Chuck Hagel Pick: Final Snub Of George W. Bush

By ALEXANDER BURNS | 1/9/13 4:39 AM EST
The final insult to George W. Bush’s foreign policy may have come in the form of a Republican ex-senator from Nebraska.

Chuck Hagel’s nomination for secretary of defense has stirred opposition on both the left and the right, but the most vehement objections have come from the conservative, interventionist foreign policy community — the so-called neoconservatives who created the ideological architecture for the wars Bush launched in Afghanistan and Iraq.

For much of President Barack Obama’s time in office, right-leaning foreign policy leaders have taken heart from his extension of key Bush policies. Obama has wound down both wars, but he also retained Bush’s last defense secretary, Robert Gates; kept open the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay; massively stepped up the use of drones and added troops to the war in Afghanistan before more recently drawing back.

While Obama has cast his administration as a clean break with the past, there has been much in his record for the right to like. Republicans even sought some credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, arguing that Bush-backed interrogation tactics may have helped bring down the Al Qaeda kingpin.

The Hagel nomination is different — and may represent the president’s most dramatic turn away from the national security tenets of his predecessor.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/hagel-pick-final-snub-of-george-w-bush-85932.html#ixzz2HWbSpE8m