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Expert Bio
Elliott Abrams is senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington, DC. He served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor in the administration of President George W. Bush, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House, and as Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela in the administration of Donald Trump.
Abrams was educated at Harvard College, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Law School. After serving on the staffs of Senators Henry M. Jackson and Daniel P. Moynihan, he was an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration and received the secretary of state's Distinguished Service Award from Secretary George P. Shultz. In 2012, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy gave him its Scholar-Statesman Award.
Abrams was president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, from 1996 until joining the White House staff. He was a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom from 1999 to 2001 and chairman of the commission in the latter year, and served a second term as a member of the Commission in 2012-2014. From 2009 to 2016, Abrams was a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, which directs the activities of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is a member of the board of the National Endowment for Democracy, and teaches U.S. foreign policy at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
Abrams joined the Bush administration in June 2001 as special assistant to the president and senior director of the National Security Council for democracy, human rights, and international organizations. From December 2002 to February 2005, he served as special assistant to the president and senior director of the National Security Council for Near East and North African affairs. He served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for global democracy strategy from February 2005 to January 2009, and in that capacity supervised both the Near East and North African affairs and the democracy, human rights, and international organizations directorates of the National Security Council.
Abrams rejoined the State Department in January 2019 as Special Representative for Venezuela, and in August 2020 took on the additional position of Special Representative for Iran. He left the Department in January 2021.
Abrams is the author of five books: Undue Process, Security and Sacrifice, Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America, Tested by Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and most recently Realism and Democracy: American Foreign Policy After the Arab Spring. He is the editor of three more, Close Calls: Intervention, Terrorism, Missile Defense and "Just War" Today; Honor Among Nations: Intangible Interests and Foreign Policy; and The Influence of Faith: Religious Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy.
He is fluent in French and Spanish.
Affiliations:
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Israel Democracy Institute, international advisory council
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Jewish People Policy Institute, board member
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NGO Monitor, international advisory board
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Tikvah Fund, board chair
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Vandenberg Coalition, board chair
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Public Interest Fellowship, consultant
Featured
Current Projects
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In its May/June issue "Foreign Affairs" magazine published an article by four well-known academics that called in essence for an end to the Jewish state that has existed since 1948.
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Human rights and the rule of law in Mexico are under siege. It would be a grave error for the United States to believe that its only interests there are trade and border security, and do not include democratic stability.
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The interventions in Israel’s bitter debate over judicial reform by both the Biden administration and many segments of the American Jewish community are striking—and need explaining.
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Israel's crisis is about judicial reform, but about deeper issues as well. Religion and state issues, and the role of the fast-growing haredi population, are at the heart of the matter.
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The Russia-Ukraine war has implications for the Middle East, Europe, and Asia and of course for U.S. foreign policy. In this speech I addressed them briefly.
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Doomsday predictions about the consequences of Israel's election are overwrought. Some of the proposed legal reforms would bring Israel's system closer to the U.S. model.
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President Biden has embraced "reforms" of the United Nations Security Council that are impractical and would undermine U.S. interests.
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Amnesty International's recent attack on Ukraine raises yet again the issue of how the size, governance, and influence of the largest human rights organizations may damage the cause of human rights.
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President Biden showed strong support for Israel during his recent visit, but never explained how the "two-state solution" would be possible without damaging Jordanian and Israeli security.
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Polls taken in 2021 and 2022 show a significant gap between Republicans and Democrats in their levels of support for Israel and for the Palestinians.
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International human rights NGOs are important champions of basic human rights, but must be subject to careful assessment themselves.
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What lessons will Xi Jinping learn from the war in Ukraine?
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The Russian democracy activist Vladimir Kara-Murza has been imprisoned, and his heroism must be saluted.
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The U.N. General Assembly is debating a move to weaken veto power in the Security Council, and the Biden administration is supporting the draft. But weakening the veto is clearly against U.S. interests.
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Putin's invasion of Ukraine and partnership with Xi have forced the United States into a new Cold War. Can the United States gain victory this time?
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Amnesty International's 278-page report on Israel is a farrago of bias, double standards, and assaults on the very existence of the Jewish State.
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In recent weeks the Iran nuclear talks restarted, and the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered himself of a statement criticizing Israel's treatment of Christians. Herewith, comments on both matters.
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The Gulf Cooperation Council and the United States issued statements on December 14, and both tell us much about the Palestinian issue as 2021 ends.
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Facing genocide by China, the Uighurs, who are Muslim, benefit from near zero solidarity from their co-religionists.
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An extradition to the United States is a reminder of justice--and its absence.
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EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Borrell will send an election observer mission to Venezuela despite his own staff's scathing report on conditions there and advice not do observe the phony elections.
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The "Pandora Papers" fail to distinguish between criminals and people whose apparent sin is to be rich.
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The cellmate who told the world he had seen Navid Afkari tortured is now dead in an Iranian prison
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The collapse in Afghanistan helps explain why Arab states are warming up to Israel.