Bickering over US nominations reveals tensions

Republicans have angered President Obama by delaying the finalization of his second-term national security team. But no power vacuum ensues, as the incumbents stay in office until their successors are rubberstamped. Senate Republicans have temporarily blocked a confirmation vote on Chuck Hagel as US defense secretary. The nomination of John Brennan as CIA director has also been delayed. "In the end, though, the implications are not terribly significant because both of them will end up being confirmed," Xenia Dormandy, Senior Fellow at London-based think tank Chatham House, told DW. In the meantime, incumbents Leon Panetta and Michael Morell (acting CIA chief) will stay in their respective positions at the Pentagon and the CIA until their successors are approved. No power vacuum ensues.But the struggle to get Hagel and Brennan in their new positions shows just how partisan politics are in the US, says Dormandy, an expert on the United States' international role. Tensions are running high not only between Republicans and Democrats, but also within President Barack Obama's own Democratic Party, as it is mainly Democratic wrangling that has held back Brennan's approval, she said. Obama had actually hoped for more bipartisan cooperation following his reelection. Lora Anne Viola, Assistant Professor for North American Foreign Policy at the John F. Kennedy Institute at Berlin's Free University, said Hagel's nomination was also in part an effort to "build a bridge to the Republicans." Not about the issues "I think the whole debate about Hagel and Brennan simply reflects the political infighting between the Republicans and the Democrats," Viola told DW. "It has very little to do with a real debate about US security issues. Also, I don't think Obama chose these two simply because he wanted to set a symbolic symbol for bipartisanship." Brennan was Obama's White House counterterrorism adviser for years and there is mutual trust between the two men. In the case of Hagel, Viola said, Obama would not bring someone on board who "didn't steer his foreign policy in the direction he wants it to take."