Elliott Abrams-From Iran-Contra to Bush's democracy czar. [View All]

Elliott Abrams
From Iran-Contra to Bush's democracy czar.
By Michael Crowley
Posted Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005

Hours before the president's State of the Union address earlier this month—a perfect moment for burying inconvenient news—the White House announced the ascension of Elliott Abrams to the highest ranks of its foreign-policy team. Abrams has moved from the staff of the National Security Council to the post of deputy national security adviser. It's a significant promotion, one that gives Abrams both an elevated stature and new management powers. Specifically, the White House says Abrams will be in charge of "global democracy strategy," effectively making him Bush's democracy czar. In other words, Abrams is now the brains behind George Bush's grand mission to fix the world. Over the next four years, he may come to represent, more than anyone, the id of the Bush administration's foreign policy.

Why would the White House bury Abrams' promotion? Because he still hasn't shed his image as a Reaganite villain. As Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh prepared to bring a multicount felony indictment against him in 1987, Abrams pleaded guilty to misleading Congress, a misdemeanor crime. Many Democrats also revile him as the lead apologist for brutal Central American dictatorships in El Salvador and Guatemala during the 1980s. He's "the guy who lied and wheedled to aid and protect human rights abusers," The Nation's David Corn wrote upon Abrams' 2001 return to government. Surely the White House grasps the ironies here: A man accused of subverting the Constitution is leading its charge for democratic government; a reputed defender of dictators is working to depose them. In this sense, Abrams embodies Bush's foreign policy as a whole. The goals are noble—but are the methods sound?

~snip~

Like so many other neocons, Abrams ditched the Democratic party in the late 1970s because of its post-Vietnam foreign-policy timidity. After a meeting with Jimmy Carter, he declared the president "hopeless" about confronting the Soviets. He joined Reagan's State Department and in the name of anti-communism placed himself on the front lines of the administration's Central American proxy wars with the Soviets. Abrams was among the first to agitate for the downfall of Manuel Noriega, and his loathing of Augusto Pinochet led him to feud openly with Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, who urged cooperation with the Chilean strongman. But Abrams undercut his credibility by stubbornly defending the U.S.-backed military regime in El Salvador even after evidence emerged of regime-sponsored massacres. This made him a villain among liberals like New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, who accused him of whitewashing human rights abuses. A famously tough political operator, Abrams gave as good as he got. "I would like to take a machine gun and mow Anthony Lewis down," his wife once told the Washington Post. "I wouldn't waste the bullets," Abrams rejoined. "I would rather have them go to the contras."

That sort of self-certainty helped to enmesh Abrams in the Iran-Contra scandal. Though not a principal architect, he was well aware of Oliver North's secret aid program to the Nicaraguan rebels and played his own memorable role in the skullduggery. In a classic bit of John le Carré intrigue, Abrams traveled to London in 1986 armed with a Swiss bank account number and the code name "Mr. Kenilworth." He met in Hyde Park with an agent of the Sultan of Brunei and solicited a $10 million donation for the contras. When the Iran-Contra investigation revealed his role, Abrams took a beating and then hung on for the duration of Reagan's presidency. He wasn't invited to join the new team when George H. W. Bush took office in 1989, however, though Bush later granted him a Christmas Eve pardon to clear his legal record. Abrams never apologized for his Iran-Contra doings. "I don't have any regrets at all," he proclaimed upon leaving government. Much like the defenders of the Iraq war in the current administration, he felt he had done the right thing in the name of a larger, heroic cause.

~snip~

Meanwhile, Abrams' central task is to implement Bush's call for "the expansion of freedom in all the world.".....

Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2113690/