From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (143 page)

Claiming "irrefutable" evidence connecting Qaddafi to recent terrorist attacks, Reagan ordered retaliation. In the spring of 1986, the navy returned to the Gulf of Sidra and attacked Libyan naval forces and shore installations. In April, the administration ordered air attacks on Tripoli itself, allegedly in retaliation for Libyan sponsorship of terrorism and against facilities used to prepare terrorist activities. The real purpose was likely to eliminate Qaddafi. In either case, the bombing failed. The United States dropped ninety two-thousand-pound bombs, destroying Libya's air force and Qaddafi's residence. Thirty civilians died and many more were injured, provoking Libyan charges of terrorism against the United States. Qaddafi's house and the tent he often slept in were hit. Family members suffered injuries; a fifteen-month-old adopted daughter was killed. The colonel himself survived, perhaps, an air force officer lamented, because he had been in the toilet.
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The bombing of Tripoli had mixed results. In the immediate aftermath, the volatile Libyan leader was conspicuous by his silence, producing U.S. boasts that the bombing had shut him up. In any event, having made its point, the administration seemed willing to accord Qaddafi the inattention he deserved. The absence of further major terrorist attacks evoked claims that Reagan had effectively dealt with a major problem, but the truth appears more complicated. More important than the bombing in dealing with terrorism were the improved internal security measures taken by the Western European nations and their expulsion of Libyan diplomats and others suspected of belonging to terrorist networks. In addition, U.S. and European sanctions forced Syria to dismantle terrorist operations that were more significant than Libya's. The apparent lull in late 1986 was deceptive. The number of incidents actually increased the next year. Moreover, the
Western nations seemed only slightly better prepared to cope with terrorism than before, and their continuing vulnerability left open the possibility of new attacks at any time. When four Americans were kidnapped in 1987, Reagan publicly and ruefully conceded that there was little he could do. The December 1988 explosion of a Pan American airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, from a terrorist bomb, later linked to Libya, underscored the stubborn persistence of a problem that vexed the administration like no other.

While attempting to tame Qaddafi with bombs, the administration also sought to open doors to Iran through the sale of arms, an ill-conceived, bumbling, and illegal ploy that damaged its credibility abroad and popularity at home.
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In September 1980, Iran and Iraq plunged into a bloody struggle of attrition that would last almost nine years and cost an estimated seven hundred thousand dead, nearly two million wounded. The United States at first supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq, but as Iran faltered in the mid-1980s some officials found reasons to approach Tehran. Reagan was obsessed with recovering the seven hostages held by pro-Iranian extremists in Lebanon, and indications that Tehran might be able to influence their fate enticed him to trade arms for their release. He reportedly told friends that he was willing to go to prison to get the hostages out.
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CIA director Casey believed that growing factionalism in Tehran might enable the United States to establish contacts among "moderates" that could be useful if the Khomeini government fell. As the USSR stepped up aid to Iraq, some Americans worried that an Iranian defeat would leave the Persian Gulf open to Soviet penetration. Others listened to Israelis who suggested that Iran might be brought around to a more moderate position. National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, a lightweight notoriously lacking in foreign policy experience and political acumen, entertained grandiose visions of duplicating with Iran Kissinger's dramatic opening to China.
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Thus began an imbroglio that would temporarily cripple the Reagan presidency. The misadventure was made possible by Reagan's detachment, Shultz and Weinberger's inability to cooperate in stopping a venture both vigorously opposed, and the absence of a strong White House chief of staff to rein in misguided NSC zealots. Between the late summer
of 1985 and the autumn of 1986, NSC operatives sold to Iran 2,004 TOW anti-tank missiles and fifty HAWK anti-aircraft missiles for assurances of assistance in securing the release of American hostages. The gambit violated the nation's announced policy of denying weapons to nations aiding terrorists and its arms embargo against Iran. U.S. officials did not inform Congress what they were doing, as the law required. They relied on Israel, which had its own interests in the matter, and on Manuchehr Ghorbanifar, a shady Iranian middleman who had failed numerous CIA lie detector tests and had been correctly called a "talented fabricator." At times the affair took on the trappings of farce, as when McFarlane and his assistant Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, traveling under false passports, carried to Tehran a key-shaped cake and a Bible signed by Reagan as gestures of U.S. goodwill. On another occasion, North conducted a bizarre late-night tour of the White House for a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. The Americans overcharged the Iranians for many of the weapons and in some cases turned over old Israeli stocks, some, ironically, still bearing the Star of David. In the end, they were outmatched as bargainers, exchanging weapons for promises of the release of hostages from those they condescendingly dismissed as "rug merchants."
