washington | Supporters of the Obama administration’s aborted appointment for a top intelligence post said the former ambassador was unfairly tarred by pro-Israel pundits and advocates.
But lawmakers who led the successful campaign against the selection of Charles “Chas” Freeman said their concerns always had less to do with his criticisms of Israel than his financial ties to Saudi Arabia and a Chinese oil company with business dealings in Iran.
“This was not about Israel, it was about a revolving door through which Freeman rotated and was paid handsomely,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), after Freeman withdrew his name from consideration March 10.
The New York congressman was referring to the idea of the former ambassador to Saudi Arabia going from serving the U.S. government to being paid by foreign governments and then returning to government service.
“There was a steady revelation of financial conflicts of interest involving foreign powers that were troubling,” said Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who along with Israel, led the opposition in Congress. “If it had simply been a dispute about Middle East policy, he would have survived.”
Freeman lashed out at his critics after stepping aside, releasing a statement blaming “the Israel Lobby” and “unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country” for his exit.
“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,” he said. “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.”
Freeman’s appointment as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, where he would have overseen the production of National Intelligence Estimates, drew criticism as soon as it became public.
The first criticism came in a blog post by former top AIPAC staffer Steve Rosen, who is under indictment for passing classified information to Israel. Soon after, a number of prominent commentators joined in the criticism.
Many noted Freeman’s view that the Israelis were primarily responsible for the failure to secure a peace deal with the Palestinians and a 2006 speech in which he seemed to blame U.S. support of Israel for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. But several of the critics also raised other objections to Freeman, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
In suggesting that his “realist” foreign policy views were just as ideological as the “neonconservative” views of the previous administration, the critics stressed Freeman’s leadership of the Saudi-funded Middle East Policy Council, and highlighted his statements that Chinese authorities should have intervened earlier to “nip” the Tiananmen Square protests “in the bud” and never allowed such demonstrations in the capital.
In response, Freeman’s defenders dismissed the concerns about China and Saudi Arabia as a smokescreen, insisting that the critics were motivated solely by their commitment to Israel.
“Freeman’s appointment is the first skirmish in what could be an intense war for the soul of Obama’s foreign policy,” Andrew Sullivan, a traditionally pro-Israel pundit, wrote in the London Times. “The goal is not just to force one realist thinker to withdraw, but to ensure that policy towards Israel changes very, very little from the Bush years.”
Lawmakers who took up the fight against Freeman rejected this line of argument. Israel, for example, said he was concerned about Freeman’s 12-year chairmanship of the Middle East Policy Council, which has received one-twelfth of its funding from Saudi Arabia.
Freeman was backed by a group of 17 former U.S. ambassadors, including two who served in Israel, Sam Lewis and Thomas Pickering. The envoys signed a letter of support that was sent to the Wall Street Journal.