Iran Contra Scandal

What kind of person commits three major violations of the national law and gets away with it? Well that person is Nixon. President Richard Nixon was one of the most famous presidents in the United States. He was mainly renowned for his huge role in the Watergate scandal. The Watergate scandal was important because Nixon and his cabinet arranged to get people to spy on the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate building. After it became clear Nixon was responsible, he manages to resign before he was going to be impeached. President Nixon was involved with the Watergate scandal and should be sentenced to jail because he organized it, which then got leaked out and finally led to his resignation.

Furthermore, the Shah purchased billions of dollars worth of weapons of security from the US. In 1979 the realm was overthrown by extreme Islam’s that were followers of Ayatollah Khomeini. The intention of the Iranian students was to display their displeasure against the Shah. Their demand was the return of the Shah for a trial followed by his death. In addition, they asked that the US stay out of their country’s affairs. Carter’s approach required the safeguarding of American hostages but also guaranteed an alliance with Iran. Carter’s tactics on the situation had devastating effects on his run for re-election (Hamilton, 1982).

Reagan ended up going on national television and completely denied the fact that this operations that the newspaper was talking about did not occurred. He later changed his wording about a week later that the sale of the weapons was not an arms for hostage, which is completely a lie! The whole deal since the begging was to sale the machinery in order to get the hostages back safe and sound. Reagan not only knowingly commit these treasonous decisions, he then later went and knowingly lied about them. First of all he denied that the operations even had any existence, but then he also denied the truth of the matter trying to fool everyone. This is similar to Nixon's with the watergate scandal . Nixon was about to be impeachment and conviction before he resigned as president at noon the day of his trial. Nixon was later pardoned. I would say Reagan is in almost the same situation but just committed something different. I don’t think its fair for Reagan to break a law and no punished for it, but when president Clinton was accused of lying under Oath about having intercourse with “that women” he was immediately

The United States history during 1977 to 1989 went through two presidencies and whirlwind of events happened. When President Jimmy Carter became president he wanted to lower the inflation rates to make life easier for the people of the United States. While that was his goal it got completely derailed. Near the end of Jimmy Carters presidency, a group of Iranian students took over the U.S Embassy in Tehran and took people hostage. Over the course of the 444 days the hostages where held captive while the people of the United States voted for a new president to help lead them into a new direction. The people voted for Ronald Reagan. While he was president things didn’t go as he planned as well. The issues with Iran did not calm down and escalated to something bigger. After the Iran hostage crisis, the US had another issues with Iran and it was the Iran- Contra affair. During this essay I will be talking about the book called “Taken Hostage” by David Farber and the information in the book. The book is about the time frame of Jimmy Carter’s presidency and the issues with Iran and the hostage crisis. The second half of my essay is towards President Ronald Reagan’s and the issues about the Iran- Contra affair and the lasting issues between Iran and the United states.

One of the significant events of Reagan that influenced public was Iran-Contra affair in 1986, which the United States was found guilty by the International Court of Justice of war crimes against Nicaragua. As a result, Reagan’s popularity slipped from 67 percent to 46 percent in less than a week (Mayer). By the time, it was the low point of the Reagan presidency (157, Ehrman) Add to this situation, the failure of space program led to negative ethos of Reagan in public’s mind. President Reagan understood this situation and tried to calm the hostilities by delivering the speech sincerely.

An argument that can be made in many directions, Ronald Reagan was a very good president and he does deserve much of the credit that he is given. Matter of opinion most people are overrated if they have to count on others to make their dreams and or goals achievable. Ronald Reagan did many great things but if not for many smart people to make them not sure how things would have been different today but main thought is the military. The military saw many improvements in technology under Reagan, at the same time Reagan was not in charge of designing new tanks or air craft other people were. Reagan did not have much to do with the hostages being released the people were not intimidated by Ronald Reagan to the point of giving up. They released the hostages because Carter was no longer in office. The people were mad at Carter for giving cancer treatment to their

