Biden Nominee Elliott Abrams, the Iran-Contra Affair, and the U.S. Foreign Policy Blob

On this edition of Parallax Views, Sam Fraser, researcher and senior communications associate at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, joins us to discuss the Biden administration's nomination of Elliott Abrams to the bipartisan United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. A few years ago Abrams, who was at that time appointed as the U.S. special envoy to Venezuela by the Trump administration, was in the news when Rep. Ilhan Omar confronted Abrams  on his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal and human rights abuses in Latin America.

Why is a figure like Abrams, who was convicted for his involvement with Iran/Contra, still involved in international relations and U.S. foreign policy? And how do figures like Abrams sticking around effect U.S. relations with Latin American countries? These are just a few of the questions posed in this conversation and Sam's recent article "Biden’s disgraceful nomination of Elliott Abrams". This conversation will also delve into the history of the Ronald Reagan Presidency and U.S. foreign policy in that era. We'll discuss Iran-Contra for those who need a refresher, atrocities in El Salvador and Guatemala, dirty wars, death squads in Latin America in the 1980s, the Cold War, Abrams' praise for a dictator that's been convicted of genocide, how left-wing movements gain traction in Latin America and how they are suppressed by the right-wing, the military dictatorship of Gen. Fulgencio Batista and the rise of Fidel Castro, Juan Guaido and the failed coup against Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, Brazilian President Lula Da Silva and Operation Car Wash, Hugo Chavez and failed coup attempts against him in the George W. Bush years, Israel/Palestine, the 2007 Gaza War between Fatah and Hamas, the history of the neocons (neoconservatives) and their role in U.S. foreign policy (also: are they still relevant?), lack of accountability in the U.S. foreign policy blob/establishment, Elliot Abrams and the Council on Foreign Relations, the democracy vs. autocracy debate and its contradictions, American exceptionalism and U.S. hegemony, and more!