{"id":24673,"date":"2012-12-15T11:50:26","date_gmt":"2012-12-15T07:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=24673"},"modified":"2012-12-15T11:53:13","modified_gmt":"2012-12-15T07:53:13","slug":"if-hagel-is-obamas-choice-let-battle-commence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/showcase\/if-hagel-is-obamas-choice-let-battle-commence\/","title":{"rendered":"If Hagel Is Obama’s Choice ‘Let Battle Commence’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hagel\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reports are that Obama may tap former Senator Chuck Hagel<\/a>, a Republican and Vietnam veteran, to be his next secretary of Defense. Hagel is a realist who has repeatedly bucked the neoconservatives (and as Eli Lake and Steve Walt say below, the Israel lobby is gearing up to try and do to him what it did to Chas Freeman 4 years ago). The Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), for instance, is already gearing up to battle Obama over Hagel.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, ECI’s Noah Pollak tweeted out one reason<\/a> (among many) for why he’s so averse to Hagel: he is chairman of the Atlantic Council, a mainstream think tank. The Atlantic Council has posted a piece by a member of the council titled “Israel’s Apartheid Policy.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are some more reasons for why the neoconservatives are coming out swinging against Hagel:<\/p>\n

In November 2010, Hagel led a forum on the Iran issue at the Atlantic Council<\/a>, which he chairs. His comments make clear that he would never go to war with Iran, and the idea that all options must be on the table is one that he specifically rejects.<\/p>\n

He says that only in an Alice in Wonderland world would we go to war with Iran. The American public doesn’t want a war, military suicides and divorces are at all-time highs, Hagel says, and he takes exception to Stuart Eizenstat, the lobby’s man on the panel, saying that if we had to we could put 100,000 troops on the ground in Iran.<\/p>\n

Some of the transcript:<\/p>\n

Hagel<\/b>:<\/p>\n

As to the use of military force, whether it\u2019s for a political motive or not, I don\u2019t think I have to remind the public that the United States of America is currently in two wars \u2013 two of the longest we\u2019ve ever been in.\u00a0 And before we finally wind our way out of each, they will be the longest wars we\u2019ve ever engaged in.<\/p>\n

That has come at a very significant cost to this country.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s undermined our interest in the world.\u00a0 You don\u2019t need to go much beyond asking any general who\u2019s in charge of men and women in the Pentagon, their families, or any metric that you want to apply \u2013 record suicides, record divorces, record homeless and all the rest \u2013 as to but one consequence of taking the nation to war.<\/p>\n

So I think talking about going to war with Iran in fairly specific terms should be carefully reviewed.\u00a0 And that\u2019s pretty dangerous talk.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to get a nation into war; not so easy to get a nation out of war, as we are finding out.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure that the American people are ready to go into a third war.<\/p>\n

Second, if you subscribe to what Barbara [Slavin] has laid out \u2013 at least, what our taskforce has found \u2013 in particular, the internal dynamics that are occurring in Iran, then why in the world would you, as Barbara has noted, want to get in the way of that? ….<\/p>\n

As the ambassador [Stuart Eizenstat] has noted, we are the mightiest military force on Earth.\u00a0 The world has never seen such military power.\u00a0 But that military power must always be tempered with a purpose.\u00a0 And the military option is always on the table \u2013 of course it is \u2013 for any sovereign nation.\u00a0 But at the same time we recognize that, that option is there.<\/p>\n

The leaders of our country, the leaders of the world are not living in an \u201cAlice in Wonderland\u201d type of a world.\u00a0 They are living in a real world and they have to make real decisions based on what they calculate to be the dynamics and the facts as they are today.\u00a0 But probably more importantly, what they think they will be.\u00a0 That\u2019s leadership….<\/p>\n

Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service<\/b>:\u00a0 How exactly does saying that all options are on the table help the U.S. case in human rights or anything else or even with respect to the nuclear program?<\/p>\n

Hagel<\/b>: Well, I would add this:\u00a0 I\u2019m not so sure it is necessary to continue to say all options are on the table.\u00a0 I believe that the leadership in Iran, regardless of the five power centers that you\u2019re referring to \u2013 whether it\u2019s the ayatollah or the president or the Republican Guard, the commissions \u2013 have some pretty clear understanding of the reality of this issue and where we are.<\/p>\n

I think the point that your question really brings out \u2013 which is a very good one.\u00a0 If you were going to threaten on any kind of consistent basis, whether it\u2019s from leadership or the Congress or the administration or anyone who generally speaks for this country in anyway, than you better be prepared to follow through with that.<\/p>\n

Now, Stuart noted putting 100,000 troops in Iran \u2013 I mean, just as a number as far as if to play this thing out.\u00a0 The fact is, I would guess that we would all \u2013 I would be the one to start the questioning \u2013 would ask where you\u2019re going to get 100,000 troops.\u00a0 (Laughter.)\u00a0 So your point is a very good one, I think.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anybody in Iran that does not question the seriousness of America, our allies or Israel on this for all the reasons we made very clear.\u00a0 And I do think there does become a time when you start to minimize the legitimacy of a threat.\u00a0 When you threaten people or you threaten sovereign nations, you better be very careful and you better understand, again, consequences because you may be required to employ that threat and activate that threat in some way.<\/p>\n