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What became known as "Irangate" produced, in Cannon's apt phrase, "a catastrophe" that "sometimes resembled a comic opera with tragic overtones and an unhappy ending."
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The United States secured the release of only three hostages—three others were promptly taken to replace them. Reagan had repeatedly vowed not to deal with terrorists. When a Beirut newspaper broke the story in November 1986, his credibility was shattered. His lame efforts to justify a bad deal in terms of geopolitics fell flat. He had been so successful avoiding blame for anything that went wrong that he was known as the Teflon president, the man to whom nothing stuck. Irangate changed that, at least for a time. The president appeared ignorant or incompetent—or both. His administration descended into bitter infighting as beleaguered officials tried to save their skins. A long-restless Congress was spurred to go after a once invulnerable president. When it became known that proceeds from the arms sales were used to get around congressional restrictions against aiding U.S.-backed revolutionaries in Nicaragua, the administration was for a time reduced to impotence. Another president found himself stuck to the Iranian tar baby.

To keep oil flowing through the Persian Gulf, the administration in the summer of 1987 assembled in the Persian Gulf an armada of some thirty
warships including the legendary battleship USS
Missouri
. The stated aims were to defend freedom of the seas and, of course, to deflect Soviet influence from a critical region. From the outset, the Persian Gulf intervention was surrounded by controversy. The Reagan administration never clearly explained why it acted. The cost was astronomical—$1 million a day. United States naval forces were bound by defensive rules of engagement and exposed to people the chief of naval operations admitted were "a little bit loony." On several occasions, the United States came close to getting sucked into the war. In May 1987, an Iraqi aircraft mistakenly attacked the USS
Stark
, killing thirty-seven sailors. A year later, a U.S. warship struck an Iranian mine and was disabled. The navy retaliated by putting out of action much of the tiny Iranian "fleet." In July 1988, nervous sailors aboard the USS
Vincennes
mistakenly shot down a civilian Iranian airliner, killing all of the 290 passengers and crew. Despite all these dangers, the convoy achieved valuable results. By helping numerous convoys steam safely through the gulf, the navy managed to sustain oil shipments from the Middle East to Western Europe and Japan. United States intervention contributed at least indirectly to the end of the Iran-Iraq war in July 1988.
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During 1988, world attention shifted back to the basics of Middle East politics. In late 1987, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank territories occupied by Israel during the 1967 war launched a spontaneous and apparently leaderless series of sustained riots and demonstrations, including direct attacks on Israeli soldiers. Israel responded with repression, and by December 1988 more than three hundred Palestinians had been killed, seven thousand injured, and five thousand jailed in what came to be called the "uprising," or
intifada
(literally translated as shaking off). Initially reluctant to intrude in what was plainly an intractable and explosive problem, the Reagan administration saw no choice as the violence escalated. Revising old proposals to meet new circumstances, Shultz set forth a plan for an interim period of Palestinian "self-administration" in the occupied territories preliminary to a broader settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors. PLO leader Yasser Arafat eventually agreed to a dialogue looking toward peace talks, but Israel continued to reject Shultz's proposals and set out to create more settlements in the occupied territories. After seven years of erratic U.S. involvement, and considerable frustration, the Middle East remained as volatile and dangerous as ever.
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In the April 1, 1985, issue of
Time
magazine, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer hailed the emergence of a "Reagan Doctrine" of "overt and unashamed" aid to "freedom fighters" seeking to overthrow "nasty Communist governments."
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Although it was given a name only in the second term, and then by a journalist, what came to be called the Reagan Doctrine was established policy from the start.
