Elliott Abrams is the special representative for Iran and Venezuela at the U.S. Department of State. He was senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, from which he is now on a leave of absence. He 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. Abrams was educated at Harvard College, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Law School. After serving on the staffs of U.S. Senators Henry M. Jackson and Daniel P. Moynihan, he was an assistant secretary of state in  President Ronald Reagan’s administration and received the secretary of state’s Distinguished Service Award from Secretary George P. Shultz.