Matters didn’t improve when Mr. Hagel announced, regarding Iran’s nuclear capacity, that he supported the president’s strong position on “containment.” But the administration’s policy is not, as Mr. Hagel apparently had yet to learn, containment—it is to prevent Iran’s development of nuclear arms.
Nudged by a note handed him by an aide, the nominee corrected himself and declared that in fact the U.S. doesn’t have a policy on containment. This was one misstatement too many for Carl Levin—the committee chairman, a Democrat and supporter of Mr. Hagel’s nomination—who ended the discussion with his own terse correction: “We do have a position on containment, and that is we do not favor containment.” (Wall Street Journal, Posted 4 Feb 13)
