The US, Israel, and Charles Freeman: "A Chilling Effect" on Foreign Policy

One of the sharpest, strongest reactions to the withdrawal of the nomination of Charles Freeman (pictured) as head of the US National Intelligence Council has come from Stephen Walt in his blog on the Foreign Policy website. I generally share his views, but a reader offers further useful critique: "All good points, but a bit polemical. You know how this game works: I don't think Walt does Freeman any favours by framing the appointment as a victory over Zionists or as a balance to [the appointment of the State Department's Dennis] Ross. It would have been better to explain why Freeman was a worthy choice in the first place with his other experience and ability."

On Chas Freeman's withdrawal
STEPHEN WALT

First, for all of you out there who may have questioned whether there was a powerful "Israel lobby," or who admitted that it existed but didn't think it had much influence, or who thought that the real problem was some supposedly all-powerful "Saudi lobby," think again.

Second, this incident does not speak well for Barack Obama's principles, or even his political instincts. It is one thing to pander to various special interest groups while you're running for office -- everyone expects that sort of thing -- but it's another thing to let a group of bullies push you around in the first fifty days of your administration. But as Ben Smith noted in Politico, it's entirely consistent with most of Obama's behavior on this issue.

The decision to toss Freeman over the side tells the lobby (and others) that it doesn't have to worry about Barack getting tough with [past and future Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, or even that he’s willing to fight hard for his own people. Although AIPAC [American-Israeli Political Action Committee] has issued a pro forma denial that it had anything to do with it, well-placed friends in Washington have told me that it leaned hard on some key senators behind-the-scenes and is now bragging that Obama is a "pushover." Bottom line: Caving on Freeman was a blunder that could come back to haunt any subsequent effort to address the deteriorating situation in the region.

Third, and related to my second point, this incident reinforces my suspicion that the Democratic Party is in fact a party of wimps. I'm not talking about Congress, which has been in thrall to the lobby for decades, but about the new team in the Executive Branch. Don't they understand that you have to start your term in office by making it clear that people will pay a price if they cross you? Barack Obama won an historic election and has a clear mandate for change -- and that includes rethinking our failed Middle East policy -- and yet he wouldn't defend an appointment that didn't even require Senate confirmation. Why? See point No.1 above.

Of course, it's possible that I'm wrong here, and that Obama's team was actually being clever. Freeman's critics had to expend a lot of ammunition to kill a single appointment to what is ultimately not a direct policy-making position, and they undoubtedly ticked off a lot of people by doing so. When the real policy fights begin -- over the actual content of the NIEs [National Intelligence Estimates], over attacking Iran, and over the peace process itself -- they aren't likely to get much sympathy from [Director of National Intelligence Dennis] Blair and it is least conceivable that Obama will turn to them and say, "look, I gave you one early on, but now I'm going to do what's right for America." I don't really believe that will happen, but I'll be delighted if Obama proves me wrong.

Fourth, the worst aspect of the Freeman affair is the likelihood of a chilling effect on discourse in Washington, at precisely the time when we badly need a more open and wide-ranging discussion of our Middle East policy. As I noted earlier, this was one of the main reasons why the lobby went after Freeman so vehemently; in an era where more and more people are questioning Israel's behavior and questioning the merits of unconditional U.S. support, its hardline defenders felt they simply had to reinforce the de facto ban on honest discourse inside the Beltway. After forty-plus years of occupation, two wars in Lebanon, and the latest pummeling of Gaza, (not to mention [Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert's own comparison of Israel with South Africa), defenders of the "special relationship" can't win on facts and logic anymore. So they have to rely on raw political muscle and the silencing or marginalization of those with whom they disagree. In the short term, Freeman's fate is intended to send the message that if you want to move up in Washington, you had better make damn sure that nobody even suspects you might be an independent thinker on these issues.

This outcome is bad for everyone, including Israel. It means that policy debates in the United States will continue to be narrower than in other countries (including Israel itself), public discourse will be equally biased, and a lot of self-censorship will go on. America's Middle East policy will remain stuck in the same familiar rut, and even a well-intentioned individual like George Mitchell won't be able to bring the full weight of our influence to bear. At a time when Israel badly needs honest advice, nobody in Washington is going to offer it, lest they face the wrath of the same foolish ideologues who targeted Freeman. The likely result is further erosion in America's position in the Middle East, and more troubles for Israel as well.

Yet to those who defended Freeman’s appointment and challenged the lobby's smear campaign, I offer a fifth observation: do not lose heart. The silver lining in this sorry episode is that it was abundantly clear to everyone what was going on and who was behind it. In the past, the lobby was able to derail appointments quietly -- even pre-emptively -- but this fight took place in broad daylight. And Steve Rosen [of AIPAC], one of Freeman's chief tormentors, once admitted: "a lobby is like a night flower. It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun." Slowly, the light is dawning and the lobby's negative influence is becoming more and more apparent, even if relatively few people have the guts to say so out loud.  But history will not be kind to the likes of [Senator] Charles Schumer, Jonathan Chait [of the New Republic], Steve Rosen et al, whose hidebound views are unintentionally undermining both U.S. and Israeli security.

Last but not least, I cannot help but be struck by how little confidence Freeman's critics seem to have in Israel itself. Apparently they believe that a country that recently celebrated its 60th birthday, whose per capita income ranks 29th in the world, that has several hundred nuclear weapons, and a military that is able to inflict more than 1,300 deaths on helpless Palestinians in a couple of weeks without much effort will nonetheless be at risk if someone who has criticized some Israeli policies (while defending its existence) were to chair the National Intelligence Council. The sad truth is that these individuals are deathly afraid of honest discourse here in the United States because deep down, they believe Israel cannot survive if it isn't umbilically attached to the United States. The irony is that people like me have more confidence in Israel than they do: I think Israel can survive and prosper if it has a normal relationship with the United States instead of "special" one. Indeed, I think a more normal relationship would be better for both countries. It appears they aren't so sure, and that is why they went after Charles Freeman.

