Associated Press has characterized Freeman as "outspoken" on issues including Israel, Iraq, and the
war on terror.
September 11 attacks Freeman commented at a
Washington Institute for Near East Policy meeting in 2002 that, And what of America's lack of introspection about
September 11? Instead of asking what might have caused the attack, or questioning the propriety of the national response to it, there is an ugly mood of
chauvinism. Before Americans call on others to examine themselves, we should examine ourselves. In October 2005, Freeman said: "On the question of U.S. strikes on targets in Iran or elsewhere, I simply want to register what I think is an obvious point; namely that what 9/11 showed is that if we bomb people, they bomb back." Commenting in Abu Dhabi on the death of Osama Bin Laden in 2011, Freeman remarked that:
Iraq War In 2004, Freeman was among 27 retired diplomats and military commanders who publicly said the administration of President
George W. Bush did not understand the world and was unable to handle "in either style or substance" the responsibilities of global leadership. On June 16, 2004 the
Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change issued a statement against the
Iraq War.
Israel In a 2005 speech to a conference of
The National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Freeman stated, As long as the United States continues unconditionally to provide the subsidies and political protection that make the Israeli occupation and the high-handed and self-defeating policies it engenders possible, there is little, if any, reason to hope that anything resembling the former peace process can be resurrected. Israeli occupation and settlement of Arab lands is inherently violent. He explained that he had spoken out because he believed US-Arab relations matter greatly to my country and because, unlike many in Washington, I do not believe in diplomacy-free foreign policy and have a healthy regard for what is now derided as "reality-based analysis." In a 2006 speech to the annual US-Arab Policymakers Conference, Freeman said that Americans allowing Israel to "call the shots in the Middle East" had "revealed how frightened Israelis now are of their Arab neighbors" and that the results of the "experiment" were that "left to its own devices, the Israeli establishment will make decisions that harm Israelis, threaten all associated with them, and enrage those who are not." In numerous places in his 2010 book ''America's Misadventures in the Middle East'', Freeman gives evidence of his support for the wellbeing of the State of Israel. For example, on p. 121, at a point that republishes views he first expressed in October 2009, he writes, "A just and durable peace in the Holy Land that secures the State of Israel should be an end in itself for the United States." Ambassador Freeman argued that the "United States essentially has disqualified itself as a mediator" of the Israel/Palestine peace process at the
New America Foundation on January 26, 2011. He argued that the United States cannot "play the role of mediator because of the political hammerlock that the right-wing in Israel through its supporters [in the US] exercises in our politics." Freeman then went on to argue that United States vetoes of
UN Resolutions condemning Israeli settlements in Occupied Territory undermine the role of
international law. In remarks to the Palestine Center on May 4, 2011, Freeman stated that The cruelties of Israelis to their Arab captives and neighbors, especially in the ongoing
siege of Gaza and repeated attacks on the people of Lebanon, have cost the Jewish state much of the global sympathy that the Holocaust previously conferred on it. The racist tyranny of Jewish settlers over West Bank Arabs and the progressive emergence of a version of apartheid in Israel itself are deeply troubling to a growing number of people abroad. ... Ironically, Israel–conceived as a refuge and guarantee against European anti-Semitism–has become the sole conceivable stimulus to its revival and globalization. ... Israel is vigorously engaged in the
collective punishment and systematic
ethnic cleansing of its captive Arab populations. It rails against
terrorism while carrying out policies explicitly described as intended to terrorize the peoples of the territories it is attacking or into which it is illegally expanding. On September 12, 2024, Freeman appeared for an interview in the Youtube video channel SaltCubeAnalytics titled
"The dirty secrets of US-Israel relations: with US Ambassador Chas Freeman" in which "Freeman offers a candid and unfiltered analysis of the Middle East conflict and its far-reaching consequences," and in particular "the heavy toll of America's unconditional support for Israel to the influence of AIPAC on US politics."
Saudi Arabia In 1991, as
ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Freeman gave an interview listing the ways Saudi Arabia has been helpful to the United States. It contributed $13.5 billion to the 1991
Gulf War effort and provided fuel, water, accommodations, and transport for U.S. forces on Saudi soil. Immediately after the war, it rapidly increased its oil production, which prevented the U.S. recession "from becoming far worse." He also stated Saudi Arabia continued to insist for oil to be in dollars "in part out of friendship with the United States." He warned that with the "emergence of other currencies and with strains in the relationship," Saudi Arabians might begin to question why they should do so. The September 11 suicide attacks on the United States by extremist Muslim terrorists, most of them Saudi nationals, led fairly rapidly to U.S. solidarity—first on the emotional level and then as a matter of policy—with Israel as a fellow victim of suicide bombings by Muslim extremists. It also provided an opportunity for an onslaught of criticism of Saudi Arabia in the American media, often by commentators whose imaginations far outran their knowledge of the Kingdom. Their attacks featured the elements of Saudi culture and society most objectionable to liberal democratic ideology—the peculiar intolerance of Saudi Islam, the alleged anti-Jewish and anti-Christian bias of the educational system, and the subordinate status of women—to paint a portrait of the Kingdom as an enemy, rather than a friend. The
Christian right joined with the
Zionist left to identify Saudi religious particularism with both terrorism and
anti-Americanism.
China In a 2007 article on the implications of the
People's Republic of China's (PRC) success or failure in integrating its people and economy, Freeman wrote, "Almost every ideological faction and interest group in our country now asserts its own vision of the People's Republic. Some do so out of fascination, others out of dread." Noting what he considered to be "differing moral judgments" in
religious freedom and
population control, he said, "we must not only understand why each side feels as it does, but what it is and isn't actually doing and what the real — as opposed to the imagined — consequences of what it is doing are likely to be."
Support for government crackdown in Tiananmen Square In an email leaked to the press, Freeman described the conclusions of a Chinese government review of factors, which, it said, made its 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters in
Tiananmen Square unavoidable. In 2009, it was reported that U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi considered Freeman's views "indefensible" and complained directly to President Barack Obama about the nomination of Freeman to the National Intelligence Council. In the email Freeman wrote:
Taiwan In February 2022,
The Economist quoted Chas Freeman as saying that the U.S. frittered away opportunities created in 1972 for a peaceful accommodation between Taiwan (ROC) and the PRC. He urged the U.S. to push Taiwan to negotiate a settlement, to avoid a war, while conceding that Chinese rulers would roll back some democratic freedoms in Taiwan. ==Writings==