Hagel Said to Be Stepping Down as Defense Chief Under Pressure
Hagel Said to Be Stepping Down as Defense Chief Under Pressure by Helene Cooper, New York Times
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is stepping down under pressure, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and the struggles of his national security team amid an onslaught of global crises.
The president, who is expected to announce Mr. Hagel’s resignation in a Rose Garden appearance on Monday, made the decision to ask his defense secretary — the sole Republican on his national security team — to step down last Friday after a series of meetings over the past two weeks, senior administration officials said.
The officials described Mr. Obama’s decision to remove Mr. Hagel, 68, as a recognition that the threat from the Islamic State would require a different kind of skills than those that Mr. Hagel was brought on to employ…
So does this mean Syria is “on” ?
Didn’t Hagel ask for clarification from the President about what we are currently doing in Iraq and Syria?
There are certain natural containment “walls” in the region (not just the Kurds) and adding an anti-Assad focus to the entire mix would blow up one containment wall, as uncomfortable as it is to think about Assad in that way.
Did some Turk factions ‘Chalabi’ us this time? Or if we want to work with the Kurds we have to buy off the Turks in some way? NATO sure is an important alliance.
Speaking truth to power will always kill your career these days at the SecDef level.
Am afraid this goes far in proving the rumors that this is one of the weakest National Security Council in literally years.
We ask our officers and sergeants to “speak truth to power” and now the SecDef gets axed for doing exactly what we ask our military to do.
This announcement covers up the fact that currently we have absolutely no coherent strategy towards Iran, Ukraine, Russia, Syria, Iraq and the IS.
And all those “red lines” and no strategies—no wonder our own allies have no idea what it is we want as we ourselves do not know as well.
By Justin Sink – 10/30/14 01:40 PM EDT
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel wrote a memo to National Security Adviser Susan Rice sharply criticizing the White House strategy on Syria, according to reports from The New York Times and CNN.
The two-page memo details “concern about the overall Syria strategy” and called for a more defined plan for handling the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a senior U.S. official told the cable network.
The unnamed source said Hagel was concerned that the U.S. could lose gains it made in the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) if it did not alter its strategy toward Assad.
The Obama administration is facing a difficult quandary in Syria, where ISIS has seized control of large swaths of the country amid a bloody civil war between Assad and rebel groups.
The White House has repeatedly called for Assad’s removal from power, but there is some concern that by targeting ISIS, which is also fighting the brutal dictator, the U.S. could embolden his regime.
Madhu—
Will be provocative concerning the lack of any strategy for either the IS and or the Russians.
This kind of sums it up the current US strategy or lack thereof:
This must’ve been what America in the late 1850s felt like. Disaster’s imminent, everybody knows it, nobody wants to face it, keep dancing.
The real Hagel breakdown: White House concluded he wasn’t effective public advocate for policies he had little role in crafting.
When the JCoS has more pull in the WH than the SecDef then we are in serious trouble.
Interesting that the former Swedish FM made this comment yesterday when all others in the US media seemed to miss it as well as the US NSC and NCA.
What is it that non Americans see but Americans seem to miss these days.
Notice the words integrity and sound judgment—something distinctly missing these days in US foreign policy.
Carl Bildt ✔ @carlbildt
I was sorry to see Chuck Hagel step down as US Secretary of Defense. He was always a man of integrity and sound judgment.
Even the New York Times editorial from today says similar issues—no coherent strategy failure of Obama and his NSC:
A Problem Beyond Mr. Hagel
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDNOV. 24, 2014
Chuck Hagel, who was pressured to resign on Monday, was not a strong defense secretary and, after less than two years, appeared to have lost President Obama’s confidence.
But he was not the core of the Obama administration’s military problem. That lies with the president and a national security policy that has too often been incoherent and shifting at a time of mounting international challenges, especially in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
Seems like I am not the only one seeing the inherent lack of foreign policy strategies and focus coming from Obama and his NSC especially with the IS and Russia/Ukraine.
From Foreign Policy:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/11/24/the_fall_guy_chuck_hagel_resignation_obama_administration_national_security_team?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=%2AEditors%20Picks&utm_campaign=2014_EditorsPicksRS24%2F11
No, Hagel’s alienation, the tension between him and the White House, and the military leadership’s burgeoning frustration with the false starts, half-measures, and micromanagement that have marked the administration’s Iraq and Syria campaigns are signs of much deeper problems that lie within the way the president himself operates and, from a process perspective, from the way that his National Security Council (NSC) operates.
And wonders why Putin has been quiet successful lately?