How Israel Limits US Foreign Policy: The Not-so-Curious Case of Charles Freeman

Related Post: Charles Freeman’s Letter Withdrawing His Nomination
Related Post: Charles Freeman’s Speech on the Middle East and Israel (October 2006)
Related Post: Coming Next in the Intelligence-Policy Battle - Iran’s Uranium

For many people, this story will never be known. They will not have heard of the American diplomat, Charles Freeman, or the National Intelligence Council, which he was nominated to lead. The withdrawal of that nomination yesterday will not make CNN Headline News or the front pages of US newspapers.

Make no mistake, however. As a story of how US foreign policy is limited and re-structured --- courtesy of Congress, a network of private groups, and American political culture --- it offers an essential lesson. "Israel" continues to set limits on the "acceptable" in US foreign policy.

Charles Freeman has moved between US Government posts, beginning in the State Department, and influential think tanks for more than 40 years. He was posted in China and China, worked as the lead official for African affairs, and was Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1989 to 1992. He moved to the Pentagon in 1993, as Assistant Secretary of Defense. He has been involved with Institute for National Strategic Studies and the United States Institute for Peace and served as President of the Middle East Policy Council.

In short, when it comes to the US and global affairs, Freeman is at the forefront of officials with experience and expertise. So, when he was nominated to lead the National Intelligence Council, a body created in DATE to co-ordinate and assess the intelligence gathered by US agencies, it looked like a shrewd choice.

Only one not-so-problem: for many concerned that Washington maintain the "right" position on Israel, Freeman was on the wrong side of the line. His long service in Arab countries and his work with the Middle East Policy Center, which receives money from the Saudi Government, made him a suspect. So did Freeman's diplomatic and analytic approach, to which you can give the general label of "realism", which did not start from the assumption for US foreign policy of a strategic reliance upon, and a cultural alliance with, Israel in the region.

Within days of the nomination, the chatter against Freeman's selection began on the Internet. It was taken up as a cause by magazines such as the Weekly Standard, looking for a bit of payback after its promotion of the overseas disasters of the Bush years, and the staunchly pro-Israel New Republic.

By the start of March, the campaign was given further legitimacy by a featured opinion piece, written by the New Republic's Jon Chait, in the Washington Post: "The contretemps over Freeman's view of Israel misses the broader problem, which is that he's an ideological fanatic....Realists are the mirror image of neoconservatives in that they are completely blind to the moral dimensions of international politics."

The irony at the heart of the campaign, highlighted by Chait, was that it often did not mention Freeman's position on Arab-Israeli issues. Instead, there was a wild, flailing assault upon "realism", which somehow had become the real danger in US foreign policy, and the highlighting of one incident in Freeman's long career. In 1999, he sent an e-mail to a discussion list about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre:

[T]he truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than -- as would have been both wise and efficacious -- to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China.

That judgement may appear cold-blooded, but it is a practical assessment: had the Chinese Government acted at the start of the crisis, it might not have had to put down a very heavy fist when the demonstrations threatened its stability. Fewer lives would have been lost, and political reform could have proceeded with the small but gradual measures being taken by the ruling Communisty Party.

Freeman's analysis does raise serious and troubling issues, particularly when he slipped into his own normative judgement --- "I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government." The narrow but important point, however, is that the serious and troubling dilemma he highlights has to be confronted. The promotion of human rights confronts the reality that ruling authorities, backed by police and military power, will invoke "order".

The wider point is that Freeman was not nominated for the National Intelligence Council to cast moral judgements. The NIC's function is not to make policy prescriptions but to offer a collaborative assessment of intelligence, thus avoiding disasters such as Iraq 2002/2003, for both short-term and long-term issues. Moral judgement is not, and should not be, in the NIC's remit.

The widest point, however, is that the China incident was always a diversion. Instead, it is that Freeman's position at the NIC threatened an assessment of Middle Eastern issues which did not begin from a founding assumption --- often a very "moral" assumption --- of support for Israel. Assessment might throw up complexities, highlight difficulties of an unchanging course on issues from Palestine to Iran to Syria. It might lead to debate amongst policymakers on those complexities.

There will be no debate, at least drawing upon the analysis of a Freeman-led NIC. Seven Republican members of Congressional committees on intelligence, using the China pretext and the "financial irregularities" of Saudi money behind the Middle East Policy Centre, came out yesterday in opposition to Freeman. The Obama Administration didn't fancy a fight, especially as it could complicate any initiatives that it might pursue now or later in the Middle East, so Director of National Dennis Blair withdrew Freeman's name.

Between 2001 and 2003, many of the State Department's Arabists were pushed out the door because their expertise was an unwelcome hindrance to the Bush Administration's plans on Iraq and the Middle East. The intelligence services saw their information and assessments skewed to fit political agendas, with their agencies taking the blame when the Administration's "intelligence" --- for example, on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction --- was proved wrong. The Obama Administration had tried to promote a revived intelligence community, for example, through the highlighting of Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and indeed Freeman's selection, and the raising of the State Department's profile (and spirits) under Hillary Clinton.

What it has just learned, if it didn't sense this already, is that such ambitions --- and indeed the policies beyond them --- have to accept the limits set by "Israel".