[Peace-discuss] Why was Hagel fired?

[C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss]

I think he lost a faction fight. His fate was already sealed when the administration dropped into last Friday night's news-hole (where embarrassing stories go to die) their expansion of the killing in Afghanistan, by air and ground, in spite of all Obama's lies about "winding it down."

There's a split in the Obama administration (i.e., the White House staff, NSC, State, Defense, Pentagon and some elements of Congress). The split mirrors the contest in the Mideast between the Sunni alliance (Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, ISIS - supported by the US) and the Shia alliance (Iran, Syria, Hesbollah, Iraq - supported by the SCO).

Hagel's (& Kerry's?) faction want a deal with Iran so that Iran once again becomes America's "cop on the beat" in the Gulf. Their opponents want a redoubled effort of the US military to control the energy-rich region, to use it as a weapon to roll back Russian (& Chinese) economic influence in Eurasia. (Note what's happened to oil prices in  the recent quarter; the Russian economy is dependent on them.)

The latter strategy is seen as serving the (economic) interests of the 1% more than the former. Therefore Hagel had to go, as he was tending to stand in the way (as shown by his hesitations re the ongoing attack on Assad).

The liberals who supported Hagel for SecDef, on the grounds that he would be less belligerent than the rest of the Obama administration, may have been right.

"Obama just can’t seem to acquire any cred as the stone-cold killer he is": <http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/21/the-first-un-war/>.

--CGE

PS - The fact that the stone-cold killer "triangulates" hawkish Hillary thereby, is just icing on the yellow-cake...

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