Opinion: Biden’s Bad Judgment and Pentagon

President Biden turned to Mr. Kahl for Undersecretary of Defense for Politics, one of the most important non-cabinet jobs in the federal government. While the secretary of defense deals with high-level defense policies and the deputy secretary manages the department on a daily basis, the undersecretary plays the strategy of establishing the main role – including representing the department at National Security Council meetings.

Mr Kahl’s strategic misjudgments have been handed down. In 2015, as Mr Biden’s national security adviser, Mr Kahl called for a reduction in sanctions on Iran, saying that “they will not spend the vast majority of their money on weapons, most will go to butter”. In this case, Tehran took advantage of the exceptional benefits to increase its funding for proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

Outside the government, Mr. Kahl has repeatedly attacked the Trump administration’s reorientation of Iran’s policy, tweeting in 2019 that “hawks” in Congress “will not be satisfied until they receive the war they have been waging for decades.” Democrat Joe Manchin, the swing vote of the military services that opposed Iran’s agreement and applauded President Trump’s withdrawal from 2018, might wonder if Mr. Kahl thinks he is also a militant.

Mr Kahl seems unable to see the strategic benefits to US interests in limiting Iran. He sees only apocalyptic risks. After the US strike that killed Iranian terrorist commander Qasem Soleimani, who had the blood of thousands of Americans on his hands, Mr. Kahl’s reaction on Twitter was that “Trump has started a war with Iran in Iraq.” The war never came.

When the United States decided to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Mr. Kahl said “Trump’s decision in Jerusalem further isolates the United States” and warned of a “third Intifada” or Palestinian uprising. However, the Embassy movement strengthened America’s ties with the Middle East’s closest ally. The Trump administration’s broader rebalancing of the Middle East with Israel and the Gulf states has helped mediate closer Arab-Israeli ties, culminating in the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Mr Kahl described the agreements at his hearing as “the culmination of a set of trends, frankly, that have been in the region for about a decade”. However, he does not recognize how the US court in Iran can destabilize the region. He does not seem to have revised his mind on the 2015 nuclear deal at all, although even some supporters of the deal acknowledge that the Trump administration’s sanctions on Iran have been stronger than they thought possible.

Last week, senators pressured Mr. Kahl on the idea of ​​a “first-use” nuclear policy that would undermine the credibility of American deterrence, which Joe Biden approved when Mr. Kahl was his adviser. Mr Kahl did not give a clear position in a written reply to the committee, although at the meeting he said he was opposed. A 2017 tweet also seems to suggest skepticism about the ground-based strategic deterrent missile system planned in America.

Democratic administrations rely more on diplomacy and weak power than Republican administrations, and this is clearly the Biden team’s preference. But given the State Department, full of liberal internationalists, and John Kerry, as a cabinet climate envoy, it’s important for the Pentagon to offer a counter-perspective.

Mr Kahl’s nomination is in jeopardy for bombastic tweets, such as his statement that “every Republican senator” who has supported arms sales to Saudi Arabia “shares ownership of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” But there are strong political reasons for the Senate to exercise its advice and consent to the power to call for a tougher strategic thinker for this crucial post of national security.