0 >> finally, there was the nominee himself, who appeared to have prepared for the hearing by skimming a few briefing talking points on his cab right to the capital and who rather than defending some of hits comments on foreign policy, the importance of exhausting every chance of peace rather than leaping into the horrors of war, the dysfunctional congressional politics of israel/palestine, he seemed resign to glumly recant. >> name one person, in your opinion, who is intimidated by the israeli lobby in the united states senate. >> well, first -- >> name one. >> i don't know. >> well, why would you say it? >> i didn't have in mind a specific person. >> do you agree it's a provocative statement? that i can't think of a more provocative thing to say about the relationship between the united states and israel and the senate or the congress than what you said. name one dumb thing we've had goetded into doing from the pressure of the valley or jewish lobby. >> i have already stated that i regret the terminology. >> american conserve ifr daniel mccarthy who comes from the realist addition of tweeted, this senate hearing is like a malice criticism session. and he was right. american military and foreign policy is doing just great, that the status quo establishment consensus on threats and possible wars is a holy catechism from which no theory can be tolerated. instead of doing penance every single day for the rest of their natural lives for the deaths of 4,042 americans and the deaths of at least 650,000 iraqis, the architects and principal advocates of the iraq war angry brave for more, more aggression, bigger military and more wars. and the nonin the ocon conservatives seem to meekly nod along. the dnc didn't even issue a press release all day. so all of the lessons that could have been learned go unlearned. as we enter the nation's history, so many senators seem intense on laying the groundwork for the next war in iran, they, iran was mentioned 986 times, afghanistan warranted just 26 mentions. why trouble ourselves with that old thing when there are new shiny conflicts on the horizon? more revealingly, in more than 430,000 words in the tript, the words war was mentioned 440 times while the word peace wag mentioned three times. no wonder we've been at war for so long. joining me now, a member of the bush pentagon's defense policy board, michael hastings author of the new digital book "panic 2012, the sublime and terrifying inside story of obama's final campaign ♪ ♪ barbara siegel, also washington correspondent for the middle east website al monitor.com. great to have you all here. >> thank you. >> so i am -- well, where to start? i think the lessons unlearned to me was the most troubling. it seemed to me we had a moment in 2008 particularly in which president obama articulated this kind of alternative foreign policy vision and did so quite forthrightly. for instance, negotiations with iran and ahmadinejad. and somehow four years later, we've moved backwards, right? the old -- i guess as we've gotten further away from the debacle of iraq, as that's more >> you worked in foreign policy circles among republican candidates. where is your understanding of where their understanding is of the iraq war and the importance the surge plays in somehow making the rest of it okay. >> well, there's no one kind of republican center and that's what we were seeing in these hearings. i think it's the fracture in the republican party with manifest and this hearing was a proxy for the breakdown in having a foreign policy and domestic policy center among republicans. and it wasn't so much about chuck hagel as the absence of a consensus and an alternative point of view among republicans. i actually think that there is something of an emerging bipartisanship in foreign policy. just as you stated, there was the hope and change approach across the board in candidate obama in 2008. four years later, we see republicans and democrats actually converging on a number of issues, like afghanistan, that we've got to exit in 2014 without a clear sense of what the residual force will look like. what is happening in this hearing, i can, is that a number of the more conservative republicans were trying to figure out how to stake out a position for what they have stood for as much as what's happening in the party is converging with the democrats. we saw that with romney and the campaign. he didn't show up with an alternative point of view. so i think some senators like mccain are trying to save a republican kind of alternative spirit when, in fact, there's a lot of consensus emerging in the foreign policy realm. >> that's a fascinating point. i think to me what i found so troubling as lefty old me was that basically you have bipartisan consensus, you have a right flank in the personages of lindsay graham and john mccain and ted cruz and there was nothing on the left, right? there was no one affirmatively making the case for anything to the left of what has become. i think you're totally right, this bipartisan consensus here. >> the answer to senator mccain's question was given this sunday in kirkuk where there were 35 iraqis killed. it was given in october where you had 325 iraqis killed. that is the answer to whether the srnlg was a success. that is one of the answers. the other answer is to step back and say how was the surge a success? it was a political success in washington, a political failure in baghdad. it was a political success in washington because you could stand up now with the american people and with a straight face pretend that the iraq war was not a total catastrophe. and the democrats, they've seeded the ground on it. because when obama became the commander in chief, he had to put on the stance that, look, it might have been a really dumb decision, but you guys have done great and the surge worked and the surge, in fact, worked so well we're going to go to afghanistan. that was the argument to go there. so i think they see the narrative and it's tough to get it back. and -- >> the surge in both cases has some political implication here. it's covering the u.s. rear so that the united states can withdrawal its troops, leave these countries to whatever their fates are going to be and say, well, we tried. we put in the maximum effort. and i thought it was unseemly the way in which mccain tight to get chuck hagel to say yes or no. clearly this country is in a great deal of trouble and clearly we have to await the judgment of history and see how this comes out five years, ten years down the radio row. >> that's only one period in a multi year ward. >> hagel tried to talk about the other things, but he was cut off. >> the surge is one part of the bipartisan narrative about how military policy has operated. there were a whole bunch of other aspects that chuck hagel ran afoul of and was forced to recant. we'll talk about that right after this. little did i know that one week later i wasn't smoking. 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