The president of the United States should have the Cabinet he wants. President Obama wants Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense. If there’s a problem with this nomination — and there is — the problem isn’t really with Hagel, it’s with the president.
The president can read, and there’s been a lot to read about Hagel. He knows that Hagel is one of Washington’s foremost advocates of negotiations with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas — respectively the key state sponsor of terror and the two chief terror groups it sponsors.
Obama must not mind having these views expressed at the highest reaches in his government councils, or he wouldn’t have chosen Hagel.
Since he is a reader, the president should’ve been able to get through newspaper columns and magazine pieces that have shown how Hagel’s views on Israel and the American Jewish community seem to have been expressed over the years with an odd tinge of hostility.
That could be seen in Hagel’s ugly use of the term “Jewish lobby” in 2006 when complaining about the influence of Israel backers in Washington. “The Jewish lobby,” he said, “intimidates a lot of people up here.”
Given that supporters of Israel in the United States are, in fact, overwhelmingly Christian, making reference to a “Jewish lobby” is not only inaccurate but revealing in its inaccuracy. Hagel’s words suggest he feels the power of the “lobby” comes from the influence of a small cabal and not as the logical outgrowth of support for Israel among the American people that hovers around 70 percent.
The president can also read that when Hagel was running the USO back in 1989, he sought to close a USO location in the Israeli port city of Haifa and told some of those protesting, “Let the Jews pay for it.” (We can assume this quote is accurate because Hagel has not denied it.)
Leaving aside the question of whether holding such views should be immediately disqualifying as a simple moral matter, Hagel would come to serve as secretary of defense at a time when the strategic relationship with Israel has never been more important to the United States.
Apologists for the Obama administration’s approach to Israel say critics have failed to acknowledge the closeness of the military cooperation between the two countries. Critics point out that such closeness is more the result of entropy — continuing policies begun under the previous administration — than innovation.
Nonetheless, we’ve seen how the relationship has borne fruit in the past couple of months, as Israel put on a real-world display of the value of missile defense with the successful deployment of its Iron Dome. That has long-range implications for the American homeland, with Iran and North Korea both testing very long-range missiles with the capability of striking the homeland.
The need for close relations between the two countries will never be greater than in the coming years, as more active actions to rid Iran of its nuclear weaponry become unavoidable. How that will happen, and when, and in what manner and with what tools — such questions can only be answered competently if the principals in the United States and Israel can speak in a frank but friendly shorthand.
There has always been a question about Obama’s ability to speak in that shorthand, and the appointment of Hagel suggests it can only be answered in the negative.
The friendly shorthand Barack Obama wishes to speak is not with Israel as it faces the first existential threat of the 21st century. It’s with Chuck Hagel.