Foreign Policy Analyst Turzanski On Hagel Resignation: 'Obama Wants To Demonstrate He's Making Changes'
By Rich Zeoli
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Foreign policy analyst Ed Turzanski criticized the Obama administration for their handling of the resignation of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, suggesting politics played a major role in the decision.
Turzanski, the John Templeton Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a Political Science Professor at La Salle University, told Rich Zeoli on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT this is no surprise because the White House and the Pentagon have been at odds for some time.
"What really put him in a bad place was that when the President was referring to ISIS as the JV's, Chuck Hagel and General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, were both saying that this is one of the most serious threats to American national security. That just really created problems for him, especially with the gate keepers, Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes. As far as this announcement, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and FOX News all reported that White House sources were leaking to their favorite reporters, two hours in advance of the President's statement that Hagel had been pushed out."
He believes this was the easiest change for President Obama to make heading into the new year, with a new Congress coming in January.
"The administration took a beating in the last election and the President wants to demonstrate that he's making changes. Hagel was the low hanging fruit, so to speak. He was the easy guy to push out. By the way, I don't have much sympathy for him because he remains very loyal to the administration. He won't be clear about what happened and instead, we're left to the leakers. Ask yourself this, has any administration ever had people, who on such a routine basis, have taken national security matters to favorite reporters and leaked them, rather than have it come directly from the White House. I think the answer is no."
Turazanski also predicted who he expects the new Secretary of Defense will be.
"It's very likely Michele Flournoy, who had a Deputy Pentagon Secretary; she'd be the first African-American female in the position. The Administration would probably like to play that card because race and gender have been very prominent in the President's selections. Right now, the thing to keep in mind, most Presidencies, as they get to this stage, are looking to try to broaden the cabinet and, certainly in a time of war, to bring the party opposite into a wartime cabinet, not this Administration. What you see is ideological purity."
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