Opinion

Chuck Hagel: the darling of Tehran

Kenneth Timmerman President, Foundation for Democracy in Iran
Font Size:

The Iranian regime loves Chuck Hagel.

Iran’s official English-language propaganda outlet, Press TV, has suggested that President Obama picked Hagel to be his secretary of defense because he wants Hagel to help craft a “grand bargain with Iran” — you know, the type of deal that would cement in place the clerical dictatorship, spell the end of any hope for U.S. support to the pro-freedom movement, and allow the regime to continue enriching uranium with no verifiable limits.

Another regime publication called Hagel’s selection “a message of peace from the Obama administration to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and admiringly quoted Hagel as claiming sanctions on Iran “will only lead to U.S. isolation.”

Here in the United States, the pro-Tehran lobby was quick to champion Hagel’s cause. Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), argued that Hagel deserved support because he would oppose the “extremist pro-Likud circles … who are seeking to establish a veto on U.S. national security policy.”

Such language, of course, is just a variation on Hagel’s own rant against the influence of the “Jewish lobby” on U.S. politics.

Over the years, Hagel developed a relationship with the American-Iranian Council, a precursor to NIAC. Both groups oppose U.S. sanctions on Iran, support Iranian trade with U.S. businesses, and promote unconditional U.S. negotiations with the Iranian regime over its nuclear program.

These are precisely the changes in U.S. policy that the Iranian regime is seeking. As a U.S. senator, Hagel actively supported all three.

In July 2001, Hagel was one of just two U.S. senators to oppose renewing the original Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA). This was the initial effort by Congress to put pressure on the Iranian regime by imposing sanctions on foreign energy companies investing in Iran’s oil and gas sector.

Hagel’s backers have claimed the senator only opposed unilateral U.S. sanctions. But Hagel’s statements and actions both in the Senate and beyond suggest otherwise.

In June 2001 and again in March 2002, he addressed conferences sponsored by the American-Iranian Council in Washington to emphasize the need for the U.S. to abandon sanctions and open trade with Iran.

From 2006 to 2008, he opposed numerous bills and resolutions that would have stepped up pressure on the Iranian regime, including an October 2006 measure calling on the European Union to join the U.S. in placing the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group on its terrorism list.

In October 2008, he used a Senate privilege to single-handedly kill broad bipartisan legislation, the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, to extend U.S. sanctions and harmonize them with measures then in place worldwide as a result of United Nations Security Council resolutions — about as multilateral as you can get.

Rather than sanctions, Hagel has favored a policy of outreach, negotiation, and accommodation with the Iranian regime regardless of the regime’s actions against the United States, U.S. allies, or its own people.

In May 2007 — less than one year after Hezbollah provoked a war in Lebanon at the instigation of Tehran — Hagel joined Senators Joe Biden and Arlen Specter in addressing a formal invitation to the speaker of the Islamic Republic parliament to meet with U.S. officials.

Later that year, Hagel sent a private letter to President Bush, urging him to engage in “direct talks” with the Iranian regime. The goal of such talks was to dispel the notion “that the United States’ actual objective is regime change in Iran, not a change of Iran’s behavior,” Hagel wrote.

In September 2007, Hagel joined just 15 other senators in opposing a bill to add the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to the State Department’s list of international terrorist organizations because of its involvement in murdering U.S. troops in Iraq.

Hagel’s supporters write, “In an interview on Nov. 9, 2007, Hagel told the Lincoln Journal Star that he feared the Bush administration might use the Senate resolution on Iran as cover for a military attack.” But as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Hagel knew full well that the soon-to-be released National Intelligence Estimate on Iran would impose an insurmountable roadblock to any such plans, if they did indeed exist.

Congress has been instrumental in helping steer the Obama administration toward policies to increase pressure on the Islamic regime in Tehran, while expanding on work done by the two previous administrations to build an international coalition to slow down the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iranian regime.

Chuck Hagel opposed these polices when he was in the U.S. Senate, and has continued to do so since then.

As Tehran’s best friend in Washington, he is exactly the wrong person to be President Obama’s man at the Pentagon.

Kenneth R. Timmerman is the founder and President of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (iran.org), and the author of “Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran.”

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel