Gangster Diplomacy
Elliot Abrams in Jerusalem
By TOM BARRY
In the wake of the most recent
Israel-Hezbollah conflict, Israel is abuzz with criticism of the government
and the Israeli Defense Forces for having led the nation to war without
achieving any of its objectives. Many Israelis, including IDF officers,
are also charging that the Bush administration and U.S. neoconservatives
have been encouraging Israel to act as the U.S. government's stalking horse
in its grand strategy to create a "new Middle East" by striking out first
against Hezbollah-and then Syria and Iran.
In marked contrast, there
is little public debate in the United States about the Bush administration's
role in supporting Israel's failed and criminal war in Lebanon. As recent
press reports reveal, President Bush and his foreign policy team had given
Israel a green light to take out Hezbollah at least two months before Hezbollah
guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers.
As was the case in U.S.
policy toward Iraq, the neoconservative camp-led by such institutes as
the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Foundation for Defense of Democracies,
Center for Security Policy, and the now defunct Project for the New American
Century and by such neocon pundits and strategists as Max Boot, Charles
Krauthammer, Michael Ledeen, and Elliott Abrams-has long promoted that
the United States and Israel implement regime change and preemptive strategies
against Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran.
Also like the Iraq War,
the neoconservatives inside and outside the Bush administration have seen
their own causes embraced, to various degrees, by Vice President Dick Cheney,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and the president himself.
Outside the administration
the neocons have vociferously pressed for the U.S. government to proceed
"faster, please," as AEI's Freedom Scholar Michael Leeden often says, with
its Middle East transformation strategy. During the recent hostilities,
Ledeen and others, notably Krauthammer, Boot, and William Kristol, have
advocated that the United States and Israel take the war to Syria and Iran.
Since he joined the Bush
administration in 2002 as the chief Middle East adviser at the White House's
National Security Council, Elliott Abrams has quietly pushed for a transformational
Middle East policy with Israel at its center. If one U.S. official were
to be blamed-aside from the president, vice president, and secretary of
state-for the U.S. government's disastrous stance with Israel in the recent
war, it would be Elliot Abrams. Perhaps more than any other member of Bush's
foreign policy team, Abrams embodies the administration's zealous, ideological,
and dangerously delusional vision of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle
East.
Abrams, a neoconservative
who has dedicated himself to reshaping U.S. foreign policy since the mid-1970s,
is the Bush administration's point man for Middle East transformation.
According to Seymour Hersh writing in the August 21 New Yorker, Cheney's
foreign policy staff and Abrams in early summer had signed off on an Israeli
plan to wipe out Hezbollah.
During the first administration
Abrams was the NSC chief of Middle Eastern and Northern African Affairs.
"I have two-thirds of the axis of evil," he boasted, according to a New
Yorker essay (Feb. 10, 2005). Abrams wears two hats in the second Bush
administration, serving as the chief of the president's "Global Democracy
Strategy" and also serving as a top deputy to National Security Adviser
Hadley. Although closely involved in all Middle East policy, Abrams' official
NSC role is addressing "Israeli-Palestinian" affairs. But Abrams has long
insisted on referring to Israel-Palestine tensions as an "Israel-Arab"
conflict that is artfully disguised as a self-determination conflict.
As he has in the past, Abrams
has either preceded or accompanied Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
on her trips to the Middle East-where the main destination is Jerusalem.
After more than a week watching Israel unleash its might against Hezbollah
in Lebanon, Abrams went to Jerusalem in late July as part of a three-person
high-level delegation led by Rice and also including C. David Welch, a
career diplomat who is assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs.
Although he has spent most
of his time in Jerusalem over the past several weeks, Abrams has shuttled
back and forth from Washington and has played a central role in holding
together the neoconservative-militarist Washington consensus on Israel-Arab/Iran
policy.
Bush's choice of Elliott
Abrams as his top Middle East expert and the administration's point man
in the current war speaks volumes about the president's own views on "global
democracy" and Middle East affairs. Bush's selection of Abrams to play
a leading role in two key aspects of the administration's aggressive foreign
policy-U.S.-led democratization and Middle East transformation-also points
to the White House's high comfort level with the foreign policy agenda
promoted by the neoconservative camp.
