Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on January 9, 2013

Vietnam veterans Colin Powell, right, and Senator Chuck Hagel at the Vietnam Memorial during Veteran's Day ceremonies in Washington. Photograph: Corbis

Former Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who earned two Purple Hearts as a young enlisted soldier in Vietnam in 1968, shows no sign that hes cowed by the political battle over his confirmation as defense secretary.

To the contrary, with Hagels nomination, President Barack Obama is seizing an opportunity to cement a shift in national security strategy away from military interventionism as the administration faces a tepid economy, a second-term effort to reduce defense spending and a public weary after more than a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the political attacks on Hagel have largely targeted his views on Iran and Israel, the clashes over his suitability to run the Pentagon open a much weightier debate about Americas military commitments and what he has called a bloated defense budget.

Since the end of the Cold War, Washington has seen a consensus around neo-conservatives on the political right and liberal interventionists on the left, and that all kind of leads to wanting more -- more action in the world, more involvement, more commitments, said Sean Kay, a professor of politics and government at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio. Its the kind of thing that gets you into Iraq on one hand and a surge into Afghanistan on the other.

What Chuck Hagel represents is sort of a return to what was the previous general consensus on foreign policy, which was mainly reflective of a commitment to being a strong, capable nation, but one that acted with restraint, Kay said in a telephone interview.

In choosing the 66-year-old Republican, Obama has highlighted the rift between that partys so-called realists, such as President George H.W. Bushs National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Ronald Reagans Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, and Hagels interventionist-oriented critics, such as Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol.

In his stated positions, Senator Hagel, in my opinion, represents a departure from some long-held positions in the United States, across the parties, said Steven Bucci, a former military assistant and chief of staff to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one of the primary advocates of invading Iraq in 2003.

Hagels questionable support of Israel, his opposition to some sanctions on Iran and outreach to groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, Bucci said, are all departures from what has been conventional wisdom in U.S. foreign policy and security policy.

He is very much in favor of further defense cuts, said Bucci, now director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. He thinks we dont have the money for these defense programs, which I can understand, but then he says we dont need them, which I think is a little delusional. The world is more dangerous than it was in 2001 and not less so.

See more here:
Hagel Confirmation Fight Signals Obama Defense Priorities

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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