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Iraq war hawks line up against Hagel

f6e9f8b2151aa2ab750257001d96db2b_L (2)A group of Republican architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq have reportedly launched an aggressive campaign to prevent anti-Zionist Senator Chuck Hagel from becoming the next US secretary of war.

On January 7, US President Obama nominated Hagel as the next secretary of defense, despite political uproar over the nomination.
The anti-Hagel campaign is spearheaded by William Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard and an architect of the Iraq invasion, who says he and his like-minded hawks are concerned about Hagel’s opposition to occasional sanctions, military action against Iran, Israeli lobby’s sway in the United States and the American troop surge in Iraq.
In his latest editorial, Kristol argued that Hagel’s claims about his support for the Zionist regime are “nonsense,” and pointed to one of Hagel’s 2006 interviews in which he warns of a “Jewish lobby” that intimidates US legislators into blindly supporting Zionist positions.
While both the Democrats and Republicans are optimistic about confirmation of Hagel, the neoconservatives have gone to great lengths to avert it through TV ads, op-ed articles in mainstream publications and pressure on the Congress.
The Weekly Standard, research groups such as the American Enterprise Institute and affluent Republican financiers like the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, are among the major platforms of the hawkish campaign against Hagel.

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