The highly controversial political scandal known as “Iran-Contra” that began in 1985 that involved Nicaragua, The United States, and Iran. The United States supported the Contras but why? The popular answer was to use this as a method to stop communism. However, the weapons for the Iranians were not funded by the government. Reagan could not put this affair in the spotlight of the public, step up to congress and ask for funds to support the

First, President’s believe in unilateral decision making. When President Nixon discussed some of the illegal actions of his administration, he said, “Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” Although most Presidents have not abused their power to the extent that Nixon did in the Watergate scandal, his belief that the President can do anything for the good of the country is shared by other presidents. For example, President Reagan also abused his power in the Iran-Contra affair because he believed supporting the anti-communist Nicaraguan Contras would benefit the United States and the World as a

A2: It has been acceptable to violate the constitution when engaging in wars with other countries or your own.

Reagan is one of the worst presidents we have ever had. In November of 1986 the people found out that the government was secretly selling weapons and bombs to Iran in hopes that 5 american soldiers would be freed. Reagan also funded billions of dollars of weapons and training to Afghan freedom fighters, a lot of which attacked us. Many years later he also gave amnesty to over 3 million illegal immigrants, something conservatives today would be furious about. He gave amnesty because they

Which followed through to Ford’s Administration and the Carter Administration. As well as the illegal bombing of Cambodia. Carter gets harassed about his evidence of his failed foreign policy because of the Iranian Hostage crisis, which was not handled well, and the credit for the solution belonged to Reagan.

in 1985 that the U.S. might sell arms to Iran through Israel with the goal of releasing American hostages held in Lebanon by Iranian groups (“The Iran-Contra Report” Presidency.UCSB.edu). The arms would be used to aid Iran in their ongoing war against Iraq (“The Iran-Contra Report” Presidency.UCSB.edu). Robert McFarlane, a national security advisor who brought the suggestion to President Reagan, believed that the deal would improve U.S.-Iran relations, in addition to Lebanese relations, thus giving the U.S. needed influence in the Middle East (Wolf PBS.org). However, several advisors to Reagan questioned the legality of such an act, as both U.S. policy, prohibiting straight arms-for-hostage swaps, and the embargo on arms to Iran, the Arms Export Control Act, condemned that course of action. (“The Iran-Contra Report” Presidency.UCSB.edu). Though his advisors Caspar Weinberger (Secretary of Defense) and George Shultz (Secretary of State) opposed the sales, President Reagan listened to McFarlane (National Security Advisor) and William Casey (CIA director) and went through with the plan, but Reagan never actually signed the plan or reported it to Congress, as required by law (“The Iran-Contra Report” Presidency.UCSB.edu). Thus, Reagan could later claim that he had no knowledge of the arms sales, as it was never formalized. Control of this operation was given to the National Security Council, which was also conducting aid operations to the contras (“The Iran-Contra

Reagan was not being morally

A solution to the Nicaraguan problem seemed more difficult to solve, Reagan wanted desperately to help the “contras” but was mandated by congress to stay out of the affair. His advisors secretly proposed a way to kill two birds with one stone, a decision that came to be referred to as Ronald Reagan’s black mark on his almost spotless record on foreign policy. The U.S would sale weapons to Iran in return for hostages taken by Muslim Jihadist in Lebanon, and with the money Iran paid those weapons with the U.S would direct that money to the contras fighting the Sandinistas. While the reasons for the trade were honorable and the president was following the American policy of communist containment at the time, it was still nonetheless illegal and badly battered Reagan’s reputation.

I really enjoyed reading your post. I agree with you; the Iran-Contra Affair was a very disturbing case of American contemporary state-organized crime. In the Iran-Contra Affair case, President Regan signed the appropriations act which prohibited supporting the Contras but he decided to continue supporting them and ignoring the appropriation. In order to do so he replaced CIA agents with his own selected staff which made up the National Security Council (Walsh, 1994). When their actions were questioned President Regan lied and continued to negotiate with terrorists for hostages. The Regan administration kept their actions hidden from public eye, however, when their actions were brought to light they attempted to say their involvement in the