Don't blame Chuck Hagel: Obama's foreign policy has been a disaster from end to end

The ousted secretary of defense makes a convenient scapegoat. But Obama should be pointing the finger at himself.

Chuck Hagel
(Image credit: (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque))

After just one year and nine months, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is out, and shouldering much of the blame for the president's foreign policy with his "resignation."

But canning Hagel won't help. The problems with President Obama's foreign policy have almost nothing to do with Chuck Hagel. Sources close to Hagel suggest that the Nebraskan realist mostly carried out orders from above, and only differed from the president in more quickly realizing that the Islamic State could constitute a threat to U.S. interests. In that, Hagel was right.

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is the founder and editor of The Slurve, a newsletter about baseball. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN Magazine, Slate and The American Conservative.