Top 228 Quotes & Sayings by Elliott Abrams

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American lawyer Elliott Abrams.

Last updated on November 3, 2024.

Elliott Abrams is an American politician and lawyer, who has served in foreign policy positions for presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Abrams is considered to be a neoconservative. He is currently a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as the U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela from 2019 to 2021 and as the U.S. Special Representative for Iran from 2020 to 2021.

American - Lawyer | Born: January 24, 1948

Source: Wikipedia

Pinochet took power in a 1973 military coup that the United States supported.

Elliott Abrams

As the Palestinian leadership never seems to pay any penalty for its words, America's seriousness about the peace process is in doubt.

Elliott Abrams

In 2004, President Bush gave Prime Minister Sharon certain guarantees about American policy, but the Obama administration treated those as a kind of private letter having no binding policy impact.

Elliott Abrams

A Palestinian state will never be created by terror.

Elliott Abrams

There isn't any way for the people of Nicaragua to find out what's going on in Nicaragua.

Elliott Abrams

Libya as a country is a relatively new concept. The period of Libya as a modern nation really starts after World War II.

Elliott Abrams

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.

Elliott Abrams

We need to understand that an open society and free speech and press... really are the best weapons against al Qaeda and extremism.

Elliott Abrams

The Sandinistas are a tough bunch of guys, with a fabulous amount of Soviet Bloc equipment and Soviet Bloc advisers.

Elliott Abrams

Obama is like the kid brother whose only standard for judging his own achievements is the records his big brother set.

Elliott Abrams

Sometimes the results of a first free election will find the moderates so poorly organized that extreme groups can eke out a victory, as Hamas did when it gained a 44-to-41 percent margin in the Palestinian election of 2006.

Elliott Abrams

Opponents of U.S. sanctions have made 'unilateral sanctions' their special target. They argue that sanctions observed by many nations would be much more effective. True enough. Far better for trade with an outlaw regime to be restricted by many nations than by just one.

Elliott Abrams

Two presidents pursued human rights policies that were serious and effective: Reagan and George W. Bush. They understood that American support for human rights activists is a moral imperative for us and also makes the world safer for us.

Elliott Abrams

Persecution of Christians is growing around the world, and Congress needs to pay more attention to it.

Elliott Abrams

China has concluded that trade trumps all.

Elliott Abrams

Egypt needs law and order in Sinai to save the tourist industry in Sharm el-Sheik and prevent the area from becoming a base for terrorists that will target Egypt itself, as well as Jordan and Israel.

Elliott Abrams

It was simply impossible to support Carter for reelection in 1980 and easy for me to support Reagan. The Reagan campaign was happy to have Democratic support, and the Reagan administration was happy to have Democrats in it; they took the view that, after all, Reagan himself had been a Democrat, so it was not a strike against you.

Elliott Abrams

For the entire first term, Obama and his people blamed Bush for everything - which is another way of saying they felt Bush and the Bush years were the inescapable reference point for everything they were themselves doing.

Elliott Abrams

It is a natural goal of Iran to try and expel the Fifth Fleet from Bahrain.

Elliott Abrams

For decades, the Arab states have seemed exceptions to the laws of politics and human nature. While liberty expanded in many parts of the globe, these nations were left behind, their 'freedom deficit' signaling the political underdevelopment that accompanied many other economic and social maladies.

Elliott Abrams

At Camp David in 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat 94 percent of the West Bank; ten years later, Ehud Olmert offered Abbas 93.6 percent with a one-to-one land swap.

Elliott Abrams

You can easily see why the experience of Jews would be helpful if you're looking to get action on religious persecution.

Elliott Abrams

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

Elliott Abrams

One good way of measuring the mood in Israel is just how alert or relaxed the guards at every restaurant entrance appear to be.

Elliott Abrams

Like all forms of collective security, multilateral sanctions require a unanimity rarely achieved in international politics.

Elliott Abrams

In Iran, there is no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no independent judiciary, no free elections. There is no freedom of religion - not even for Shiites, who are forced by Iran's theocracy to adhere to one narrow set of official rules.

Elliott Abrams

The threat that Syria might transfer more advanced weapons to Hezbollah has existed for a long time.

Elliott Abrams

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

Elliott Abrams

The U.A.E. is a firm ally of the United States and deserves better treatment than it received in the Dubai Ports World fiasco in 2006.

