{"id":19240,"date":"2013-12-07T12:41:24","date_gmt":"2013-12-07T19:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19240"},"modified":"2013-12-07T12:41:49","modified_gmt":"2013-12-07T19:41:49","slug":"secretary-hagel-assures-all-us-will-kiss-ass-of-any-goverment-willing-to-host-bases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19240","title":{"rendered":"Secretary Hagel assures all, US will “kiss ass” of any Goverment willing to host Bases"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visiting service members in Bahrain, Hagel vows continued U.S. presence in Persian Gulf<\/strong>
\nBy Ernesto Londo\u00f1o – 6 December, 2013 – Washington Post<\/p>\n

MANAMA, Bahrain \u2014 Speaking to American sailors standing at attention on the deck of the USS Ponce, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel vowed on Friday that the United States would keep a robust military presence in the Persian Gulf and build stronger ties with the region\u2019s Arab states, even as it pursues negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.<\/p>\n

The service members, part of the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet, were likely to be the secretary\u2019s easiest audience during a three-day trip to this tiny gulf kingdom.<\/p>\n

As the first U.S. Cabinet member to visit Bahrain since the spring of 2011, when popular revolts roiled the Arab world, Hagel waded into a region where the U.S. faces a tide of criticism. Bahrain\u2019s pro-democracy activists charge that Washington has not done enough to curb the kingdom\u2019s crackdown on dissidents from the country\u2019s Shiite majority because it wants to safeguard a strategic alliance.<\/p>\n

Gulf Sunni monarchs, meanwhile, are angered by Washington\u2019s talks with Iran, a country they view as an existential threat. A six-month temporary accord with Tehran over its nuclear program, and the prospect of a permanent deal, have further strained relationships frayed by the robust support some Sunni states have given to Syrian rebels with ties to al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n

Hagel appeared more interested in mollifying the monarchs than the protesters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will assure our partners that we\u2019re not going anywhere,\u201d Hagel told troops aboard the Navy ship, one of several docked in Bahrain. He said U.S. officials were \u201cclear-eyed\u201d about the complexity of negotiating with Iran and remained committed to keeping a robust military deterrence architecture in a region he described as \u201cdangerous, combustible and unstable.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. defense officials said Hagel intended to use his visit to Bahrain \u2014 where he is attending a yearly meeting of defense chiefs known as the Manama Dialogue \u2014 to counter the notion that America\u2019s budget crisis and a renewed focus on Asia have made it an unreliable ally in the Middle East. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Visiting service members in Bahrain, Hagel vows continued U.S. presence in Persian Gulf By Ernesto Londo\u00f1o – 6 December, 2013 – Washington Post MANAMA, Bahrain \u2014 Speaking to American sailors standing at attention on the deck of the USS Ponce, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel vowed on Friday that the United States would keep a robust more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[4124],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19240"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19242,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19240\/revisions\/19242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}