Carter Nomination Sets Up Senate Critique of Obama Policies

President Barack Obama Friday nominated Ash Carter to succeed Chuck Hagel as the next defense secretary, capping a week of uncertainty about who will fill one of the administration’s most powerful posts and setting the stage for a high-profile confirmation hearing that Republicans will use to criticize the White House’s foreign-policy strategies.

Carter, 60, with degrees in theoretical physics and medieval history, has worked at the Pentagon in several roles, including as the top weapons buyer and the deputy defense secretary in the Obama administration. He previously served as an arms-control expert at the Defense Department during the Clinton administration. Taking his various stints together, Carter has worked under 11 secretaries of defense, Obama said at a White House event Friday announcing Carter’s nomination. If confirmed, Carter will become Obama’s fourth secretary of defense.

Carter is widely liked by lawmakers and isn’t expected to face remotely as much opposition as Hagel did during his own disastrous confirmation hearings in 2013. Still, Carter’s hearing will give the Senate’s new Republican leadership their first serious chance to question the Obama administration’s handling of Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine, China’s continued ascendancy, and the escalating fight against the Islamic State, which controls swaths of both Syria and Iraq and is threatening to erase other international borders.

“I look forward to Dr. Carter’s confirmation hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee next year, which will provide a valuable opportunity to fully ventilate all of issues around this Administration’s feckless foreign policy, and its grave consequences for the safety and security of our nation,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in a statement.

McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam and former Republican presidential nominee, is set to become chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will consider Carter’s nomination. He has been a consistent critic of the Obama administration for its failure to arm Syrian rebels opposing the country’s brutal president, Bashar al-Assad, in a civil war that has fueled the emergence of the Islamic State and other violent extremist groups. McCain has also attacked Obama’s plans to withdraw the remaining U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan, where a Taliban insurgency is showing dangerous signs of revival across the land.

Other Republican lawmakers pointed to challenges Carter will face in dealing with a White House that has not only exercised tight control over policymaking and implementation but has also violated the military’s lines of authority. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that he found White House aides calling military commanders in Afghanistan.

“It was micromanagement that drove me crazy,” Gates said Nov. 16 at the Reagan National Defense Forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. White House officials sometimes called top U.S. generals about strategy and tactics as well as the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which oversees American commando operations, Gates added, according to Military.com. “I told JSOC if they got a call from the White House, you tell them to go to hell and call me.”

“My concern is that Carter’s experience and well-respected credentials will be squandered by micromanagers in the White House,” Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), a member of the Appropriations and Intelligence committees, said in a statement. “The president’s indecisive and flawed strategies to address recent crises have put our military and national security in an unsustainable position. As the Senate considers Carter’s nomination, my hope is that he will put forth a candid assessment of the serious issues we face.”

Another influential Republican lawmaker, Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, the incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, echoed concerns about the White House management style.

“If confirmed, his challenge will be to resist the micromanagement of the White House staff that has plagued his three predecessors and to speak candidly to Congress and the American people on what is required to defend the country,” Thornberry said in a statement.

Indeed, Carter said he’d do just that, as every cabinet member promises.

“If confirmed in this job, I pledge to you my most candid strategic advice,” Carter said at the White House event after he was introduced by Obama. “And I pledge also that you will receive equally candid military advice.”

It remains to be seen how well such advice will be received among Obama’s aides.

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