Elliott Abrams

I don't think a Palestinian state is going to be created at a conference table; it will be created on the ground in the West Bank, and some day, a peace conference will ratify that which has been built on the ground.

Elliott Abrams

The Obama administration has been trying out a new policy toward Syria since the day it came to office. The Bush cold shoulder was viewed as a primitive reaction, now to be replaced by sophisticated diplomacy. Outreach would substitute for isolation.

Elliott Abrams

The Assad regime is quite reliant on oil exports.

Elliott Abrams

I grew up in Queens, in New York City, in a middle class Jewish family. My mother was a public school teacher, my father was a lawyer. They were Democrats - kind of middle-of-the-road democrats.

Elliott Abrams

You can do a no-fly zone without ground forces.

Elliott Abrams

While we use American power to fight hard for democracy against extremism on both left and right, our critics seem suspicious of any assertion of United States power or influence against any government or group that claims to be on the left.

Elliott Abrams

Both Bibi and Obama realize that they are going to have to face the problem of Iran together.

Elliott Abrams

I never said I had no idea about most of the things you said I said I had no idea about.

Elliott Abrams

Now in its third year in office, the Obama Administration has never championed the cause of human rights. Its slow reaction in June 2009 to the stealing of the election in Iran and the birth of the 'Green Movement' there, and its delay in backing the rebellions in Egypt, Libya, and Syria, are evidence of this problem.

Elliott Abrams

The real crime of Hosni Mubarak is that he ruled for 30 years and left behind an Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood is the single strongest player.

Elliott Abrams

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.

Elliott Abrams

If you said to people you can cast a secret ballot on whether to turn back the clock and have Morsi in power again, I don't think very many people in Washington would turn back that clock.

Elliott Abrams

If you say to the White House, 'Obama has been very unfriendly to Israel,' they say, 'What do you mean? It's the best military-to-military relationship ever.' And that part is true.

Elliott Abrams

Terrorists that kill Americans don't get released.

Elliott Abrams

A great nation like the United States has many and varied interests, and we need both to do business with tyrants and to engage constantly in multilateral diplomacy.

Elliott Abrams

What does 'politicizing intelligence' mean? Using intel, or more often, partial intel, to produce an effect in line with White House policies rather than giving a full picture of a particular situation.

Elliott Abrams

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

Elliott Abrams

The Obama administration rarely demonstrated the ability to shift gears and change policy in its first year. Even in the face of historic events such as the continuing demonstrations against Iran's regime, it stuck devotedly to prior plans.

Elliott Abrams

When you work in the White House you talk to the White House staff all day, so you're talking to the guy who handles the congressional liaison and the guy who's handling domestic politics and the guy who's handling the American economy and so forth.

Elliott Abrams

I just don't understand how Kerry or Obama or anybody else thought Assad was going to change.

Elliott Abrams

Al Qaeda's message that violence, terrorism and extremism are the only answer for Arabs seeking dignity and hope is being rejected each day in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and throughout the Arab lands.

Elliott Abrams

If you are trying to raise a child to be a Jew, then you have to create a sense of Jewish identity. You really weaken that sense of identity if you celebrate two religions.

Elliott Abrams

America was not founded to improve health care or housing; it was founded for freedom.

Elliott Abrams

Why are diplomatic cables secret at all?

Elliott Abrams

The story of the Jews in the Bible is replete with incidents of their ingratitude to God for His gifts to them: incidents that just as repeatedly merit and receive punishment.

Elliott Abrams

You are not practicing Judaism if you celebrate Christmas.

Elliott Abrams

First impressions matter. Experts say we size up new people in somewhere between 30 seconds and two minutes.

Elliott Abrams

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.

Elliott Abrams

The ultimate goal is to change Syria's behaviour on a variety of issues - on its interference in Lebanese internal affairs, on its support for Palestinian terrorist groups that oppose the Palestinian Authority, on, most importantly, acting as a land bridge between Iran and Hezbollah, where Hezbollah gets all its arms.

Elliott Abrams

For many societies, the journey to modernity has been painful and costly.

Elliott Abrams

There's been an Israeli position, which is 'We love Mubarak,' that permeates their whole society, the political class. That certainly differs from many of us in the pro-Israel camp in the United States.

Elliott Abrams

Top 228 Quotes & Sayings by Elliott Abrams

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