Elliott Abrams

Lawyer

1948-01-24

Quotes by Elliott Abrams

• Reformist kings can save their dynasties now by helping their countries move smoothly into democracy, or they will end their years in exile like the Russian aristocrats of a century earlier.

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• Dubai must crack down on rampant smuggling, and the U.A.E. federal government has significantly stepped up pressure.

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• There is no softer target in GOP primaries than the United Nations and foreign-aid spending.

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• In critical ways, Obama has reversed not just Bush policy but every president's approach to the world since the Second World War, save for that of his soulmate Jimmy Carter.

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• I first met Kim Dae Jung when he was a Korean dissident whose life was threatened by the military regime ruling in Seoul. I was Ronald Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, and Kim was directed to me because the East Asia Bureau at the State Department had long shunned him.

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• Enlightened despots are mythical creatures; real despots seem more interested in stealing money or installing their sons after them.

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• The Arab monarchies, especially Jordan and Morocco, are more legitimate than the false republics, with their stolen elections, regime-dominated courts and rubber-stamp parliaments.

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• It seems clear to me that the Obama Administration has no human rights policy. That is, while in some inchoate sense they would like respect for human rights to grow around the world, as all Americans would, they have no actual policy to achieve that goal - and they subordinate it to all their other policy goals.

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• The United States already has in place comprehensive trade sanctions against Sudan, imposed because of the regime's support for terrorism. While we maintain diplomatic relations, we do not staff our embassy there.

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• If the president of the United States says that attacks on civilians, starvation, and denial of religious freedom in Sudan are important international issues, they become so.

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• The United States should help strengthen nongovernmental humanitarian agencies working in Sudan so that they can handle an increased flow of aid.

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• An effective U.S. policy toward Sudan - one capable of changing the situation in the south and affecting the lives of its people - will require top-level attention and a great deal of energy. It should have three elements: aid, diplomacy, and financial disclosure.

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• Being an Arab leader has its rewards: the suite at the Waldorf-Astoria during the United Nations General Assembly, travel in your own plane, plenty of cash, even job security - whether kings, sheiks or presidents, with or without elections, most serve for life.

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• Syria's population is 74% Sunni Muslim.

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• The Middle East that Obama inherited in 2009 was largely at peace, for the surge in Iraq had beaten down the al Qaeda-linked groups. U.S. relations with traditional allies in the Gulf, Jordan, Israel and Egypt were very good. Iran was contained, its Revolutionary Guard forces at home.

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• Israel bombed the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007. What the Syrians did in response, nothing. Israel has killed a number of terrorist leaders in Syria. Response? Nothing.

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• In the spring of 2007, Israeli intelligence brought to Washington proof that the Assad regime in Syria was building a nuclear reactor along the Euphrates - with North Korean help. This reactor was a copy of the Yongbyon reactor the North Koreans had built, and was part of a Syrian nuclear weapons program.

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• The best-armed and best-trained divisions of the Syrian army are Alawite.

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• President Bush was disgusted by the Assad regime's oppression of the Syrian people as well as its support for terrorism, interference in Lebanon, and encouragement of jihadist attacks on Americans in Iraq.

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• The attack on the British embassy in Tehran came just days after the Iranian 'parliament' voted to expel the British ambassador, and therefore reeks of official complicity.

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