Hagel debate reveals Republican chasm It was Jeb Bush, son and brother of former presidents and still a potential standard-bearer of the Republican party, who made the most revealing comment of the US election campaign. At a breakfast with reporters, he admitted that Ronald Reagan and his father would have "a hard time" getting nominated today because of the party's shift to the right. Jeb Bush's warning about "an orthodoxy that doesn't allow for disagreement" seemed especially apt during the tortuous debate last month over the fiscal cliff, when Speaker John Boehner was left looking impotent by the Tea Party wing of the Republicans as he tried to strike a deal with the White House. It is also starting to sound prescient about the looming battle over the nomination of former Republican senator Chuck Hagel to be the next secretary of defence. The Hagel confirmation hearings could turn out to be the foreign policy equivalent of the fiscal cliff for Republicans - a moment that dramatises the gaping divisions within its ranks and the rightward lurch while helping to paint it into politically treacherous positions. For sure, there are big risks for President Barack Obama in nominating Mr Hagel. He lost one leading potential nominee when Susan Rice, his preferred candidate for secretary of state, pulled out after Republican attacks. Were he to lose Mr Hagel, his second term momentum would be badly dented. Mr Hagel's much-criticised comments about Israel and gays mean some important Democrats are also lukewarm about his nomination. Every utterance Mr Hagel has made over the past two decades is being closely scrutinised: another new firestorm could ruin his candidacy. Yet the bigger political risks are on the Republican side, where many members of Congress appear eager do battle against a Vietnam veteran who, until recently, was often cited as a potential secretary of state or of defence or even vice-president in a Republican administration. The debate over Mr Hagel has brought into the open the growing chasm over foreign policy between the party's realist and neo-conservative wings, a less-discussed but still important part of the broader civil war taking place among Republicans. Mr Hagel's critics on the right have tried to frame many of his views as outside the "mainstream" of American foreign policy debate. But one of the striking developments has been the number of senior figures from the Reagan and George HW Bush eras who have voiced their support for Mr Hagel - lending further credence to Jeb Bush's observation. They range from Frank Carlucci, one of Mr Reagan's secretaries of defence, to the elder Mr Bush's national security advisor Brent Scowcroft. By seeking to define Mr Hagel's views as extreme, Republicans could score an own goal. One of Mr Hagel's perceived crimes was his very public criticism of the conduct of the Iraq war, which he had initially voted in favour of. Republican critics point to his opposition to the 2007 "surge" of troops to Iraq, which they say helped stabilise the country. However, if some senators really want to reopen a debate about the merits of the Iraq war, there is only one side that will win that discussion. Much of the animus about Israel is really a proxy for the broader discussion about Iran, where Mr Hagel has voiced deep scepticism about the idea of taking military action to destroy its nuclear programme. Some Republicans argue that only a credible threat of military action will force Iran to negotiate, while others believe a political solution already impossible. Mr Hagel's stated reluctance to launch a new conflict chimes with the public mood. As it happens, it is also shared by many of the top brass at the Pentagon and by Robert Gates, another Republican with deep roots in the Reagan and George HW Bush eras who was Mr Obama's first defence secretary. Chuck Hagel's Republican critics want to cast him as too far to the left to hold a senior national security post. Yet it is not Mr Hagel whose approach to foreign affairs has substantially shifted. By trying to define his views as too extreme for someone in a leading national security post, Chuck Hagel's Republican critics are holding up an uncomfortable mirror to themselves. It is not Mr Hagel who has moved far to the left, it is they who have substantially shifted to the right.