The Blue State

Hagel's letter to Bush

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) will not run for reelection in 2008.  Before his term expires, he plans to do everything to prevent a war with Iran.  In a private letter (.pdf) to President Bush, secretly obtained by the Washington Note blog, Hagel begs the President to engage in direct, unconditional talks with Iran to prevent the neocons' biggest fantasy from coming true:

The President

The White House

Washington, DC  20500

Dear Mr. President:

I write to urge you to consider pursuing direct, unconditional and comprehensive talks with the Government of Iran.

In the last two years, the United States has worked closely with thepermanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany, Japan, and otherkey states as well as the UN Secretary General and the Director Generalof the International Atomic Energy Agency to pursue a diplomaticstrategy regarding Iran's nuclear program. I have supported yourefforts. Maintaining a cohesive and united international front remainsone of our most effective levers on Iran.

In the last year, you have also authorized our Ambassador in Iraq,Ryan Crocker, to hold bilateral talks with Iranian officials regardingthe situation in Iraq. I have also supported this effort. Although Iranhas continued dangerous actions in Iraq, this channel for dialogue isimportant.

I am increasingly concerned, however, that this diplomatic strategyis stalling. There are growing differences with our internationalpartners. Concerns remain that the United States' actual objectives isregime change in Iran, not a change in Iran's behavior. Prospects forfurther action in the UN Security Council have grown dim, and we appearincreasingly reliant on a single-track effort to expand financialpressure on Iran outside of the UN Security Council. Iran's actions,both on its nuclear program and in Iraq, are unchanged. Iran's leadersappear increasingly confident in their positions vis-a-vis the UnitedStates.

Unless there is a strategic shift, I believe we will find ourselvesin a dangerous and increasingly isolated position in the coming months.I do not see how the collective actions that we are now taking willproduce the results that we seek. If this continues, our ability tosustain a united international front will weaken as countries growuncertain over our motives and unwilling to risk open confrontationwith Iran, and we are left with fewer and fewer policy options.

Now is the time for the United States to active consider when andhow to offer direct, unconditional, and comprehensive talks with Iran.The offer should be made even as we continue to work with our allies onfinancial pressure, in the UN Security Council on a third sanctionsresolution, and in the region to support those Middle East countrieswho share our concerns with Iran. The November report by IAEA DirectorGeneral ElBaradei to the IAEA Board of Governors could provide anopportunity to advance the offer of bilateral talks.

An approach such as this would strengthen our ability across theboard to deal with Iran. Our friends and allies would be more confidentto stand with us if we seek to increase pressure, including toughersanctions on Iran. It could create a historic new dynamic in US-Iranrelations, in part forcing the Iranians to react to the possibility ofbetter relations with the West. We should be prepared that any dialogueprocess with Iran will take time, and we should continue all efforts,as you have, to engage Iran from a position of strength.

We should not wait to consider the option of bilateral talks untilall other diplomatic options are exhausted. At that point, it couldwell be too late.

I urge you to consider pursing direct, unconditional and comprehensive talks with the Government of Iran.

Thank you for considering my views.

Best wishes.

Sincerely,

Chuck H.

Chuck Hagel
United States Senator

cc:   Condoleezza Rice

Robert M. Gates

Stephen J. Hadley

At least he is ending his career with this aggressive attitude.  Remember, the Republicans used to be the party of isolation.  Ron Paul is trying to fill that vacuum.  Speaking of whom, Ron Paul appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno earlier this week.

Hagel to announce retirement on Monday

One of the few Republican lawmakers to hold true to his conservative principles during the Iraq war is retiring:

Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a persistent Republican critic of theIraq war, intends to announce on Monday he will not seek a third term,according to Republican officials.

The officials also said Hagel does not plan to run for the White House in 2008, despite earlier flirting with a candidacy.

The60-year-old senator arranged a news conference for Monday in Omaha,Neb., to make his formal announcement. The officials spoke on conditionof anonymity to avoid pre-empting the event.

Weeks ago, it was rumored that Democrat Bob Kerrey would seek the Nebraska Senate seat if Hagel retired.  This is yet another seat that the Democrats could pick up.  Of the 34 Senate seats up for grabs in 2008, 22 of them are Republican.  Democrats have a shot to end up with 55 Senate seats, more House seats and a Democrat in the White House.

Webb furious about GOP's anti-troop vote yesterday

With the war in Iraq stretching our military beyond a breaking point, Senators Jim Webb (D-VA) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) pressed hard to pass legislation that would have given our troops more time in between deployments.  The bill simply stated that the amount of time a soldier spends overseas should be no greater than the time spent on the home front.

Republicans filibustered the bill.  They were joined by Senator Lieberman (I-CT).  Webb and Hagel came up just four votes shy of the 60 votes needed.  Senator Webb's office sent a letter out to a group of selected blogs, including The Blue State, outlining the Senator's frustration:

A Republican filibuster kept this amendment from passing by anup-or-down vote. Americans are tired of this kind of posturing. The troops andtheir families don’t want to hear about political, procedural maneuvers.What they really care about are results. They are looking for concrete actionsthat will protect the well-being of our men and women in uniform.

