Chuck Hagel said Sunday that the Obama administration has not clearly laid out its political strategy in the Middle East, a concern he expressed to the White House in a memo while serving as secretary of defense.
Hagel said the administration must first define whether the enemy is Syrian President Bashar Assad or the Islamic State, then unite with unlikely allies who have a common enemy.
“We can keep killing people, we can keep playing a proxy war game and destroying the Middle East,” Hagel said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But the Russians have got to be part of this, I think Iranians have got to be part of this.”
“There’s no prospect for bringing any kind of stability on the path we’re on now,” Hagel continued.
The airstrikes, which have been ongoing for more than a year, are an important part of a strategy, but Hagel also said the administration must focus on a political strategy and make sure to consider second and third order effects of its actions.
Despite expressing his views in a memo, on which the administration had a difference of opinion, Hagel acknowledged that it’s a complicated situation.
“There are no easy simple solutions regardless of some who seem to have glib … quick solutions. There are none,” he said.