Neoconservative
and Neo-Reaganite
Abrams, a proud self-declared
"neoconservative and neo-Reaganite," is the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz
and Midge Decter, an activist couple who played a leading role in establishing
neoconservatism as an influential political tendency in the 1970s. There's
no doubting Abrams' neoconservative and neo-Reaganite credentials. Like
many other second-generation neocons, Abrams got his political start as
member of the right-wing Social Democrats USAand as legal counsel to the
hawkish and avidly pro-Israel Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson. In the late 1970s
Abrams worked with other right-wing Democrats in the Coalition for a Democratic
Majority as part of an unsuccessful attempt to turn the post-Vietnam War
Democratic Party back toward hard-line anticommunism, and then along with
other Cold Warrior Democrats became Reagan supporters and Republicans.
When not in government service,
Abrams has been affiliated with key neoconservative institutes and pressure
groups, including Ethics and Public Policy Center, Project for the New
American Century, Center for Security Policy, Committee for U.S. Interests
in the Middle East, Committee for the Free World, and the Nicaraguan Resistance
Foundation.
As a Reaganite, Abrams served
in President Reagan's State Department, in the first term as assistant
secretary of state for human rights and then as assistant secretary for
inter-American affairs. As a State Department diplomat, Abrams helped coordinate
illegal government support for the Nicaraguan contras, known by Reaganites
as "freedom fighters," and worked with Lt. Col. Oliver North to triangulate
arms sales through Israel to Iran with the proceeds channeled to the Nicaraguan
contras-an illegal operation about which he falsely denied knowledge in
congressional testimony resulting in his criminal conviction.
During the Reagan administration,
Abrams was the government's nexus between the militarists in the National
Security Council and the public-diplomacy operatives in the State Department,
White House, and National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Abrams worked
closely with Otto Reich, who directed the White House's Office of Public
Diplomacy, which was in charge of disseminating "white propaganda" to the
U.S. public, media, and policymakers to build support for the Reagan administration's
interventionist policies in Latin America and elsewhere.
Before joining the Bush
administration, Abrams served as the first chairman of the U.S. Commission
on Religious Freedom, a government commission established at the initiative
of House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich and a coalition of neoconservatives
and Christian Right organizations.
Regarding Abrams's biased
stance on Middle East affairs, Dr. Laila al-Marayati, a former member of
the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, wrote: "From the
vantage point of the [U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom],
as an American and as a Muslim, I had the unfortunate opportunity of witnessing-clearly
and unequivocally-the deep bias that Abrams brings to his new position
As chairman of the commission at the time, Abrams led the delegation to
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but did not go to Jerusalem with three of us as
he was of the opinion that there are no problems with religious freedom
in Israel that would warrant the attention of the commission Bypassing
Israel was not the only way Abrams undermined the Commission's visit to
the Middle East Abrams managed to snub the leading Islamic cleric in Egypt
which nearly created a diplomatic nightmare that was only narrowly averted
by the intervention of the U.S. ambassador."
"Peace
through Strength" in the Middle East
As part of his neo-Reaganite
identity, Abrams in the 1990s argued for a renewal of Reagan's "peace through
strength" foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. In 1992 Abrams
helped form the Committee for U.S. Interests in the Middle East, which
was actually a committee to ensure that U.S. policy was aligned with the
Likud party in Israel.
Other members included Richard
Perle, Douglas Feith , Frank Gaffney, and John Lehman, among dozens of
other neoconservatives and pro-Israel hawks. The committee spoke out against
what it perceived was a dangerous distancing between the Bush administration
and Israel, evident in its pressure for Israel to pull out of some occupied
territories and halt its campaign to expand settlements in these zones.
"Mr. President, we don't agree that the current policy of antagonism toward
Israel is in the U.S. national interest."
A charter member of the
Project for the New American Century, Abrams signed all PNAC statements
published before 20001, including two calling for regime change strategy
in Iraq, before he joined the Bush administration. In 2000 Abrams participated
in the ad hoc Lebanon Study Group, which was jointly sponsored by the Middle
East Forum and the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon. The group called
for the United States to rid Syria of its alleged weapons of mass destruction,
initiate strict sanctions against Syria, and for Syria to remove its troops
from Lebanon.
