Elliott Abrams

Disambiguation: Not to be confused with the meteorologist Elliot Abrams.

Elliot Abrams is a former head of the Middle East Desk at the National Security Council (2002-5).

As reported in the Christian Science Monitor:

In 1991, Abrams pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress about the Iran-Contra affair. President George H. W. Bush pardoned him in 1992.

He was appointed on February 2, 2005, as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy. Prior to that he was a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute from 1990 to the 1996 before becoming president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which "affirms the political relevance of the great Western ethical imperatives." Abrams also served as chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. In 1980, he married Rachel Decter, daughter of neocon veterans Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter.

Education

• Harvard University: B.A., 1969
• London School of Economics: M.Sc., 1970
• Harvard Law School: J.D., 1973

Congress

According to his White House biography, Abrams began his service in the U.S. Government in the 1970s as a Special Counsel to the neocon opponent of detente, Senator Henry Jackson, and as Special Counsel and then Chief of Staff to another neocon hawk, Senator Daniel P. Moynihan.

Reagan Administration

During the Ronald Reagan Administration, Abrams served as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and then as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs.

George H.W. Bush Administration

After Reagan left office in 1989, Abrams, like a number of other prominent neo-conservatives, was not invited to serve in the George H.W. Bush administration. Instead, he worked for a number of neocon think tanks and eventually became head of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) where he wrote widely on foreign-policy issues, including the Middle East, and the threats posed by U.S. secular society to Jewish identity. He also remained an integral part of the tight-knit neo-conservative foreign-policy community in Washington that revolved around one of his early mentors, Richard N. Perle and former UN Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

George W. Bush Administration

Abrams was first appointed to the National Security Council by George W. Bush. He served as Special Assistant to the Bush and Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs since December 2002. Prior to holding that position, he was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for "Democracy, Human Rights and International Operations". On February 2, 2005, he was appointed as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy. In this capacity, Abrams will assist Stephen J. Hadley "in work on the promotion of democracy and human rights, and will provide oversight" to the National Security Council's directorate of Democracy, Human Rights, and International Organization Affairs and its directorate of Near East and North African Affairs. Abrams will work with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Hadley, and "will maintain his involvement in Israeli/Palestinian affairs," the White House said. [2]

Controversy

PNAC

Abrams, considered to be a "neo-con", is a signatory of the January 26, 1998, Project for the New American Century (PNAC Letter) sent to President William Jefferson Clinton.

Iran-Contra Scandal

Abrams was heavily involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. In 1991, Abrams was indicted by the Iran-Contra special prosecutor for giving false testimony before Congress in 1987 about his role in illicitly raising money for the Nicaraguan Contras. He pleaded guilty to two lesser offenses of withholding information to Congress in order to avoid a trial and a possible jail term.

He was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush along with a number of other Iran-Contra defendants on Christmas night 1992.

2002 Venezuelan coup

The Observer has alleged that Abrams had advance knowledge of, and "gave a nod to", the Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002 against Hugo Chávez. Other sources have alleged that Abrams and Otto Reich played an active role in planning the coup.

Lebanon War 2006

Abrams accompanied Condoleezza Rice as a primary advisor on her visits to the Middle East in late July 2006 in the course of discussions relating to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.

Blocking Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations

According to Jim Lobe in an article he wrote for Asia Times, Abrams has been working systematically to undermine any prospect for serious negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. "The Bush administration has done nothing to press Israel to deliver on its commitments, beyond Washington's empty rhetoric about a two-state 'political horizon'," Henry Siegman, the long-time director of the U.S./Middle East Project at the influential Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in the International Herald Tribune in February 2007. "Every time there emerged the slightest hint that the United States may finally engage seriously in a political process, Elliott Abrams would meet secretly with Olmert's envoys in Europe or elsewhere to reassure them that there exists no such danger," he complained.

Alleged support for attacking Hamas

According to an article written by Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke at www.conflictforum.com and reprinted in Asia Times, since at least January 2006, the United States has supplied guns, ammunition and training to Palestinian Fatah groups, allegedly to overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas government in the Palestinian territories. Under the direction of Elliott Abrams, the U.S. supply of rifles and ammunition has increased, and a large number of Fatah men have been trained at two West Bank camps, allegedly to attack Hamas supporters in the streets. The Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz reports that the U.S. has designated US$86.4 million for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' security detail.

The Abrams program was initially conceived in February of 2006 by a group of White House officials who wanted to shape a coherent and tough response to the Hamas electoral victory of January. These officials, we are told, were led by Abrams, but included national security advisors working in the Office of the Vice President, including prominent neo-conservatives David Wurmser and John Hannah. The policy was approved by Condoleezza Rice. The President then, we are told, signed off on the program in a CIA “finding” and designated that its implementation be put under the control of Langley.

However, in the face of CIA and Pentagon doubts about the program, it was subsequently handed over to the State Department.

