Elliott Abrams

Elliott Abrams is Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Abrams served in the State Department during all eight years of the Reagan Administration, as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, then Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and then as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter- American Affairs. In 1988, Mr. Abrams received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award from Secretary George P. Shultz for his work in the Department.

Mr. Abrams 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. In the Trump administration he served in the State Department as Special Representative for Iran and for Venezuela.

Mr. Abrams was a member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom from 1999 to 2001, and Chairman of the Commission in the latter year, and was reappointed to membership for another term from 2012-2014. He served as a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council from 2009 to 2016 and of the Board of the National Endowment for Democracy from 2011 to 2023. Mr. Abrams is chairman of the Tikvah Fund and of the Vandenberg Coalition, and is a member of the board of the Jewish People Policy Institute. He is the author of six books and editor of three more.

Mr. Abrams was educated at Harvard College (B.A. 1969), the London School of Economics (M.Sc. Econ. 1970) and Harvard Law School (J.D. 1973).