So I don\u2019t mind people always, as we have laid out, and I think every president and every administration, anybody of any consequence who\u2019s talked about this can say \u2013 does say.\u00a0 But I think it\u2019s implied that the military threat is always there.\u00a0 Stu made an important point about, there are a lot of ways to come at this.<\/p>\n

But once you begin a military operation \u2013 I mean, you ask any sergeant \u2013 and it\u2019s the sergeants and the guys at the bottom, not the policymakers that have to fight the war \u2013 (audio break) \u2013 there the ones who have to do all the dying and all the fighting \u2013 (audio break) \u2013 sacrifices, not the policymakers.<\/p>\n

But my point is, once you start that, you\u2019d better be prepared to find 100,000 troops because it may take that or, eventually, where you\u2019re going \u2013 my earlier point:\u00a0 You don\u2019t know.\u00a0 And you can\u2019t just \u2013 (audio break) \u2013 concept of, well, we\u2019re going to do this but it\u2019ll be marginalized, it\u2019ll be a limited warfare.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think any nation can ever go into that way.\u00a0 So that would be what I would just add to the rest of the other conversations.<\/p>\n

Now here are the reports on the Israel lobby’s opposition. First Eli Lake\u00a0at the Daily Beast:<\/a><\/p>\n

Hagel\u2019s real opposition will likely come from the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. While the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) never takes formal positions on nominees, if the group is asked by senators for its view on Hagel, it\u2019s unlikely AIPAC will have a kind word.<\/p>\n

A senior pro-Israel advocate in Washington told The Daily Beast on Thursday, \u201cThe pro-Israel community will view the nomination of Senator Chuck Hagel in an extremely negative light. His record is unique in its animus towards Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Josh Block, a former spokesman for AIPAC and the CEO and president of the Israel Project, told The Daily Beast, \u201cWhile in the Senate, Hagel voted against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, refused to call on the E.U. to designate Hezbollah a terrorist group, and consistently voted against sanctions on Iran for their illicit pursuit of nuclear weapons capability. It is a matter of fact that his record on these issues puts him well outside the mainstream Democratic and Republican consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past, Hagel has even garnered opposition from pro-Israel Democrats who have defended Obama\u2019s Israel record. Ira Forman, who was in charge of the Obama reelection campaign\u2019s outreach to Jewish voters, said in 2009<\/a>\u2014after Hagel was named co-chairman of the President\u2019s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board\u2014that he would have opposed Hagel\u2019s nomination for a more substantive position.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Max Fisher at the Washington Post reviews<\/a> other statements by Hagel over the years also demonstrating his reluctance to go to war with Iran.<\/p>\n

Steve Walt at Foreign Policy<\/a> looks forward to a donnybrook with the lobby over Hagel, so that Obama will grow a spine with Netanyahu and the lobby, or, alternatively, so that there will be less prevarication among journalists about the lobby’s power:<\/p>\n

Hagel does have one political liability: Unlike almost all of his former colleagues on Capitol Hill, he hasn’t been a complete doormat for the Israel lobby. In the summer of 2006, for example, he incurred the lobby’s wrath by calling for a joint ceasefire during Israel’s war with Hezbollah. Pressed by the lobby, Bush & Co. rejected this advice and let the war drag on, even though prolonging it made Hezbollah more popular in Lebanon and cost additional Israeli lives. Hagel has also been outspoken in calling for the United States to be more evenhanded in its handling of the peace process, and he’s generally thought to be skeptical <\/a>about the use of military force against Iran. Needless to say, such positions are anathema to Israel’s hard-line supporters, some of whom<\/a> are already attacking Hagel’s suitability for SecDef. For the rest of us, however, Hagel’s views are not only sensible — they are in America and Israel’s best interest.<\/p>\n

Having lost out on Susan Rice, Obama is unlikely to put forward a nominee he’s not willing to fight for or whom he thinks he might lose. So if Hagel is his pick to run the Pentagon, you can bet Obama will go to the mattresses for him. And what better way for Obama to pay back Benjamin Netanyahu for all the “cooperation” Obama received from him during the first term, as well as Bibi’s transparent attempt to tip the scale for Romney last fall?<\/p>\n

For what it’s worth, I hope Obama nominates Hagel and that AIPAC and its allies go all-out to oppose him. If they lose, it might convince Obama to be less fearful of the lobby and encourage him to do what he thinks is best for the country (and incidentally, better for Israel) instead of toeing AIPAC’s line. But if the lobby takes Hagel down, it will provide even more evidence of its power, and the extent to which supine support for Israel has become a litmus test for high office in America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONDOWEISS: Whispers from Washington suggest that President Obama is set to nominate Chuck Hagel as Defense Minster. There will be sparks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":24674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,692,82,60,482,135],"tags":[423,8886,1103,2275,16136,2422,2453,10792,16141,2734,18306,5126,18311,16138,18309,5127,1389,1808,7318,5981,3967,13694,7109,2627,18302,6891,2020],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}