The question onthis amendment is not whether you support this war or whether you do not. It is not whether you want to wait until July or September to see where oneparticular set of bench marks or summaries might be taking us.  Thequestion is this:  more than four years into ground operations in Iraq,we owe stability, and a reasonable cycle of deployment, to the men and womenwho are carrying our nation’s burden.  That is the question. And that was the purpose of this amendment.

The former Republican majority spent five years complaining about the Democrats' repeated filibustering of President Bush's judicial nominees.  Now in the minority, the GOP just filibustered a bill that improves the lives of our troops.  For some reason, when people like Max Cleland vote against subsidies for defense contractors, they get labeled as unpatriotic.  But when the majority of Republicans destroy a bill intended to help our troops, it is considered pro-victory.

Hagel: No military solution in Iraq

In an op-ed this morning in the Des Moines Register, Senator Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) took issue with the Administration's blurry reality of who we are fighting in Iraq:

We must start by understanding what's really happening in Iraq.According to the National Intelligence Estimate released in February,the conflict has become a "self-sustaining inter-sectarian strugglebetween Shia and Sunnis" and also includes "extensive Shia-on-Shiaviolence." This means that Iraq is being consumed by sectarian warfare,much of it driven by Shiite or Sunni militias - not al-Qaidaterrorists. Yes, there are admirers of Osama bin Laden in the country,including a full-blown al-Qaida branch. But terrorists are not the coreproblem; Sunni-Shiite violence is. The Bush administration's rhetorichas not been nearly clear enough on this key point.

American occupation cannot stop a civil war in Iraq. Our military,superb as it is, can only do so much. The only lasting answer to Iraq'sanguish will come from a political resolution. There will be nomilitary solution in Iraq.

Full Article

This pretty much erases the notion that we are fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't fight them here.  We are talking about a sectarian civil war.  They are fighting one another and anyone else that occupies their land.  They have lived there for a millennium.  Does the Administration really think that these locals will just drop everything and travel to the U.S. to harm us?

Either the Administration is in a state of denial or, more likely, they are in a state of active deception.

Senator Hagel Disagrees with the WH about the War, and in another interview says "you might see calls for his impeachment"

Senator Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning, had some interesting things to say about the War and the President.

Hagel disagrees that "right now we're actually seeing the increasein forces actually start to deliver some results in Baghdad," as theWhite House has argued.

"No, I don't see that," Hagel told Stephanopoulos. "In fact, thereare more incidents, not less. Sure, in parts of Baghdad, in overallBaghdad, over the last two or three weeks, we have seen some fewer, butnot around the country. Look at what happened two days ago, one of thetwo vice presidents of Iraq was attacked there at his own compound andis lying mortally wounded in a hospital."

In an interview published in April's edition of Esquire Magazine, (video of Hagel  telling  the Senators  "If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes." is on the link as well)   Senator Hagel said to  Charles P. Pierce

"The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore. He'snot accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him,and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. Idon't know. It depends how this goes."

Senator Hagel is considering running for President in 2008, maybe this is all "politics as usual" to help him in his campaign, or maybe his conscious is leading him down the right path, let's hope for the latter.

Hagel calls for new foreign policy realism

In a well thought out speech on Thursday, Chuck Hagel slammed the Administration's Middle East foreign policy strategy.  Of course, the golden rule in politics is not to criticize unless you have the audacity of hope to suggest an alternative.  Well, he did.  The Nebraska Senator called for a new era of foreign policy realism that consists of diplomacy with all countries, coupled with an end to flawed judgment about the use of force:

Here is an excerpt of the speech (via Washington Note):

We will fail to protect and advance America's interests -- in theMiddle East and around the world -- if we allow ourselves to be trappedin a self-constructed world based not on reality but on flawedassumptions and flawed judgment leading to flawed policy and dangerousmiscalculations.

The United States must approach the Middle East with a clearunderstanding of the complexities of the region. Our strategic policiesmust be regional in scope. . .integrating Iran, Iraq, Syria, theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict, violent Islamic extremism, access toenergy supplies, and political reform into a comprehensive policyequation.

In the latest issue of Time Magazine, Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) responded to 10 questions from readers about his decision to break with the GOP on Iraq.

An explanation of why the Iraq resolution was stalled

Most of us were in utter shock late-yesterday when Republican Senators Chuck Hagel and John Warner decided to vote against opening debate on a resolution that they helped craft.  After analyzing what happened, it is pretty clear that Warner's ultimate goal is to try and further manipulate the wording of the resolution itself as a pretext for any Senate debate.  In layman's terms, it is Warner's way or the highway.

