Any major personnel shift seemingly dictated by forces outside of Trump’s control diminishes him and gives fuel to those elements in the Capitol and the press who are arrayed against him.
A massive bureaucratic knife fight has been raging in the upper echelons of the Trump administration. Some point to the revelation by Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, that the principals of the Trump administration national security team were holding war planning discussions over the unsecured (by U.S. government standards) Signal text messaging app, as being the outbreak of the bureaucratic knife fight.
Signalgate and the Push for War
In fact, however, the backroom bureaucratic brawl likely originated from the moment that then-President-Elect Donald Trump chose Pete Hegseth as his secretary of defense, rather than Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK).
Ever since then, the proverbial knives have been out for Hegseth. Indeed, when “Signalgate” first erupted, there was an attempt by the press to lay the blame for the leak on Hegseth—even though Goldberg himself made clear that he was inexplicably added to the chat by White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and his staff.
Now that a second “Signalgate” has been uncovered by the New York Times—this time involving Hegseth, his wife (and close confidant), and Hegseth’s brother—it seems like the walls are closing in around Trump’s preferred pick for SecDef.
Why Were Hegseth’s Close Aides Really Fired?
It all seems a little too convenient.
Especially in the wake of the mass firings that occurred at the Pentagon last week, in which three of Hegseth’s top aides—all of them veterans—were unceremoniously removed from their top jobs advising Hegseth, and accused without evidence of leaking classified information to the press.
One of the men accused of leaking to the press, Dan Caldwell, then serving as a senior adviser to Hegseth, went on popular conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s podcast and explicitly denied the accusations lobbed against him. According to Caldwell, there was no official investigation into the supposed leaks; the allegations were simply a smear job by the same elements within the Pentagon who are engaged in a bureaucratic knife fight against Hegseth and his ideological allies.
It’s a personnel fight, sure, but it’s also a fight for the soul of Trump’s foreign and military policy. Having won the popular and the electoral vote, Trump’s agenda has a mandate. But that mandate does not include initiating another war in the Middle East—especially when the United States military is at the nadir of its power.
American military power has not been this weak since the Interwar Years of the twentieth century. Triggering a war, limited or otherwise, in the Middle East will ensure the United States permanently loses its billing as the world’s dominant power.
Yet, since taking office, Trump has become more bellicose toward the Islamic Republic of Iran than ever before. Whereas in his first term, it was obvious that he favored a containment and deterrence policy toward Iran—involving copious reliance upon local actors (namely Israel and the Sunni Arab states) to do the containing—in the second term, Trump is repeating the “with-us-or-against-us” mentality that led George W. Bush to drag America into war in Iraq.
Signalgate Is a Distraction
While Pete Hegseth is clearly pro-Israel and hawkish on Iran, the fact is that he is nowhere near as hawkish as, say, Sen. Tom Cotton. Unlike Hegseth, a media personality with few connections to other hawks inside the Pentagon, Cotton is a creature of the so-called “Blob”—the hawkish community that pervades Washington.
Last week, Hegseth proved to his fellow hawks he could not be trusted with the significant portfolio he possessed as secretary of defense. After all, the rumor mill has it that Hegseth sided with Vice-President JD Vance and Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard in successfully persuading President Trump to get Israel to abandon what was then their imminent plans to strike Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons facilities.
Hawks both in Washington and Jerusalem believe there is a unique window of opportunity to strike Iranian nuclear weapons facilities. But that window is rapidly closing. And, once it does, hitting Iran effectively becomes too daunting of a task.
Of course, if necessary, the United States can reliably blast Iranian targets to bits—whether that be 18 months or four years from now. The fear scenarios we’re all being subjected to by the hawks, however, are the real culprit behind the bureaucratic bloodbath befalling the Trump administration—and they are the cause of the movement to oust Hegseth and replace him with Cotton.
This brings us back to the pressing issue of personnel. The push to fire Hegseth is inexorable at this point—just as the clamoring for another Mideast war among America’s elites has been. But firing Hegseth, whether one thinks he erred with the Signal leaks or not, destabilizes the Trump administration as it exits its first 100 days in office. For Trump, any major personnel shift seemingly dictated by forces outside of his control diminishes him, and gives fuel to those elements both in the Capitol and in the press who are arrayed against him.
Therefore, from a purely political standpoint, Trump must resist the calls to fire Hegseth. This is especially so because once Hegseth is ousted as defense chief, he will likely be replaced by Cotton.
In other words, outside of Vice-President Vance—who, as VP, can be isolated bureaucratically—and DNI Tulsi Gabbard—who will certainly be the next target of the hawks—Trump will have a cabinet of Iran hardliners who see only upsides in provoking yet another Middle East conflict.
There is Another Way Besides War or Surrender with Iran
But Trump was not elected on the promise of more Mideast wars. Quite the opposite.
That’s not to advocate Trump becoming a pushover for the Islamic Republic. It’s to say that in the choice between war and accommodation of Iran, Trump can easily take a third way that involves finishing the Abraham Accords and forcing the Sunni Arab states and Israel to watch each other’s backs more fully when it comes to containing Iran.
Removing Hegseth is a fool’s errand. Trump should publicly state that Hegseth will be his defense chief at least until the midterms, hopefully putting to bed the backbiting that is detrimental to his national security agenda.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a contributor at Popular Mechanics, who consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Shutterstock / Joshua Sukoff.