Also in 2000 Abrams authored
a chapter in a PNAC volume titled Present Dangers that was designed as
a policy blueprint for the incoming president. "Our military strength and
willingness to use it will remain a key factor in our ability to promote
peace," wrote Abrams. "Strengthening Israel, our major ally in the region,
should be the central core of U.S. Middle East policy, and we should not
permit the establishment of a Palestinian state that does not explicitly
uphold U.S. policy in the region," he asserted. Presaging the Middle East
policy of the George W. Bush administration, Abrams wrote: U.S. interests
"do not lie in strengthening Palestinians at the expense of Israelis, abandoning
our overall policy of supporting the expansion of democracy and human rights,
or subordinating all other political and security goals to the 'success'
of the Arab-Israel 'peace process'."
In his writings in Commentary,
the neoconservative magazine of the American Jewish Committee, Abrams expressed
his support for right-wing Likud positions, including those of prime ministers
Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon. Abrams has consistently rejected any
"land for peace" formula for Israel-Palestinian negotiations, calling the
Oslo Accords an "illusion" and criticizing the "policy of concessions"
of the Israeli government. What is more, Abrams, who has family members
living in Israel, has repeatedly called for the United States to publicly
back Israel's sovereignty claims over Jerusalem by moving the U.S. embassy
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Peace in the Middle East,
according to Abrams, will be the product of Israeli and U.S. military strength.
In October 2000, Abrams wrote: "After a decade of self-delusion, American
Jews must face up to reality. The Palestinian leadership does not want
peace with Israel and there will be no peace." Criticizing dovish American
Jewish organizations for supporting the "peace process," Abrams advocated
a tough response and wrote that "years of U.S. pressure on Israel must
end." Following Ariel Sharon's election as prime minister, Abrams wrote
that Sharon embodied a new approach "of firmness and resistance to violence
or the threat of violence." Abrams likened the return of Sharon to head
the Israel government as similar to the return of Winston Churchill to
government when Great Britain's survival was threatened.
There's no doubt that Abrams
is an ardent proponent of Israel and a fierce critic of Hezbollah in the
enfolding Middle East crisis. On a trip back to Washington from Israel
in late July, Abrams briefed a delegation of Jewish organizations seeking
assurance that the administration would unconditionally back Israel. On
July 20 Abrams, who serves unofficially as the president's liaison to Jewish
organizations on Middle East issues, told the delegation that Hezbollah
is "a monster that needs to be dealt with."
Abrams' strong opinions
extend to the religious and national identity of U.S. Jews. A radical separatist,
Abrams argues that Jews should not date or attend elementary schools with
non-Jews. According to Abrams, "Outside the land of Israel, there can be
no doubt that Jews, faithful to the covenant between God and Abraham, are
to stand apart from the nation in which they live. It is the very nature
of being Jewish to be apart-except in Israel-from the rest of the population."
Abrams takes care to insist
that his positions imply no "disloyalty" to the United States, but at the
same time insists that Jews must be loyal to Israel because they "are in
a permanent covenant with God and with the land of Israel and its people.
Their commitment will not weaken if the Israeli government pursues unpopular
policies."
Ideologue
Turns Diplomat
Outside Washington, particularly
in the Muslim world, it might seem that the U.S. government is unified
around its support for Israel's military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.
However, traditional fissures between the militarists and the neoconservatives
on one side, and the diplomats and the realists on the other belie the
apparent unity in support for Israel.
This divide cuts right through
the administration's three-person team that is managing the U.S. response
to the crisis. A New York Times report (Aug. 10), titled "Rice's Hurdles
on Middle East Begin at Home," noted that Rice has been accompanied in
the Middle East "by two men with different outlooks on the conflict," namely
the NSC's Abrams and the State Department's Welch. According to the NYT,
"Mr. Abrams, a neoconservative with strong ties to Mr. Cheney, has pushed
the administration to throw its support behind Israel" and during Rice's
travels Abrams has "kept in direct contact with Mr. Cheney's office."
One administration official
told the NYT that Welch and Abrams serve as "counterfoils" with Abrams
"articulating the Israeli stance."
While President Bush's supporters
on the right are generally pleased with the administration's strong backing
of the Israeli position, many criticize the State Department and Rice.
Leading the attack is Richard Perle, who along with former DOD undersecretary
for policy Douglas Feith has worked with Abrams since the mid-1970s when
both advised Senator Jackson. In a Washington Post op-ed (June 25) that
served to coalesce conservative forces against Rice, Perle wrote that,
having moved from the National Security Council to the State Department,
Rice is "now in the midst of-and increasingly represents-a diplomatic establishment
that is driven to accommodate its allies even when (or, it seems, especially
when) such allies counsel the appeasement of our adversaries."
