Chas Freeman, picked by the Obama administration to lead the National Intelligence Council, has withdrawn his agreement to serve in that position.
Freeman, a veteran diplomat who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the first Persian Gulf war, came under heavy fire from the pro-Israel lobby. Pro-Israel lobbyists opposed the appointment, and made wild accusations about Freeman serving Saudi Arabian interests.
Former AIPAC Policy Director Steve Rosen called Freeman’s “alarming.” Yeah, the Steve Rosen under indictment for espionage. You would think his accusation that Freeman was in service of another state would be ironic. Rosen is now a visiting fellow at the Middle East Forum, aka the Israel First Fanatics Club.
Freement caught there ire because he was not known to mince words when it comes to the Middle East. In one 2007 speech, he said about Al Qaeda, “we embraced Israel’s enemies as our own; they responded by equating Americans with Israelis as their enemies.”
He expressed the type of analysis that must feel like paper cuts on AIPAC’s ears:
We abandoned the role of Middle East peacemaker to back Israel’s efforts to pacify its captive and increasingly ghettoized Arab populations. We wring our hands while sitting on them as the Jewish state continues to seize ever more Arab land for its colonists. This has convinced most Palestinians that Israel cannot be appeased and is persuading increasing numbers of them that a two-state solution is infeasible. It threatens Israelis with an unwelcome choice between a democratic society and a Jewish identity for their state. Now the United States has brought the Palestinian experience – of humiliation, dislocation, and death – to millions more in Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel and the United States each have our reasons for what we are doing, but no amount of public diplomacy can persuade the victims of our policies that their suffering is justified, or spin away their anger, or assuage their desire for reprisal and revenge.
The truth hurts.
Freeman sent a statement to supporters, which was posted on The Cable, a blog hosted by Foreign Policy. Besides explaining his reasons, the juiciest bit is a powerfully written indictment of the pro-Israel lobby’s penchant for squashing holders of differing opinions:
The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.
There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel. I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.
Such a bold statement is badly needed, and adds another example of the Lobby’s political overreach. Its tireless hunger to silence all forms of dissent is horrifying and disastrous for the exchange of ideas and fresh thinking badly needed about American foreign policy. The lobby has emerged as classic reactionaries. And given they could muster support from leading Republican politicians, their influence is still vibrant, even if it is waning some.
The question is, for how much longer will the American public let such special interests shape a policy framework so essential to the country’s interests?
Update: Andrew Sullivan observes that the Freeman drama is not even mentioned in the New York Times.
Mandoweiss has been bringing down the house with its coverage of it.
Related posts:
- America (and Israel) First
- More on the Lobby
- The Lobby from a Victim’s View
- Is the United States Pressuring Israel?
- Israel Lobby Paper Proving Itself True
This post is disturbing on a couple levels. First, the title suggests that Chas Freeman represents, in opposition to the Israeli lobby, the interests of America, and somehow by extension the democratic aspirations of everyday Arab peoples. I need to ask how can a guy who supported and worked with the Saudi regime be considered progressive in any sense? The possibilities for a democratic Middle East should not be trusted to any of the Arab rulers (or Israeli for that matter). Any ideas that suggest the opposite ignore the political realities that have shaped the Middle East for the last 50 years. By and large there is now a broad consensus among Arab rulers, however begrudgingly, about the role of the US and Israel in the region. Rhetoric aside, most have established a level of normalcy in their relationship with the Zionist project, while they, in turn, serve ancillary roles in the maintenance of US imperial domination in the Arab world. The pressures of global capitalism has shattered any hopes for many of these formerly non-aligned nations to strike out against US imperialism. It is, for all intents and purposes, economically impossible. Those state parties that have, until recently, resisted US hegemony have either been bombed and overthrown (Iraq), or are slowly capitulating to the supposedly "new" orientation of the Obama administration (Syria). What will happen with Hizbullah remains to be seen, but if the history of the post-colonial world has demonstrated anything it is that the success of building a social-democratic state cannot happen in either isolation or opposition to the dominant imperial power; i.e. the US. It's also a little disturbing that Chas Freeman now represents America, as if American has somehow emerged free of any racial, gender and class tensions. It's through this lens that we can achieve a clearer understanding of what American rulers represent, with all their variations, in relation to Arabs, Muslims, women and people of color. The different shades of gray that make up the Arab rulers – Baathist, Islamist, neoliberal, social-democratic – are just different disputes over who can best put down Arab democratic movements. The same holds true for the gamut of 'official' politics in the US, which doesn't really extend past the Democratic and Republican parties. Neither party should be seen as progressive because both support US imperialism, and both are Zionist. They just have different visions for Israel: should the Zionist state maintain the bantustans in Gaza and the West Bank, or should it finally cleanse Palestine of its indigenous Arabs? For a lot of Arab people that's not really a choice. It's time for Arab people to stop placing their hopes in the less hawkish sectors of imperial and state rulers, and the ostensible progressiveness of Obama. I thought that was clear enough way back when Rahm Emanuel was picked as Obama's chief of staff. Washington technocrats can try all they want to posture against right-wing Zionism, but at the end of the day their just another wolf in sheep's clothing; another liberal Zionist.
