On Israel, Iran, and spending, Chuck Hagel looks a lot like Robert Gates

The arguments for and against the Obama administration’s anticipated nomination of Chuck Hagel for defense secretary seem to turn on the premise that he would represent a dramatic shift on defense spending and on two major foreign policy issues: Iran and Israel. The merits of those policies aside for the moment, let’s look at the “dramatic shift” component of this thinking. How do Hagel’s positions compare with those of former defense secretary Robert M. Gates?

Left, former defense secretary Robert M. Gates, who served George W. Bush and President Obama. Right, Chuck Hagel could be next. (Getty Images)

President George W. Bush appointed Gates, a former CIA chief, to run the Pentagon in 2006. He took over as the Iraq War was at its low point, replacing a disgraced Donald Rumsfeld. Gates, like Gen. David Petraeus, became so celebrated for helping to turn around the Bush administration’s Middle East policy that President Obama kept them both on for years. Gates remained defense secretary until 2011. Like Hagel, Gates is considered a foreign policy realist and a moderate Republican. He is famous for drawing down in Iraq, arguing against the Libya intervention and for, during the Cold War, expressing skepticism that Mikhail Gorbachev was a true reformer (he was).

Here’s how Hagel and Gates stack up on defense spending, Iran, and Israel. The bottom line is that the two are remarkably similar and appear to share a number of policy preferences on these issues, as well as a similar worldview. The one place where I could find real daylight between the two is on Iran sanctions, which Hagel has in the past opposed but Gates supported. This is an odd position for Hagel, given that sanctions could forestall the sort of unilateral Israeli military strike that he, like Gates, so opposes. Otherwise, though, it’s hard not to see Hagel as a continuation of the Gates Pentagon.

Israel

Hagel sometimes breaks with Israeli security policies: The Jerusalem Post runs down those instances. He was “one of only four senators in October 2000 who would not sign a letter of support for Israel during the second intifada [a Palestinian uprising], being only one of 12 senators in 2006 who refused to sign a letter calling on the EU to place Hezbollah on its terrorist lists and signing a 2009 letter – after he retired from the Senate – urging Obama to negotiate with Hamas.”

Gates sometimes breaks with Israeli security policies: In 2007, Gates reportedly pushed Israel to halt its plans for attacking a suspected nuclear site in Syria. Then-deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, not an ally of Gates, later accused him of urging Bush to leverage the entire U.S.-Israel relationship to halt the strike, which went ahead anyway.

Hagel has criticized Israel: Hagel has been, as backer Stephen Walt put it, “outspoken in calling for the United States to be more evenhanded in its handling of the [Israel-Palestine] peace process.” But, for some Israel supporters, “more evenhanded” is nice way of saying that he’s less supportive. He also once commented that he was a senator from Nebraska, not a senator from Israel.

BY Max Fisher 

sourche: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/01/07/on-israel-iran-and-spending-chuck-hagel-looks-a-lot-like-robert-gates/