Pro-Israel Neocon Steers Bush’s Democracy Drive

By Adam Wild Aba, IOL Correspondent

WASHINGTON, February 5 (IslamOnline.net) – A staunch advocate of Israel has jointed the neocon-studded Bush administration as Deputy National Security Adviser for Global Democracy and Human Rights.

Embodying neo-conservatism perhaps more than any other neoconservative, Elliot Abrams will be assigned with promoting democracy and freedom abroad in line with the Bush administration’s Greater Middle East and North Africa Initiative, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley said in a press release seen by IslamOnline.net on Friday, February 4.

Abrams, 58, has served as special assistant to President Bush and senior director for Near East and North African affairs in the National Security Council since December 2002.

He will continue to work on Israeli-Palestinian affairs in concert with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, according to the missive.

Jewish Abrams is the author of the book: Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America.

‘Original Neocon’

Abrams is considered one of the fathers of neo-conservatism in the United States.

He joined the neocon exodus from the Democratic Party in the late 1970s led by members of the Committee on the Present Danger and the Coalition for a Democratic Majority.

“Abrams has integrated the various influences that have shaped today's neoconservative agenda. A creature of the neoconservative incubator, Abrams is a political intellectual and operative who has advanced the neoconservative agenda with chutzpah and considerable success,” according to the US-based International Relations Center (IRC), which provides an independent, well-researched analysis of US foreign policy-makers.

Abrams was also a charter member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which issued its statement of principles about the need for a “neo-Reaganite” foreign policy in 1997.

He served as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) and advisory council member of the American Jewish Committee.

When serving as EPCC president, Abrams was of the opinion that human rights should be a “policy tool” to pursue the neoconservative agenda.

He lobbied for the creation of the controversial Commission on International Religious Freedom with a focus on alleged religious discrimination in Muslim countries.

Abrams also served as the commission’s chairman until mid-2001, when he joined the Bush administration.

Belligerent

In his chapter on the Middle East in PNAC, Abrams wrote: “Our military strength and willingness to use it will remain a key factor in our ability to promote peace.”

He has roundly rejected peace talks with the Palestinian Authority and lambasted peace-loving Jews for supporting peace talks and calling for halting Israeli aggressions against the Palestinians.

“Strengthening Israel, our major ally in the region, should be the central core of US Middle East policy, and we should not permit the establishment of a Palestinian state that does not explicitly uphold US policy in the region,” Abrams asserted in PNAC’s chapter on the Middle East.

Following Ariel Sharon's election as prime minister of Israel, Abrams wrote that hawkish Sharon embodied a new approach “of firmness and resistance to violence or the threat of violence.”

He further absolved Sharon from committing the grisly Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982, holding the Christian militias in Lebanon accountable for it.

Liar Abrams

Abrams is infamous for lying to Congress as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights under President Ronald Reagan (1981-89).

During the Regan era, he was accused of secretly supporting the so-called Contra Movement in Nicaragua, which had been banned by Congress under the then Bolen Amendment, to topple the Sandinistas regime there.

He was further accused of being involved in smuggling weapons to Iran to secure the safe release of hostages in Lebanon. The incidents were known as the “Iran-Contra” scandal.

When Congress asked Abrams about these allegations, he gave very deceptive testimony.

He pleaded guilty to two lesser offenses, including withholding information from Congress, in order to avoid a trial and a possible jail term.

Abrams, one of the six Iran-Contra defendants, was given a pardon by President George H.W. Bush on Christmas Eve 1992.

“Inexperience”

Pundits and analysts have criticized Abrams’s nomination for high-profile jobs within the US administrations given his blemished record and “inexperience”.

“Despite his own record of lying to Congress and managing illegal operations; Abrams rose to high positions in the National Security Council to oversee US foreign policy in regions where he had no professional experience,” the IRC said.

“Only ideological positions; proved himself as a political intellectual in books and essays that explore the interface between orthodox Judaism, American culture, and political philosophy; and demonstrated his considerable talents in public diplomacy as a political art in the use of misinformation and propaganda to ensure public and policy support for foreign relations agendas that would otherwise be soundly rejected.”

It said that when Abrams was appointed to be the Reagan's administration point-man on Latin America, he came to the State Department with no expertise in the region and did not speak Spanish.

“Similarly, Abrams became the NSC's Middle East specialist without any expertise in the region-other than his family ties to Israel, his polemical writings for neoconservative publications, and his right-wing Zionism.”