By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Dec 4 2002 (IPS)

Neo-conservative hawks in the administration of President George W. Bush have won a major battle against the State Department in the fight for control of U.S. Mideast policy with the surprise appointment of Iran-Contra figure Elliott Abrams to the region’s top policy spot in the National Security Council (NSC).

The appointment, leaked to reporters by the White House on Monday, would for the first time place someone in a top Mideast policy spot who has publicly assailed the ”land-for-peace” formula that has guided U.S. policy in the Arab-Israeli conflict since the 1967 war.

Abrams, who first came to national prominence as a controversial political appointee in the Reagan administration and later pleaded guilty to lying to Congress regarding the Iran-Contra scandal, has also opposed the Oslo peace process and called for Washington to ”stand by Israel”, rather than act as a neutral mediator between Israel and the Palestinians.

”Yet another American ‘Likudnik’ is moving to a position where they control Washington’s agenda in the Mideast,” said Rashid Khalidi, a Mideast historian at the University of Chicago. ”This is a tragedy for the Israeli and American people.”

Likud is the right-wing Israeli party headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Currently NSC staff chief for democracy, human rights, and international operations, Abrams will become special assistant to the president and senior director in the NSC for Southwest Asia, Near East and North African affairs.

As such, he will be in charge of presenting policy papers and options for National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, whose own opinions have proven decisive in cases where the president receives conflicting views from hawks, represented by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, and the more-dovish Secretary of State, Colin Powell, who is often backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the uniformed military. Rice, a Russia specialist, had no experience with Mideast issues until her current job.

Abrams will replace Zalmay Khalilzad, a prominent foreign-policy strategist whose views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are considered much more neutral than Abrams’. Khalilzad succeeded Clinton holdover Bruce Reidel early last year but was quickly consumed with his native-borne Afghanistan after being named special envoy to the interim president, Hamid Karzai.

Khalilzad will now become ”ambassador-at-large for free Iraqis” and is expected to play a key role in sorting out internal conflicts among the Iraqi opposition.

Beloved by right-wingers who hail him as a hero for his championship of the Nicaraguan contras during the 1980s, Abrams first gained prominence as a leading neo-conservative when he served as Reagan’s assistant secretary of state for human rights in the early 1980s and then as assistant secretary for inter-American affairs.

In both positions, he clashed frequently and angrily with mainstream church groups and human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. They often accused him of covering up horrendous abuses committed by U.S.-backed governments, such as El Salvador and Guatemala, and rebel forces, such as the Contras and Angola’s Unita, while, at the same time, exaggerating abuses by U.S. foes.

Abrams was indicted by the Iran-Contra special prosecutor for giving false testimony about his role in illicitly raising money for the Contras but pleaded guilty to two lesser offences 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 in 1992.

Then House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich aided Abrams’ public rehabilitation by appointing him to the new U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 1999, for which he also served as chairman in 2000-01. Muslim groups here have complained about his refusal to criticise Israeli practices in the occupied territories and Jerusalem – such as sealing off Muslim holy sites – as violations of religious freedom.

He is not known as an Arab-Israeli specialist but has long favoured Likud positions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and even assailed former Likud Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for caving into U.S. pressure to respect the Oslo peace process. Shortly after the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada at the end of September 2000, he criticised mainstream Jewish groups for calling for a resumption of peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, as well as a halt to the violence.

Like Rumsfeld’s civilian advisers, such as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and Cheney’s top deputy, I. Lewis Libby, Abrams has favoured a Mideast strategy based on the overwhelming military power of both the United States and Israel.

It includes a military alliance between Israel and Turkey against hostile Arab states, particularly Syria and Iraq, in order to create a ”broader strategic context” to ensure that whatever state might emerge on Palestinian territory would be friendly to U.S. and Israeli interests and could force Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. He has long favoured forceful action to oust Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Abrams has long accused Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat of being an untrustworthy partner under the Oslo process and is believed to have used his previous NSC Democracy position to push for his ouster from power as part of a thorough reform process. That view, which was strongly backed by Rumsfeld and Cheney’s offices, was eventually accepted by Bush last June, over strenuous objections by the State Department and senior aides for Bush’s father, notably his former national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft.

In his new position, according to John Prados, a historian who has written about the National Security Council, Abrams should be in an excellent position to influence U.S. policy on the Mideast, particularly in ”delaying and/or halting policy on the ‘roadmap”’ that is being developed by the ”Quartet” – the United States, European Union, Russia, and the United Nations – on resuming political negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Indeed, it already appears that British hopes for a major meeting of the Quartet before the end of the year are fading quickly.

Abrams is expected to support Israel’s recent requests both to put off discussion of the ‘roadmap’ until after Israel’s elections at the end of next month and for some 14 billion dollars in military aid and loan guarantees to help the country cope with economic hard times.

James Zogby, director of the Arab-American Institute (AAI) here, said Abrams’ appointment sends ”a very dangerous message to the Arab world”, and adds to the ”lock that the neo-con set now has on all the major instruments of decision-making except for the State Department”.

Khalidi pointed to Abrams’ history of being less than forthcoming with information that may contradict his own views. ”He will be yet another filter blocking reality from reaching the president,” he said.

