Ayoon Wa Azan (Obama -1 or Obama -2)

The battle against Barack Obama’s nominations for the senior posts in his second administration will allow us to see whether we are dealing with a new Obama 2, or the same old Obama 1, the appeasing and hesitant president. The President’s nomination of John Kerry to the post of Secretary of State, Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, and John Brennan as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was met by huge backlash from the U.S. right, especially the warmongers of the Republican Party, and with them the neocon supporters of Israel, and the Israel lobby or the Jewish lobby as once described by Hagel. I do not think that the warmongers can stop the nomination of John Kerry, who has been a senator since 1985, and a hero of the Vietnam War before that, who was awarded the Purple Heart three times. However, the supporters of Israel have an extraordinary ability for infinite insolence and for turning facts upside down. Meanwhile, there are members of the first administration who are returning, and I do not expect that their confirmation will be met with any problems. Personally, and I write as an Arab journalist, I do not support nor oppose the nomination of Brennan to head the CIA. My reservations against him include the fact that he supported the use of violent interrogation techniques with terror suspects in Guantanamo; and that he is a main proponent of the use of drones, in Pakistan and Yemen, which have killed many civilians along with their targets. Brennan’s background is supposed to be enough for him to gain the support of the right, but the advocates of Israel reproach him for denying the existence of Islamic terrorism, and his defense of Islam and the Muslims. I say that there are fundamentalist and extremist terrorists, but I add that it is Israel that is responsible for their existence. Indeed, were it not for the ongoing Israeli terrorism beginning decades ago, there would not have been any terrorism in response. I do not think that Obama will find great difficulty in snatching the support of the Senate for his nomination of Kerry and Brennan, but Chuck Hagel will be a real test for the President. So will we see in the White House a man free from all shackles and willing to defend his principles, or will we see the same man who said one thing during his first term and then did another, and sought to appease his enemies even when they insulted him, incited against him and lied about him every day? Hagel is a Republican who was a supporter of Ronald Reagan, and yet the right wing of the Republican Party, which includes warmongers and advocates of Israel, opposes him. So what exactly is his crime? He is being accused of being opposed to homosexuals, although he apologized for his previous position against them and retracted his criticism of them. He is also being accused of having written and lectured in favor of dialogue over confrontation, including with Iran and its nuclear program. But the most important accusation is that he once spoke about a Jewish lobby blackmailing Congress, instead of calling it an Israeli lobby, and said that he is a U.S. and not Israeli senator. He was thus accused of anti-Semitism, which he strongly denied. This man returned from Vietnam carrying two Purple Hearts and shrapnel in his chest. If Hagel opposes war, then it is because he has tasted its woes, and can admit his mistakes. Indeed, he had supported the war on Iraq before becoming one of its fiercest opponents. But the advocates of Israel in the United States are always willing to sacrifice America’s youths at the altar of Israel’s interests. Neoconservative symbols have expressed their objection to Hagel’s nomination, including Bill Kristol and his magazine The Weekly Standard, which ran with four commentaries in one day against Hagel. The extremist immigrant to the U.S. Reuel Marc Gerecht criticized the fact that Hagel is against U.S. hegemony in the world, while the Likudnik-leaning Elliott Abrams, and Jonah Goldberg like him, took part in the pro-Israeli campaign against the president's nominee. The peace envoy Aaron David-Miller, in an article in the Washington Post defending Hagel, refuted all the lies published in the same paper by the Likudnik Charles Krauthammer. In turn, Nicholas Kristof, one of the most prominent American journalists, wrote in the New York Times a comment titled "In Defense of Hagel for Defense," which I find to have settled the whole matter. Indeed, Kristof condemned those opposed to Hagel’s nomination, exposed them and uncovered their lies and exaggerations conclusively. It remains to be seen whether we will have Barack Obama -1 or Barack Obama -2 in the coming weeks. --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.