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The administration's major innovation in foreign affairs, it marked a sharp departure from the dominant trends of Cold War foreign policy. John Foster Dulles had talked of rolling back Communist gains in Eastern Europe. The United States at times had attempted to destabilize and even overthrow leftist governments. But in general, containment had meant acquiescence in Communist governments already in power. The Reagan Doctrine was rooted in long-standing right-wing disdain for containment. It was pushed by conservative members of Congress and administration hardliners, especially CIA director Casey, as a way to exploit Soviet overextension, roll back recent gains, counter the noxious Brezhnev Doctrine, by which the Kremlin had claimed the duty to intervene anywhere socialism was threatened, and even undermine the USSR itself. Reagan enthusiasts claim great success for the doctrine, especially in Afghanistan, where they assign it a major role in America's Cold War victory.
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In truth, the vigor of its implementation never matched the heat of its rhetoric. Even in Afghanistan, where it enjoyed some tactical success, its strategic impact has been overstated.

Although it is not generally included under the Reagan Doctrine, a non-military covert program in Poland stands as a modest success story. In Eastern Europe, generally, the CIA after 1982 had encouraged and helped finance protests, demonstrations, newspaper and magazine articles, and television and radio shows highlighting the evils of Soviet domination. Carter had initiated covert action in Poland. In June 1982, Reagan gained Pope John Paul II's blessings for an expanded program for the pontiff's native country. Casey and others considered Poland the weakest link in the Soviet bloc. The United States helped the non-Communist opposition group Solidarity stay in contact with the West and promote its cause inside Poland. United States funds purchased personal computers
and fax machines and assisted Solidarity members in using them to publish newsletters and propaganda. The covert program helped keep Solidarity alive during the years of martial law and prepared it to seize power when the regime collapsed.
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Elsewhere, the Reagan Doctrine was applied unevenly and with mixed results. As part of its broader strategy of opposing Soviet expansionism and that of its clients, the administration furnished limited, covert aid to a disparate and unwieldy coalition of insurgents opposing the Vietnamese-imposed puppet government of Cambodia. No U.S. officials were eager for reintervention in former French Indochina. They also worried that aid might fall into the hands of the despicable Khmer Rouge, the most potent of the rebel factions. Assistance therefore remained very small, was distributed through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and had no more than a marginal effect on the diplomatic settlement that led to eventual Vietnamese withdrawal.
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In southern Africa, race and the Cold War defined U.S. policies. Reagan and his top advisers had little sympathy for black nationalism, linking the African National Congress with Communism. Rather than challenge apartheid, they claimed to follow a policy of "constructive engagement," but they said nothing when the South African government brutally cracked down on dissidents. Under the inspirational leadership of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, black protest in South Africa won rising international sympathy during the 1980s, along with growing demands for sanctions against the Pretoria government. In the United States, the drive for sanctions came mainly from private-sector pressure groups, with vocal support from college campuses. Responding to moral issues and political exigencies, Congress in 1986 passed over Reagan's veto a bill imposing broad sanctions. Shultz admitted that the domestic costs of leaving the South African government to its own devices far exceeded the benefits.
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The Reagan Doctrine was employed in southern Africa in a cautious and entirely practical manner. State Department pragmatists fended off heavy pressures from congressional conservatives and administration hardliners to assist a brutal right-wing rebel group in Mozambique. Indeed, ironically, as part of its regional strategy, the United States furnished limited aid to a leftist government.
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In Angola, U.S. aid was employed to support a broader diplomatic effort to get Cuba and South Africa out, end the
civil war, and secure independence for Namibia. The administration in 1985 initiated covert assistance through Zaire to UNITA's Jonas Savimbi, the darling of the American right. But as administered by the State Department, the assistance was used not to defeat the Soviet and Cuban-backed MPLA but through what Shultz called "stealth diplomacy" to encourage a diplomatic settlement. By helping achieve a military stalemate after Cuban and South African escalation, U.S. aid may have contributed to the withdrawal of outside powers and the beginning of negotiations. Continued assistance to Savimbi actually delayed an end to the Angolan civil war.
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