Hagel ushered out to give impression of new strategy

Washington, whose 'Washington-centric' political media loves a story of a fallen star more than anything else, was abuzz with rumours Monday. The US Secretary of State, Chuck Hagel, was resigning. And by close of day, after President Barack Obama had heaped praise on “no ordinary” defence secretary, the buzz did not abate.

Was Hagel fired, or did he resign? If the former, why did Obama, who had staked so much on installing Hagel in 2013, fire him? What are his failures? Who will replace him?

Hagel irked Obama by questioning his Syria policy in leaked memo

Earlier, Obama, flanked by Vice President Joe Biden and Hagel himself at the White House event, had hailed Hagel as a "unique leader”. He was the first former enlisted soldier to hold the position, a Vietnam veteran and one who had earned two Purple Hearts – America’s highest military honour. He "understood the challenges soldiers face like few others can."

Yet, having “served through a significant period of transition", Obama added, Hagel had concluded it was an "appropriate time" to complete his service. There was an end-of-mission suggestion in there: Hagel had overseen the period of the draw-down from the war in Afghanistan.

But Hagel has also had a rocky tenure. A respected former senator, he had struck up a friendship with the then Illinois senator, Barack Obama, when they were both critics of the Iraq war while serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He had the most bruising confirmation in US Senate history because he was opposed by the pro-Israel AIPAC lobbying group and its surrogates on Capitol Hill, including former friend and colleague, and fellow Vietnam Veteran, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

Moreover, the only Republican in Obama’s administration, Hagel “struggled to break through the White House's insular foreign policy team", according to a source close to Republican circles.

Pressure

Another well placed moderate Republican said: "Hagel, who isn't confrontational, was quite frustrated because he felt he was being kept out of the decision-making process as a pivotal member of the President's national security team." The source claimed that Hagel would often “join these meetings only to find out that whatever needed to be decided has already been decided by Obama's closely knit set of loyalists of former campaign aides and advisers".

Senior administration officials have characterized Hagel as "quiet" during cabinet meetings, but Hagel's defenders refute such a characterization insisting that Hagel preferred to wait until he was alone with the president before sharing his views to guard against the leaks for which the White House is notorious.

Many agree in Washington that Hagel stepped down under pressure of an avalanche of foreign policy crises, including the rise of the Islamic State group (IS, formerly known as ISIS), administration officials speaking off the record insist that Hagel himself "initiated" discussions in early November that were focused on his future and that both he and Obama agreed that the time had come for him to leave. At the same time, leaks from both the Pentagon and the White House accuse Hagel of "poor management and public relations skills" and "not getting along with his staff" or "not getting along with National Security Advisor Susan Rice and her team".

And for all Washington’s rumours and speculation, one must also keep in mind that this is not a new situation in the American political tradition. On November 9, 2006, two days after the midterm elections in which Republicans lost Congress to the Democrats, then President George W. Bush announced that he was accepting the resignation of the blustery Donald Rumsfeld. Then (almost using the same words), Bush said about sacking Rumsfeld that, "the timing is right for new leadership at the Pentagon".

Obama, who has been under attack by an increasingly hawkish US Congress, and a new Republican majority in the US Senate, feels compelled to show that he is sensitive to those critics who have accused him of "having no strategy" in the fight against the IS group. He needs to show that he is paying heed to their concerns over the handling of "the global war against terrorism", especially as he gets ready to do battle with them over major domestic disagreements on immigration, healthcare and government shutdown. Hagel seems a most convenient scapegoat.

Blame

Some blame Hagel for specific policy failures: He failed to gain enough ground against the Taliban to force them to accept some kind of peace deal; He failed, a long-time policy watcher in Washington claims, when he took the lead in trying to convince then defence minister Abdel Fatah al-Sisi not to depose Egypt's first-ever democratically elected president. In Iraq and Syria, Hagel is blamed for having failed to devise a strategy that would prevent the rise of the IS group. In Ukraine, Hagel has not contributed to the effort to roll back or deter "Russia's ongoing invasion".

Other failures pinned on Hagel are bureaucratic. He failed to carry out his first duty, critics say, to bring together the Pentagon, the White House and Congress. In the Pentagon, he was viewed with scepticism. In Congress, his former colleagues, under AIPAC pressure, never gave him a chance. In White House discussions on US foreign policy, Hagel is accused of being ineffective, unable to steer the debate or contribute effectively. The New York Times, in breaking the story, said "Hagel has often had problems articulating his thoughts — or administration policy — in an effective manner."

Obama, and the close circle around him that still functions as if in a campaign mode, were reportedly also irked by Hagel's alleged two-page (leaked) memo sent to the president in early October, questioning his strategy on Syria. In it, Hagel warned that Obama's strategy to defeat the IS group was in jeopardy because of failure to clarify US intentions towards Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Obama, who continues to assert that Assad has lost his legitimacy, has also insisted that the United States can go after IS fighters without targeting (at least for now) Assad's regime or his small circle of family and confidants.

But perhaps most importantly, Obama wants to give the impression that he is bringing fresh leadership during the final two years of his administration. Showing Hagel the door seems to present a plausible pretext.

Who will replace Hagel? Top potential candidates include Michele Flournoy, a former under-secretary of defence, Ashton Carter, a former deputy secretary of defence, departing US Senator Carl Levin, and incumbent Democratic US Senator Jack Reed.

If Flournoy is nominated and confirmed by the Senate she will be the first woman Secretary of defence in US history.