President Biden announced Monday that he will nominate Elliott Abrams to the bipartisan United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, CNN has reported.
Abrams is a neoconservative hawk who led the Trump administration’s failed Venezuela regime change effort, which involved crushing economic sanctions that are still in effect today, besides Biden giving Chevron a limited license to pump oil in the country.
Toward the end of Trump’s presidency, Abrams was also assigned as the US’s top Iran envoy, where he oversaw a sanctions policy designed to prevent President Biden from re-entering the Iran nuclear deal.
Abrams is notorious for his role in covering up atrocities committed by US-backed forces in Latin America during the Reagan administration in the 1980s, most notably the El Mozate massacre in El Salvador.
Over 800 civilians were killed by US-trained forces in El Mozate, and at the time, Abrams praised the death squad and disputed the death toll. In 1991, Abrams pled guilty for lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra Affair but was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.
Abrams also served in the George W. Bush administration as the deputy national security advisor from 2005 – 2009. He currently works for the Council on Foreign Relations as senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies.
Source: AntiWar.