Posted by Khalil El-Bathy | March 11, 2009, 2:24 amwell neither party supports freedom. To politicians its a foreign word.
Posted by mikee | March 11, 2009, 2:37 amI agree with Freeman… But unless his words make headlines – his speech will sit in the archives of all other speeches who were silenced and didn't receive the media attention they deserved. Besides, I'd much rather read why the Obama administration chose him.
Posted by Anon | March 11, 2009, 3:05 amKhalil, Nowhere do I suggest Freeman's progressive or that he represents America. You are hung up on the title in suggesting the latter. Clearly Freeman's politics do not stand for me. He was up for the head of the NIC, and their job is imperial maintenance. And I am as quick to protest Saudi as anyone. Still, in objective terms, there is an undeniable clash between realists of Freeman's stripes and Zionuts. I think as a progressive, I prefer that to alliance, and will gladly take sides in a tension that could de-limit the influence of the latter in American politics. I am sympathetic to intelligence establishment thinkers who do not run everything through a Zionist spectrum when they are attacked by Zionuts, even if they are imperialists willing to back corrupt despots (as the Zionuts do as well). Far from making me part of the empire, highlighting the internal machinations is important as some who is acting withing the American political spectrum, albeit from the margins. As an activist, I know partaking in this is not a mobilizing strategy, but it could lead to an important crack in public consciousness and enhance the support for a greater ideological range of critiques from your's to mine. So my hopes are not in Freeman or the realists, my hopes are in breaking down the political gridlock in Washington in order for new mobilizing opportunities to arise. Thanks for the stimulating criticism and feel free to respond. Will
Posted by KABOBfest | March 11, 2009, 3:27 amA short blurb on the PBS Newshour this eve is probably the extent of the media exposure this will receive (my guess is there was no mention on cable/network – at least on PBS they did say why he stepped down.) I would also "gladly take sides in a tension that could de-limit the influence of the latter (Zionuts) in American politics."
Posted by AlFannaan | March 11, 2009, 5:27 amSome more coverage on the issue: ” target=”_blank”>http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/10…
Posted by Nimr | March 11, 2009, 5:37 amSome more coverage on the issue: ” target=”_blank”>http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/10…
Posted by Nimr | March 11, 2009, 5:37 amSome more coverage on the issue: ” target=”_blank”>http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/10…
Posted by Nimr | March 11, 2009, 5:37 amSome more coverage on the issue: ” target=”_blank”>http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/10…
Posted by Nimr | March 11, 2009, 5:37 amGood job getting on this so quickly, and putting it all together in the proper context. While Khalil makes some good points, I don't see what is disturbing about the post. The title couldn't be more appropriate – what happened today was a crushing defeat for the advancement of this nation and the hopes of all reasonable/knowledgeable Americans. Obviously Al Jazeera was all over this. And while I agree the networks will probably fail to present Freeman's decision in the proper light, CNN already has even if it was only in passing. I hope to see some interesting analyses in the print media though…
Posted by Kalash | March 11, 2009, 5:44 amExcellent post today at Juan Cole's blog on this matter: ” target=”_blank”>http://www.juancole.com/2009/03/did-schumer-and-e… Did Schumer and Emanuel Sink Freeman?
Posted by ALFannaan | March 11, 2009, 8:38 pmExcellent post today at Juan Cole's blog on this matter: ” target=”_blank”>http://www.juancole.com/2009/03/did-schumer-and-e… Did Schumer and Emanuel Sink Freeman?
Posted by ALFannaan | March 11, 2009, 8:38 pmExcellent post today at Juan Cole's blog on this matter: ” target=”_blank”>http://www.juancole.com/2009/03/did-schumer-and-e… Did Schumer and Emanuel Sink Freeman?
Posted by ALFannaan | March 11, 2009, 8:38 pmExcellent post today at Juan Cole's blog on this matter: ” target=”_blank”>http://www.juancole.com/2009/03/did-schumer-and-e… Did Schumer and Emanuel Sink Freeman?
Posted by ALFannaan | March 11, 2009, 8:38 pmGood riddance to the corrupt Ambassador Freeman and his Arab $audi terrorist bosses. AIPAC rules!
Posted by Crusader | March 11, 2009, 10:18 pm