Chuck Hagel
President Obama is expected to pick former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel as his new Secretary of Defense on Monday, setting up a battle between the left and right flanks of the Israel lobby and between realist supporters of Hagel and his neoconservative detractors.
Foreign Policy‘s Josh Rogin has the story:
White House officials and sources close to Hagel declined to confirm to The Cable that Hagel is the president’s choice to be the replace Leon Panetta at the helm of the Pentagon, but several sources close to the process said have told The Cable that the White House and Hagel have been in touch on a regular basis and that Hagel is indeed the expected pick. Decisions about the timing and logistics of the announcement are being finalized now.
The Cable had previously confirmed that Hagel successfully complete the vetting process, as have Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter and former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy.
But other White House observers cast doubt on the Hagel pick earlier today. Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show, reporter Chuck Todd said that while Obama was in love with the idea of picking Hagel, the administration was going to yank the former senator from contention later today. Watch Todd’s prediction:
We’ll have to wait and see who is right: Rogin or Todd. On the same show, as Think Progress notes, the panel derided the campaign against Hagel as “unbelievable,” “disgusting” and “disgraceful.”
The Daily Beast’s Eli Lake also reports that Hagel is Obama’s pick.
Update: After his morning appearance casting doubt on the Hagel nomination, Todd reports for NBC that “key special-interest groups involved in national security issues say they have been told to be prepared for a Chuck Hagel nomination for Defense Secretary, either as early as Monday or perhaps more likely Tuesday of next week.
Meanwhile, Rogin also notes another interesting tidbit related to the Hagel pick: the leader of the Log Cabin Republicans, which took out a full-page ad in the New York Times opposing Hagel, has resigned. The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald had raised questions about where the Log Cabin Republican group, a pro-gay conservative organization, got the money for the ad. Greenwald questioned whether advocates for Israel or neoconservatives had paid for the New York Times ad.
And in other Hagel news, Jewish Voice for Peace has endorsed the potential pick. From an e-mail they sent out to supporters:
America’s Israel Lobby has unleashed a vicious smear campaign against former U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, an independent thinker who President Obama wants for Secretary of Defense.
Unless we act now to counter thousands of emails that Israel lobby groups have already sent to the White House, President Obama may yield to pressure, sending the message that the Israel Lobby has veto power over all key positions in the Administration.
Sign the petition now and send to everyone you know.
Chuck Hagel is an old-school conservative Republican, unlikely to make major changes in foreign policy. But he is being targeted because he is reluctant to go to war with Iran, believes we should keep the door open to dialogue with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and doesn’t kowtow to AIPAC.
His conservative track record means he may not be everyone’s top pick, but this battle is much bigger than Chuck Hagel.
If this appointment comes to pass, we are on the verge of entering a new era of American Mideast policy — one triggered by the behavior of Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud Zionists, neoconservatives and Jewish settlers in the occupied territories.
Not to diminish the Prediction Skills of McBride – but this one I can guarantee doesn’t come true:
“If this appointment comes to pass, we are on the verge of entering a new era of American Mideast policy” – Sean “Alex P. Keating Plainview” McBride
Not. A. Chance.
Amazing. Color me shocked! Pleased, but shocked.
Cooper’s prior statement favoring Hagel suggests he may have resigned because he didn’t want to be part of an organization whose very public opposition (or voice participating in a smear campaign) could be purchased by un-nameable funding sources. Or maybe he himself sold out for a price to be revealed. Or his board terminated him for doing so. Let’s see where he lands.
One consequence of the extended Hagel trial balloon phase is that it provides more and more rope for the Netanyahu-Likud-led Israel Lobby to hang itself with. To an unprecedented extent, the machinations, mechanisms, and methods of this most effective night flower are stretched out in the morning sun. And Mondoweiss is there with its magnifying glass to examine them. We’ll see if they survive the heat of the day and the intensifying scrutiny.
As for me, I say there should be no Likud-Loyalty-Litmus test for high government office.
I’m beginning to see this as Obama’s revenge, but we should not let ourselves be carried away. It was a trial balloon after all. Had it been shot down, Obama would have bended to the lobby as usual. He didn’t fight for Hagel one iota. If Hagel gets the nod, he can thank a large well of support from the liberal quarters of the media, not Obama. That is pretty stunning when you think about it.
Nonetheless, it’s impossible not to see the dragged-out effects of this coming so close to the Israeli election. Obama probably knows that as the election looms closer, and as the fascist far-right rises and rises in Israel, any kind of pushback against Hagel will be met even more ferociously by liberal, especially Jewishly liberal, quarters in the press, as a valve to regulate their fears and anxieties against what they, correctly, see as Israel’s national suicide in slowmotion.
But again, Obama here, as usual, is really a side character. The main players here are the journalists and the intellectuals and there’s been plenty of healthy intra-Jewish debate on this topic. Jewish liberals are no longer getting rolled(or allowing themselves to get rolled) and Gentile liberals are slowly, slowly coming out of the woodworks to attack the neocons. They still feel compelled to use ‘Jewish shields’, so to speak, (basically a Jewish liberal as an alibi) but even this tendency is slowly decelerating.
But, fundamentally, if Hagel gets the nod will anything substantial change? I don’t think so, but the main effects won’t be on the policy side, rather on the culture and/or the media. And that shouldn’t be underestimated.