After graduating from Yale he entered Harvard Law School, but he left during his second year to pursue a career in the United States Foreign Service.

[3] The State Department sent Freeman back to Harvard Law School during this time, where he completed his JD[citation needed] The legal research he did there eventually became "the intellectual basis for the Taiwan Relations Act.

In 1986, he was appointed as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs in 1986, a position in which he played a key role in the negotiation of Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola and the independence of Namibia.

[13] According to a The Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Freeman endorsed the paper's thesis, and he said of MEPC's stance that "No one else in the United States has dared to publish this article, given the political penalties that the Lobby imposes on those who criticize it.

[16] Interesting Times: China, America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige, published in 2013, is Freeman's analysis of China-U.S. relations between 1969 and 2012 and his predictions about its future.

Within hours, Steve J. Rosen, a former top official at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), had published a scathing criticism of the reported (but still unconfirmed) appointment (which he had wrongly described as being to a senior position in the CIA.)

"[20] But the earlier reports of the nomination had already mobilized a wide campaign against it, which was prodded along throughout by Steven J. Rosen who published 19 blog posts on the topic over the two weeks after February 19.

[26] All seven Republican members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence signed a letter raising "concerns about Mr. Freeman's lack of experience and uncertainty about his objectivity".

[28] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was said to be "incensed" by Freeman's seemingly justifying view of the Tiananmen Square massacre, reportedly urged President Obama against the selection.

"[8] Robert Dreyfuss has written that, "Though Blair strongly defended Freeman, the two men got no support from an anxious White House, which took (politely put) a hands-off approach.

He questioned whether the "outrageous agitation" following the leak of his pending appointment initially to Politico meant that the Obama administration would be able to make independent decisions "about the Middle East and related issues."

He cited especially interference by Israel supporters, writing: 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.

The tactics of the Israel lobby plumb the depths of dishonour and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the wilful 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.

[30][31]After his withdrawal Freeman gave an interview to Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation saying he regretted he did not identify his attackers as "right-wing Likud in Israel and its fanatic supporters here"—what he called the "(Avigdor) Lieberman lobby."

[35] In an interview quoted in The New York Times, Freeman said "Israel is driving itself toward a cliff, and it is irresponsible not to question Israeli policy and to decide what is best for the American people".

It appears to have been kicked off three weeks ago in a blog post by Steve J. Rosen, a former top official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group.

"[40] The same day the Post also published a piece by regular columnist David Broder called "The Country's Loss" that stated that the Obama administration had "just suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the lobbyists [that] the president vowed to keep in their place, and their friends on Capitol Hill.

"[41] The same edition of The Washington Post carried a front-page article detailing various Jewish organizations' lobbying efforts to derail Freeman's appointment.

His legacies include hatred and suspicion that have erected barriers to travel to and within the West and that impede the sort of dialogue you in this gathering are about to begin.

The mass murders Osama contrived inflamed passions that spurred American political leaders to set aside the constraints of the United States constitution and laws.

This is what paved the way for the horrors of Abu Ghraib, "extraordinary rendition," and "enhanced interrogation techniques"—otherwise known as "cruel and unusual punishment," "kidnapping," and "torture.

"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.

"[36] In a 2007 speech to the Pacific Council on International Policy Freeman said that "Al Qaeda has played us with the finesse of a matador exhausting a great bull by guiding it into unproductive lunges."

"[52][53] 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.

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.

"[54] 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.

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.

"[60] In an email leaked to the press, Freeman described the conclusions of a Chinese government review of the factors that had made its 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square unavoidable.

In this optic, the Politburo's response to the mob scene at "Tian'anmen" stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action.