Since at least August, Rice, Abrams and U.S. envoy David Welch have been its primary advocates and the program has been subsumed as a “part of the State Department’s Middle East initiative.”

Quotes

On John Lennon's Death

I'm sorry, but John Lennon was not that important a figure in our times. Why is his death getting more attention than Elvis Presley's? Because Lennon is perceived as a left-wing figure politically, anti-establishment, a man of social conscience with concern for the poor. And, therefore, he is being made into a great figure. Too much has been made of his life. It does not deserve a full day's television and radio coverage. I'm sick of it.

Affiliations

• American Committee for Peace in Chechnya - Former Member
• American Jewish Committee - Former Member, National Advisory Council
• Beliefnet - Former Columnist
• Center for Security Policy - Former Member, National Security Advisory Council
• Committee for U.S. Interests in the Middle East - Former Member
• Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf - Former Member (1998)
• Committee for the Free World -- Member of 1985 Conference on Reagan-Gorbachev Summit in Geneva
• Council on Foreign Relations - Former Member
• Ethics and Public Policy Center - President 1996-2002
• Francisco Marroquin Foundation - Former Chairman
• Hudson Institute - fellow 1989-1996.
• Heritage Foundation Alumnus of Heritage Foundation Resource Bank
• Independent Task Force on Columbia - Former member
• Middle East Forum - Signatory of 2000 report urging military action against Syria
• MEMRI - Board of Directors
• National Review - Former Contributing Editor
• Nicaraguan Resistance Foundation - Former Chairman
• Project for the New American Century - Founding Member
• Social Democrats USA - Former Member
• U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom - member and chairman 1999-2001

Published Works

• Democracy How Direct?: Views from the Founding Era and the Polling Era 2002 ISBN 0742523187
• The Influence of Faith 2001 ISBN 0742507629
• International Religious Freedom (2001): Annual Report: Submitted by the U.S. Department of State editor 2001 ISBN 0756713382
• Secularism, Spirituality, and the Future of American Jewry 1999 ISBN 0896331903
• Close Calls: Intervention, Terrorism, Missile Defense, and 'Just War' Today 1998 ISBN 0896331873
• Undue Process A Story of How Political Differences are Turned into Crimes 1998 ISBN 0029001676
• Honor Among Nations: Intangible Interests and Foreign Policy 1998 ISBN 0896331881
• Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America 1997 ISBN 0684825112
• Security and Sacrifice: Isolation, Intervention, and American Foreign Policy 1995 ISBN 1558130497
• Shield and Sword 1995 ISBN 002900165X

Resources and articles

Related

• Elliott Abrams/Foreign Policy Hawk

External articles

• Rightweb Elliott Abrams
• Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams Schema-Root.org cross-referenced newsfeed.
• Appointments & Nominations, June 25, 1985, Ronald Reagan Archives, University of Texas.
• David Corn, "Elliott Abrams: It's Back!", The Nation, June 14, 2001.
• Jim Lobe, "Bush's trusty new Mideast point man," Asia Times, December 19, 2002: "Yet another Likudnik is moving to a position where they control Washington's agenda on the Mideast," said Rashid Khalidi, a Mideast historian at the University of Chicago. "This is a tragedy for the Israeli and American people." Supporters of Likud were naturally more enthusiastic. "I believe Abrams understands that this is a not a war over borders, but over Israel's existence, something that almost no one in the State Department acknowledges," Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, told the Jewish weekly Forward last week.
• Richard H. Curtiss, Elliott Abrams, Militant Zionist, Chosen for NSC Post (Side Bar), Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2003.
• Jim Lobe, "Israel's Likud Scores Big With White House Appointment," Inter Press Service (RadioIslam.org), January 4, 2003.
• Richard Sale, "Staff change means Mideast policy shift," UPI (Washington Times) (RadioIslam.org), February 25, 2003.
• Michael Dobbs, "Back in Political Forefront", The Washington Post (truthout), May 27, 2003.
• Robert Parry, "Bush Taps Iran-Contra Figure Elliot Abrams to Promote Democracy" (transcript link to audio), Democracy Now!, February 4, 2005.
• Tom Barry, "Elliott Abrams: the Neocon's Neocon", CounterPunch, February 9, 2005.
• Michael Hirsh and Dan Ephron, "The Last Man Standing. With the neocons in disarray, Elliott Abrams may be their best hope for keeping President Bush onboard," Newsweek (MSNBC), December 4, 2006 (issue).
• William M. Leogrande and Jim Lobe, "Wright Redux. The flap over Nancy Pelosi's Syria trip echoes a 20-year-old fight with a previous Democratic House Speaker -- and is being driven by the same right-wing Republican hawks," The American Prospect, April 9, 2007. re Nancy Pelosi, Dick Cheney, and Newt Gingrich
• "The Architects of War: Where Are They Now?" Think Progress, July 2007.