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| [L] Elizabeth O'Bagy [R] Senator John McCain (R-AZ) |
Ordinarily in
political circles the hiring a
Legislative Assistant in the Senate does not make headlines. But Senator McCain’s (R-AZ) retention of
Elizabeth O’Bagy’s services as a L.A. in his Washington office manages to
achieve that dubious distinction. Foreign
Policy "The Cable" website reports through its website that the
Senior Senator has hired the 26 year old foreign policy researcher three weeks
after she was released from the Institute
for the Study of War, a neoconservative think tank.
O’Bagy wrote
an op/ed titled “On
the Front Lines of Syria’s Civil War” for the
Wall Street Journal, which downplayed the reach of Jabhut al Nursa (an Al
Qaeda affiliate) fighters in the Syrian
Free Army, and suggested that such
jihadists were concentrating in a couple of northern, rebel held areas
of Syria. Esssentially, O'Bagy was
allaying fears that U.S. involvement in the
Syrian conflict would, in the words of former
Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH 10th), be acting as Al Qaeda's air force.
In the rush
to get Congressional blessing for President Obama’s aborted red line attack
threat against Bashar Assad’s government
forces in Syria for chemical weapons use, O’Bagy’s analysis was spotlighted. Both Secretary of State John F. Kerry and
Senator John McCain referenced and relied upon O’Bagy’s opinion.
Yet within a week of having her research promoted by Obama’s Secretary of State and the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, O’Bagy was unceremoniously severed from her stint as the ‘Syria Analyst” at the Institute for the Study of War. Officially, O’Bagy was fired because she falsely had purported to have a combined masters/Ph.D. from Georgetown University, when she had not even defended her thesis. But O’Bagy’s prominence on the political stage also revealed that O’Bagy served as the political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force, which was neither disclosed in the WSJ op/ed nor mentioned by Kerry or McCain when confirming their bent for war in the Levant.
The mission
of the Syrian Emergency
Task Force has been characterized by critics as
pushing weapons and other military support to the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamist
brigades in Syria. The Syria
Emergency task force derives its funding from a State Deparment funded Bureau
of Conflict and Stabilization Operations.
O’Bagy for
her part claims that she was a contractor for the Syrian Emergency Task Force
and not an employee. Of course, that is
a distinction without a difference when it comes to conflicts of interest in
setting American foreign policy. When
asked about a conflict of interest, O’Bagy
told the Daily Caller “I work for the Syrian people.”
O’Bagy claims that she did not help the Syrian
Emergency Task Force lobby. Yet O’Bagy admits to facilitating a meeting between
Syrian rebel commanders and Senator
McCain in May. McCain maintains that he met with patriotic rebels and no terrorists.
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| Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) meeting with Syrian rebel commanders, May 2013 |
When
questioned about hiring O'Bagy, Senator McCain endorsed the new L.A. by saying: "Elizabeth
is a talented researcher, and I have been very impressed by her knowledge and
analysis in multiple briefings over the last year. "I look forward to her
joining my office." So the conflict of interest by O'Bagy working
for the Syrian people was no problem for the maverick Senator.
This is a
serious lapse of judgment by Senator McCain.
As the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, McCain's
viewpoints are influential in facilitating American Foreign Policy. The senior Senator from Arizona should be
receiving clear guidance, not having his opinions skewed by an aide who has
declared herself allied with Syria, and has ties to groups that are aligned
against broader United States interests.
By sparing the rod, McCain has spoiled his staff.
h/t: The
Cable
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