A month later an article
titled "Dump Condi" (July 25) in Insight Magazine, a publication of the
Washington Timesand written by its editors, approvingly reported: "Conservative
national security allies of President Bush are in revolt against Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice, saying she is incompetent and has reversed the
administration's national security and foreign policy agenda." All of Rice's
main critics, who include Newt Gingrich and William Kristol, charge that
Iran is taking advantage of Rice's inexperience and incompetence, as well
as the State Department's purported tradition of "appeasement."
Abrams' close association
with Ms. Rice-when he worked under her at the National Security Council
during Bush's first term and more recently as one of the secretary of state's
top Middle East advisers-has raised questions among conservatives about
his ideological integrity. When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon advocated unilateral
disengagement from the Gaza Strip, many neoconservatives, Christian Zionists,
and national security radicals were critical, along with such radical Likudniks
as former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while Abrams voiced support
for Sharon's initiatives.
However, those close to
Abrams have never doubted him. When conservatives started wondering if
he was capitulating to conservative moderates like Rice and to the State
Department "appeasers" during Bush's first term, then-defense undersecretary
Douglas Feith and Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum told those in the
pro-Israel community to hold their fire-that Abrams knew what he was doing
was in the best interests of Israel.
Working inside government,
both during the Reagan and Bush administrations, Abrams has proved adept
at advancing his own radical policy agendas through all key departments
of the executive branch. With his own neoconservative, pro-Israel credentials
well established, Abrams has focused on the pragmatic implementation of
policy agendas rather than holding fast to ideological positions. As a
senior administration official told the New York Times: "The genius of
Elliott Abrams is that he's Elliott Abrams. How can he be accused of not
sufficiently supporting Israel?"
A novice in Middle East
affairs, Condoleezza Rice-while national security adviser and currently
as secretary of state-has relied on Abrams for his unnuanced view of Middle
East affairs. A friend of Rice told the New Yorker: She sees Abrams "not
just as a good manager but a good strategist. As an NSC administrator,
you want someone who can think several moves ahead, who has a peripheral
vision and an instinct to get where you want to go-someone who can really
play the high-stakes game."
Abrams is a neoconservative
ideologue who as a government operative has turned ideology into strategy
and policy. But are his instincts and vision for the Middle East in keeping
with U.S. national interests and Mideast realities? Richard John Neuhaus,
a longtime Abrams colleague since the 1970s and fellow neoconservative,
told the New Yorker: "What runs through Elliott's thinking is a deep, almost
quasi-religious devotion to democracy. He thinks real democratic change
can happen in the Middle East. It's breathtaking, in a way."
In his dual role as chief
of the White House's global democracy initiative and as NSC deputy adviser,
Abrams is well positioned to ensure that his radical ideas about a U.S.-led
democracy crusade and about an Israel-centric Middle East determine the
directions of U.S. foreign policy-the former providing a moral cover for
the latter.
But Abrams and others in
the Bush administration are finding that its "democratic globalist" and
"power through strength" ideologies are badly backfiring.
As part of his job spearheading
what the president calls the "global democratic revolution," Abrams helped
organize a Washington meeting for Iranian dissidents, coincidently on the
same day he ensured representatives of Jewish organizations that the Bush
administration would continue its virtually unqualified support of Israel.
But most of the invited Iranian dissidents brushed off the invitation saying
that U.S. government involvement in Iranian affairs undermined the struggle
for democracy. Akbar Ganji, who had been imprisoned by the Iranian government
in 2000, declined the White House's invitation, saying that such meetings
undermined the credibility of the Iranian opposition. In a speech in Washington,
Ganji said that the war in Iraq had fostered the growth of Islamic fundamentalism
and hampered the democracy movement in the Middle East.
The "peace through strength"
vision of spreading Pax Americana and ensuring Israel's security has proved
illusory and wrong-headed. Rather than ridding the region of anti-Israel
and anti-U.S. regime, the invasion and occupation of Iraq supported by
Abrams and other neocon ideologues have created a new breeding ground for
non-state Islamic terrorists and a state that shows signs of becoming part
of a new anti-Israel bloc in the region. Meanwhile, the U.S.-backed Israeli
campaign to hunt down other declared monsters-Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, and
Syria-may indeed lead to a new Middle East, but one in which Israel is
much less secure and the United States still more hated.
Tom Barry is policy director of the International
Relations Center. |