What Hagel Got Right

"Scapegoat," the term Peter Feaver employed in reacting to the firing of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, actually was a goat that the Bible tells us carried the sins of the Israelites with it as it was sent off to meet its death in the desert. And scapegoat is the perfect simile for this decent man who never had a chance in the dysfunctional Obama administration. His performance at his confirmation hearings notwithstanding, Hagel performed creditably as secretary, despite the fact that, like Jim Jones, he was shut out of the president’s inner circle from his very first day in office.

Hagel clearly had been chosen over other possible candidates precisely because he was not part of the defense community. The White House wanted someone who would implement its strategy, not help to formulate it. It wanted someone who would not protest against defense budget cuts, driven by a desire to have defense contribute its "fair share" toward deficit reduction. Hagel complied, which to a large part explains his silence at White House meetings. After all, what was the point of speaking out if the inner circle was not going to listen to him anyway?

Where Hagel was given some leeway he performed far better than many pundits anticipated, and for which he has received little credit. Take relations with Israel, for example. Hagel was bitterly attacked as someone who was anti-Israel, and some even went so far as to call him anti-Semitic. The latter accusation was pure rubbish. And Hagel maintained a close relationship with his Israeli opposite number, Defense Minister Bogie Yaalon, even as the president made it obvious that he couldn’t stand Bibi Netanyahu, and his White House staff was calling the prime minister a "chickenshit."

Hagel also kept lines open to the Egyptian military even as the White House was making a hash of American relations with Cairo. His ability to reach out to Abdel Fateh el-Sisi made all the difference when the general assumed the presidency of his country. Egypt is still the most important country in the Middle East, and Hagel deserves most of the credit for preventing the complete rupture of ties with Cairo.

Hagel strongly supported Under Secretary of Defense Frank Kendall’s defense reforms, and brought in a capable manager, Bob Work, as his deputy. He inveighed against the sequester, though his concerns, like those of his predecessors, fell on deaf ears when they reached the White House. He took a strong stand against sexual misconduct in the military, and, more generally was a forceful advocate for maintaining that those in uniform adhere to the highest ethical standards as a matter of course. And he related to ordinary troops as well as any of his predecessors had.

Hagel was not dismissed because he embodied a strategy that the White House wished to change. The White House continues to cling to the notion that it is doing everything right, and that what its strategy requires is minor tweaks, not a massive overhaul. Rather, Hagel was dismissed in order to protect those who really have been in charge of formulating a national security strategy that has been a dismal failure, namely, the handful of individuals who constitute the inner circle of presidential advisors. These are the people who are responsible for the premature withdrawal from Iraq; the premature announcement of a withdrawal from Afghanistan; the unfulfilled promise of the pivot to Asia; the red line on Syria that wasn’t; the confused response to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine and to the rise of the Islamic State.

None of these individuals shows any sign of moving on. The inner circle remains intact. The scapegoat has been sent on his way.