Former SEAL runs as hawk in Montana

Former SEAL Team Six commander Ryan Zinke (R) is making a charge for Congress from Montana and intends to make his voice heard on foreign policy if elected. 

Zinke, who retired from the Navy a few years before his old team took out Osama Bin Laden, sees much of his campaign through the lens of a former soldier, with a focus on national security and energy independence at the core of his campaign.

{mosads}And he is touting his military experience at a critical time for U.S. foreign policy. The veteran predicted in an interview with The Hill in Washington last week that ground troops would ultimately be needed to combat growing terrorist threats.

“We’re going to fight ISIS. I’d rather fight ISIS in the deserts of Iraq than in the streets of America,” he said.

 “I think we’re going to have to put some ground troops in. Delivering 350 troops is a joke. There’s no capability in that. I would rather see our ground troops go in as blocking forces rather than maneuver elements,” he continued, also calling for a no-fly zone over Syria and Iraq.

Zinke warned the terrorist group posed an immediate threat to America and predicted it “will try to attack our home front.” 

The GOP hopeful also warned that government overreach and regulatory red tape are stymieing the economy, saying “the biggest threat is ourselves. We’ve created this labyrinth of bureaucracy.”

“Unless we take action this ship’s going to hit the rocks,” he told The Hill. 

Zinke is angling for Montana’s sole House seat, vacated by Rep. Steve Daines (R), who is running for Senate. Operatives in both parties say he has the edge in his race against John Lewis (D), a former staffer for Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), partly because of the state’s conservative lean and partly because Daines is coasting to election, especially after the withdrawal of appointed Sen. John Walsh (D) amid a plagiarism scandal that brought his integrity into question. 

The former Navy commander served in Bosnia and Iraq as a commander at SEAL Team Six, and he spent much of an hour-long interview warning against a listless U.S. foreign policy and calling for more actions abroad. 

“We’re going to have to make sure we shut and control our southern border. If a 7-year-old child can come across our border, then I can tell you an armed group of terrorists can come across our border with truckloads of surface-to-air missiles,” he said, adding there’s a possibility that American ISIS sympathizers “are just as dedicated” to the cause as those fighting abroad.

 He also blasted President Obama for not doing more to secure the release of Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, a Marine who’s been in a jail in Tijuana, Mexico, since he reportedly crossed the border by mistake in March.

“If I was president I’d probably go to Camp Pendleton and ask for volunteers with the Marines and lend them equipment. And by the time they got to the border I guarantee you that Marine would be standing tall at the border,” he said.

 When asked to clarify his views on the situation, Zinke said he wasn’t seriously advocating moving Marines toward the Mexican border, but “certainly we can put pressure on Mexico to know we’re serious about our Marine.”

A third-generation Montanan, Zinke played football for the University of Oregon before joining the armed services. Since leaving, he has run a consulting firm specializing in oil exploration, managed a conservative super-PAC and served in Montana’s state senate.

Zinke faced a crowded and bruising primary that’s left his campaign coffers depleted. Lewis is already airing ads in the state and has a big cash advantage, which could tighten the battle before Election Day.

Lewis’s campaign contrasted his worldview with Zinke’s in a statement.

“Unlike Ryan Zinke, John does not believe the answer to all of the international challenges we face today is putting American lives directly on the line,” Lewis spokeswoman Kathy Weber said. “Montanans have told John that they believe we have a moral obligation to exhaust every economic, diplomatic and political resource possible before sending in ground troops — whether it’s regarding Mexico, Iraq, Syria or Iran.”

Zinke dismissed Lewis as “a D.C. staffer whose entire life has been in D.C.”

“There’s a tremendous difference between being a political staffer and leading,” he said.

While Zinke sounds like a hawk on most foreign policy, he says he had mixed feelings about the initial decision to invade Iraq.

“It’s hard to say mistake, but certainly I was not the strongest advocate and I was critical of the decision. … I have mixed feelings about Iraq,” he said. “Right now one can argue that the region is as unstable as it’s ever been.”

But mistakes under President George W. Bush have only been compounded under Obama, he said.

“We’re in full retreat across the globe in every theater, and that’s what’s happened the last six years, we’ve taken an iffy policy and made it a real bad one,” he said.