The president and the defence secretary did not see eye to eye on several things. The latter raised questions about the White House strategy in respect of Syria and the vacillation about whether or not to join a shooting war against the Assad regime. Then Islamic State (IS) erupted on the scene and changed the shape of geopolitics in the region within half a year. Mr Hagel inflated the threat that the IS posed regionally and nationally to the US, much to the administration’s embarrassment and the military’s irritation. The last quarter of the Obama Administration is an unhappy one for the president, whose popularity has dipped ever lower. With Congress and the Senate both controlled by Republicans, passing anything but the blandest of legislation is going to be nigh impossible. The IS crisis is going to continue and there is no tidy end in sight. The wars that were being fought at the start of the Obama years still rumble on, peppering the sails of his legacy. Whoever succeeds Mr Hagel will have less than two years to mend a cracked pot, and few would bet on their chances of success.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 26th, 2014.
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Mr Hagel was an intelligent, thinking person in a responsible position who was attempting to control the crazies in Washington so he had to go.
Pretty clear in hindsight that the region threat was spot on ... and there is little doubt that if IS kept on tract that it would become a direct threat to the USA.