Excerpt:

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Dec 4 2002 (IPS)

Neo-conservative hawks in the administration of President George W. Bush have won a major battle against the State Department in the fight for control of U.S. Mideast policy with the surprise appointment of Iran-Contra figure Elliott Abrams to the region’s top policy spot in the National Security Council (NSC).

The appointment, leaked to reporters by the White House on Monday, would for the first time place someone in a top Mideast policy spot who has publicly assailed the “land-for-peace” formula that has guided U.S. policy in the Arab-Israeli conflict since the 1967 war.

Abrams, who first came to national prominence as a controversial political appointee in the Reagan administration and later pleaded guilty to lying to Congress regarding the Iran-Contra scandal, has also opposed the Oslo peace process and called for Washington to “stand by Israel”, rather than act as a neutral mediator between Israel and the Palestinians.

“Yet another American ‘Likudnik’ is moving to a position where they control Washington’s agenda in the Mideast,” said Rashid Khalidi, a Mideast historian at the University of Chicago. “This is a tragedy for the Israeli and American people.”

Likud is the right-wing Israeli party headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Currently NSC staff chief for democracy, human rights, and international operations, Abrams will become special assistant to the president and senior director in the NSC for Southwest Asia, Near East and North African affairs.

As such, he will be in charge of presenting policy papers and options for National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, whose own opinions have proven decisive in cases where the president receives conflicting views from hawks, represented by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, and the more-dovish Secretary of State, Colin Powell, who is often backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the uniformed military. Rice, a Russia specialist, had no experience with Mideast issues until her current job.

Abrams will replace Zalmay Khalilzad, a prominent foreign-policy strategist whose views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are considered much more neutral than Abrams’. Khalilzad succeeded Clinton holdover Bruce Reidel early last year but was quickly consumed with his native-borne Afghanistan after being named special envoy to the interim president, Hamid Karzai.

Khalilzad will now become “ambassador-at-large for free Iraqis” and is expected to play a key role in sorting out internal conflicts among the Iraqi opposition.

Beloved by right-wingers who hail him as a hero for his championship of the Nicaraguan contras during the 1980s, Abrams first gained prominence as a leading neo-conservative when he served as Reagan’s assistant secretary of state for human rights in the early 1980s and then as assistant secretary for inter-American affairs.

In both positions, he clashed frequently and angrily with mainstream church groups and human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. They often accused him of covering up horrendous abuses committed by U.S.-backed governments, such as El Salvador and Guatemala, and rebel forces, such as the Contras and Angola’s Unita, while, at the same time, exaggerating abuses by U.S. foes.

Abrams was indicted by the Iran-Contra special prosecutor for giving false testimony about his role in illicitly raising money for the Contras but pleaded guilty to two lesser offences 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 in 1992.

Then House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich aided Abrams’ public rehabilitation by appointing him to the new U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 1999, for which he also served as chairman in 2000-01. Muslim groups here have complained about his refusal to criticise Israeli practices in the occupied territories and Jerusalem – such as sealing off Muslim holy sites – as violations of religious freedom.

He is not known as an Arab-Israeli specialist but has long favoured Likud positions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and even assailed former Likud Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for caving into U.S. pressure to respect the Oslo peace process. Shortly after the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada at the end of September 2000, he criticised mainstream Jewish groups for calling for a resumption of peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, as well as a halt to the violence.

Like Rumsfeld’s civilian advisers, such as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and Cheney’s top deputy, I. Lewis Libby, Abrams has favoured a Mideast strategy based on the overwhelming military power of both the United States and Israel.

It includes a military alliance between Israel and Turkey against hostile Arab states, particularly Syria and Iraq, in order to create a “broader strategic context” to ensure that whatever state might emerge on Palestinian territory would be friendly to U.S. and Israeli interests and could force Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. He has long favoured forceful action to oust Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Abrams has long accused Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat of being an untrustworthy partner under the Oslo process and is believed to have used his previous NSC Democracy position to push for his ouster from power as part of a thorough reform process. That view, which was strongly backed by Rumsfeld and Cheney’s offices, was eventually accepted by Bush last June, over strenuous objections by the State Department and senior aides for Bush’s father, notably his former national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft.

In his new position, according to John Prados, a historian who has written about the National Security Council, Abrams should be in an excellent position to influence U.S. policy on the Mideast, particularly in “delaying and/or halting policy on the ‘roadmap”‘ that is being developed by the “Quartet” – the United States, European Union, Russia, and the United Nations – on resuming political negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Indeed, it already appears that British hopes for a major meeting of the Quartet before the end of the year are fading quickly.

Abrams is expected to support Israel’s recent requests both to put off discussion of the ‘roadmap’ until after Israel’s elections at the end of next month and for some 14 billion dollars in military aid and loan guarantees to help the country cope with economic hard times.

James Zogby, director of the Arab-American Institute (AAI) here, said Abrams’ appointment sends “a very dangerous message to the Arab world”, and adds to the “lock that the neo-con set now has on all the major instruments of decision-making except for the State Department”.

Khalidi pointed to Abrams’ history of being less than forthcoming with information that may contradict his own views. “He will be yet another filter blocking reality from reaching the president,” he said.

Excerpt: