guaranteed; things may still turn out badly in Iraq if the nation follows her plan. "But what we do know is that if the occupation remains, it's not going to win," she says. "The danger is far greater of staying." And if that's the case, she asks, why stay a day longer?

Sheehan herself has made her position crystal clear. "We're over there and we need to come home," she said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. What happens in Iraq after we leave isn't a worry of ours, she added. "We need to let the Iraqi people handle their own business." Sheehan also fingered the U.S. presence as the source of all violence there. Asked about whom she blames for the death of her son, she said it was George W. Bush alone. Of the insurgent groups who were more directly responsible, she said, "The person who killed my son, I have no animosity for that person at all."

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