Hagel himself doesn't matter. He won’t make foreign policy. Obama will run it out of the White House even more tightly than he did in the first term. Hagel's importance is the message his nomination sends about where Obama wants to go. The lessons are being duly drawn. Iran’s official media have already cheered the choice of what they call this “anti-Israel” nominee. And they fully understand what his nomination signals regarding administration resolve about stopping them from going nuclear.
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