Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Secretary of State John Kerry and Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testify at the House Armed Services Committee in Washington, D.C., Sept. 10, 2013. DOD photo by U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Aaron Hostutler
Pentagon In Back Seat As Kerry Leads Charge -- Tom Shanker, New York Times
WASHINGTON — In the weeks of sometimes bewildering debate in Washington about what to do in Syria, one truth has emerged: President Obama has transformed his relationship with the Pentagon and the military.
The civilian policy makers and generals who led Mr. Obama toward a troop escalation in Afghanistan during his first year in office, a decision that left him deeply distrustful of senior military leaders, have been replaced by a handpicked leadership that includes Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Through battlefield experience — Mr. Hagel as an infantryman in 1967 and 1968 in Vietnam, and General Dempsey as a commander during some of the most violent years in Iraq — both men share Mr. Obama’s reluctance to use American military might overseas. A dozen years after the Pentagon under Donald H. Rumsfeld began aggressively driving national security policy, the two have wholeheartedly endorsed a more restricted Pentagon role.
“Hagel was not hired to be a ‘secretary of war,’ ” said one senior Defense Department official. “That is not a mantle the president wants him to wear.”
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My Comment: The leadership at the Pentagon are just reflecting what their Commander in Chief President Obama has made very clear in the past few weeks .... as well as (probably) mirroring their own personal opionions .... that the military option is their least favorable option.
Whether the leaders in the Pentagon favor it or not, the fact remains that they haven't been given a clear objective in the Syria crisis. It's one thing for politicians to rattle sabers, but they have to come up with some idea of what it is that the military is supposed to accomplish. How was a military strike supposed to eliminate the chemical threat and capability of al-Assad?
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