President Obama will nominate former Pentagon official Ashton Carter as his next secretary of defense as soon as this week, tapping a technocrat seen as a safe selection for an increasingly insular White House.
After a handful of potential candidates dropped out of the running for the top Pentagon post, Carter, the former deputy defense secretary, was essentially the lone remaining name on the White House’s short list for the position, according to multiple sources familiar with the selection process.
The expected selection of Carter comes after Obama forced out Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who fell out of favor with the White House and complained about being micro-manged by the president’s inner circle.
Carter, a long-time deputy once passed over for the job given to Hagel, is unlikely to clash with Obama — an increasingly valuable commodity for a president burned by past defense secretaries who have have openly criticized his policies.
“Safe, safe, safe,” said a former Obama counterterrorism adviser when asked to describe why Obama selected Carter. “With just two years left, [the president] doesn’t want any drama. Ash will be easily confirmed. Nobody doubts his qualifications. But more than anything, he’ll mesh with this national security team.”
Hagel’s surprising departure from the Pentagon followed his repeated squabbles with the White House over the administration’s Syria policy and the president’s blueprint for combating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. White House officials also grew frustrated with what they saw as Hagel stonewalling the transfer of prisoners from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The White House on Tuesday would not officially confirm that Obama had selected Carter but did little to deter such speculation.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that Carter was “someone who deserves and certainly has demonstrated strong bipartisan support.”
Not that many people seemed to want the Pentagon job, however.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson opted to stay in his current post rather than undergo another Senate confirmation hearing. Michele Flournoy, a close ally of likely 2016 frontrunner Hillary Clinton, also dropped out of the running. And Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., immediately threw cold water on the idea of leaving the upper chamber for the Pentagon.
Carter has no uniformed military service but served as the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer.
If confirmed, Carter would immediately step into the administration’s campaign to eliminate the Islamic State and curtail Russian aggression in Ukraine, among a barrage of various crises that have vexed this White House.
Carter’s immediate challenge will be finding his place in an administration not exactly known for accommodating Cabinet members.
And some analysts said the Pentagon was not to blame for the rising tensions between Obama and the Defense Department — and that even Carter would have issues with the current White House management style.
“I don’t think the drama was the function of the defense secretary,” said Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke chairman in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Those are issues where basically the White House has not provided the leadership or guidance to get a clear pattern of support from the Department of Defense.”
Former Defense Secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta issued damning indictments of the White House after leaving the Pentagon, accusing the president of being too slow to respond to a variety of international threats and enabled by close advisers unwilling to challenge his policies.
Carter quietly left the Pentagon in late 2013. At the time, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joked that Carter was the “most important, least-known figure in Washington.”
Given that perception, Cordesman said Carter was an obvious choice for Obama at this stage of his presidency.
“He is not seen as political or polarizing,” Cordesman said of Carter. “He did well with the White House in the past.”