What transpired on the Senate floor last night was the legislative version of shock and awe.  At one moment, Chuck Hagel delivered one of the greatest speeches of his career.  Just minutes later, Hagel pulled a 180-degree turn (watch the video):

CHUCK HAGEL: "Madam president, I will have more to say as the debate goes forward this week.  And as I noted, I have every confidence in our two leaders that they will work out -- they will work out a resolution where we will have this debate because it is clearly in the interest of our country.  It is clearly in the interest of our troops.  And with that, Madam president, I would yield back my time and yield the floor, thank you.

Then, Warner quickly jumped in to clarify Hagel's comments:

JOHN WARNER: "Madam president, before the Senator yields, I would like to associate myself with your remarks.  And I too have confidence in our leadership being able to work this out.  And accordingly, no matter how strongly I feel about my resolution, I shall vote with our distinguished leader on this issue in hope that it can reconcile the differences."

Translation: one of four things just happened.  Either:

1. There is an internal struggle inside the GOP that is preventing Warner from getting the necessary votes.
2. Warner wants more GOP support to make him look less like a party outsider.  He does not want to become the scapegoat for the collapse of Iraq.
3. Republicans threatened not to support him in the '08 Senate primaries if he passed the resolution.
4. Warner wants the rhetoric in the resolution altered.

Immediately, we know that scenario #1 is completely out of the question.  Warner has at least 61 votes to pass the Iraq resolution.

Scenario #2 is not the case either.  Warner has prided himself on being an old-school realist Republican, and has voted without the party before.  Plus, no matter what happens, it is unlikely that the GOP would waste time mounting a branding campaign against him.  This is Bush's war, and everyone knows it.

Scenario #3 cannot be true either.  According to the campaign disclosure web site Open Secrets, John Warner has already raised nearly $700,000 for his 2008 Senate run.  It is highly unlikely that the GOP would waste resources and recruit a challenger.

That leaves Scenario #4.  We all know for a fact that Warner successfully negotiated with Democrat Carl Levin last week to remove certain words from the Biden-Levin-Hagel resolution.  So this kind of language manipulation is not new.  The only problem is that he went back on his word.  Warner promised Levin that the resolution would pass if he could change some of the wording.  Now, what Warner seems to be saying is "if my party isn't with me, then this bill will not go through.  My party will only be with me if we can modify the language even more."  Warner has the votes to pass it, but he is choosing not to do so unless the wording is altered in the President's favor.

This is also part of an effort by the GOP to delay the eventual end of the Iraq war.  This non-binding resolution will come first.  Then will come a cap on troops.  Then will come a timetable.  Then will come the cutting off of funds.  We all know the sequence of events that are about to play out.  Therefore, the longer the Republicans can delay and tinker with this resolution, the longer it will eventually take for the Congress to get to the point where they can cut off funds.

I hope this all made sense.

Cheney: Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican

Nothing is a better illustration of the GOP's closed-tent mindset than what was revealed during Newsweek's interview with Dick Cheney.  The sitting Vice President admitted that he was notably frustrated with some in his party, such as Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), that have been speaking out in opposition to the Administration's policy in Iraq.

Here is that portion of the interview:

Q Senator Hagel said some pretty harsh things aboutthe administration yesterday. He said, there was no strategy. He said --

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  It's not the first time.

Q Well, he said it was a -- the "ping-pong game with human beings."  Do you have a reaction to that kind of comment?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I thought that Joe Lieberman's comments twodays ago before -- it was when the Armed Services Committee had GeneralPetraeus up for his confirmation hearings were very important. And Joebasically said that the plan deserved an opportunity to succeed that --I think this was Joe, if it wasn't Joe, one of the other members did --that we're sending General Petraeus out with probably a unanimous ornear unanimous vote, and that it didn't make sense for Congress tosimultaneously then pass a resolution disapproving of the strategy inIraq.

Q So you don't think Senator Hagel -- and now you dodged completelyresponding to his comments -- but they're not helpful to the cause andto the mission?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Let's say I believe firmly in Ronald Reagan's11th commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican. Butit's very hard sometimes to adhere to that where Chuck Hagel isinvolved.

Aside from Cheney no longer considering Hagel a Republican, this interview underscores what the Bush-Cheney Administration has done to the GOP.  If you recall back to 1996, the party nominated a traditionally conservative political veteran who knew how to both respectfully disagree and act like a true elder statesman.  Bob Dole showed both class and maturity during that campaign.  Although he lost the election to a very popular incumbent president, Dole set a very good example for his party.

Today, the situation is totally different.  The Bush-Cheney combination has set a terrible example as leaders of the Republican Party.  The fact that Republicans are not allowed to even criticize their own is a testament to how closed-minded and closed-tent this party has become in the opening stanza of this young century.

(Video) Hagel calls Iraq a "grinder"

Earlier today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a resolution that was sponsored by senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Ben Nelson (D-NE), which condemns the President's troop escalation proposal.  It will now head to the Senate floor for a full vote.

But before the resolution was cleared, Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), a member of that committee, gave one of the fiercest rebukes of Bush's war policy that any Republican has given to this day.  Watch this:

At the risk of hurting Senator Hagel by writing this, he might make the perfect Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2008 -- especially if McCain picks Lieberman, as it is rumored.