Abrams reemerged eight years later when Bush's son was putting together a new Republican administration. Abrams became deputy national security adviser with chief responsibility for Middle East policy. He was in the perfect position to turn the neocon dreams for the Middle East into a bloody reality.
Ironically, Abrams and the neocons, who wanted the U.S. government to shift its attention from Afghanistan to the Arab world in 2001 and 2002, now -- with Obama in the White House and Israelis fearing that he might pressure them into making major concessions for a peace deal -- want Obama to refocus America's attention on Afghanistan and Iran, anywhere but Israel.
Bashing Obama
Over the past year, Abrams has joined influential neocon columnists in bashing Obama for putting renewed pressure on Israel for a peace deal. By fall 2009, key neocons also were baiting Obama to escalate the war in Afghanistan.
Washington Post neocon columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote an Oct. 9, 2009, column entitled "Young Hamlet's Agony" accusing Obama of cynical dithering. "Obama agonizes publicly as the world watches," Krauthammer said.
Krauthammer also made clear that the neocons hadn't given up on their grandiose vision of a permanent American military dominance astride the globe, whatever the cost.
In an Oct. 19 article for The Weekly Standard, entitled "Decline Is a Choice: The New Liberalism and the End of American Ascendancy," Krauthammer demanded that the United States resist the temptation to withdraw from its status of global hegemon.
"Heavy are the burdens of the hegemon," Krauthammer wrote. "After the blood and treasure expended in the post-9/11 wars, America is quite ready to ease its burden with a gentle descent into abdication and decline.
"Decline is a choice. More than a choice, a temptation. How to resist it? First, accept our role as hegemon. And reject those who deny its essential benignity."
Abrams added his voice to the neocon chorus portraying Obama as dangerously na????ve and lacking a moral compass.
In a National Review article on Nov. 10, entitled "Dazed and Confused," Abrams wrote that he discovered during a trip to Israel in late October that "Israelis of all political hues confessed that they were amazed, perplexed, and confused by the policy" of the Obama administration.
"American policy under Obama has aligned itself in a curious and possibly unintended way with the worst elements of Arab policy," Abrams wrote. "Like that of the Arabs, it is cold toward Israel: Despite several visits to the region, the president has skipped Israel, and the White House's aloofness toward Netanyahu is obvious." [Abrams didn't mention that Obama made a high-profile visit to Israel during the presidential election campaign last year.]
Calling for the firing of Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell, Abrams also blamed Obama's policies for the widespread condemnation of Israel's assault on Gaza a year ago, which was the subject of the recent Goldstone Report, accusing the Israeli military of war crimes for its indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
"As a result, "world opinion' toward Israel has gone from cool to frigid -- in Europe especially," Abrams lamented. "Denunciations of Israel, not to mention efforts to prevent Israeli officials from speaking on campuses and indeed to jail them if they come to Europe. "
"The cause is clear: As the United States, Israel's closest friend, has backed away from Israel since the Obama inauguration, Europeans have backed even farther. They have seen the American coolness as license, indeed encouragement, to excoriate the Jewish state, and have enthusiastically done so."
Tea with Dictators
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