The Iran Contra Affair Was A Shocking Incident

Because of this red scare, Americans have historically grown to become weary of communism. Under the Truman Doctrine in 1947, American forces were granted permission to intervene in any foreign relations so long as they focused on the breakdown of communist forces. Americans have had a long history of being involved with communist affairs around the world long before their support of the Nicaraguan Contras existed. But because of this fascination and fear of communism, it pushed American officials to become further emerged in the battle despite its lack of American interests.

This made it almost inevitable that something would go wrong, and it did. The arms deal was soon found out and it was made the center of media attention. Ignoring this warning, McFarlene and North traveled to Teheran personally to deliver missiles and talk to Iranian officials. North even brought Iranians into the White House secretly at night to discuss the situation. ("Iran-Contra")

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

"Iran" and "Contra" came to be spoken in the same breath was the outcome of complex covert activities, all carried out, in the name of democracy. When Iraq and Iran were at war in 1985, Iran requested to buy secret

The Iran-Contra Affair took place during the Reagan Administration. It started with The Cold War and the clash between two different belief systems and countries that refused to work together. The U.S. being a capitalism giant, attempted to intervene and prohibit the spread of Communism. This Clash started after World War II when the US disagreed during a Conference held in the Summer of 1945. This conference discussed whether the Soviet Union could take possession of Poland. Due to this disagreement, President Truman suspended the Lend-Lease Act

President Reagan 's denial to terminate the anti-missile defense program which was required by the Soviets impassable a probable arrangement with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev for subduing nuclear weapons when the two leaders met in Rejkavik, Iceland in October 1986. The President 's second term was tangled with the Iran Contra scandal when officials illegally unfocused finances to help counter forces in Nicaragua. A well thought of Defense Initiative Letter was given to Majority Leader Robert Dole on October 1, 1985. During that time, tensions within the Soviet bloc became more apparent.

A brief background before the iran contra affair is set in reagan's presidency who supported a group an anti communist group in nicaragua and gave weapons to iranian terrorists but things were already brewing before this that led up to this point during reagan's presidency he was all for the people and believed in lower taxes and tried to make the economy better so that way we could get out of debt but the iran contra affair was us secret arms deal that traded missiles to free americans that were held hostage by terrorists in lebanon which was a political scandals but also had economic and social issues

The arms embargo between the United States and Iran forbid the United States from selling arms to the Iraqis. The goal of the embargo was to stop the Iran-Iraq war. Sending the shipment through Israel, Reagan sold Iran 500 antitank missiles (Gwertzman, 1986, para. 1). Lt. Col. Oliver North diverted a portion of the funds that the United States gathered from the sale to the Contra war effort, supposedly without Reagan’s knowledge and without informing the public. On 11 December 1986, 1Iranian man that Reagan used as a point of reference in Lebanon “asserted that he had personally gone to Lebanon to arrange the release of American hostages (Butterfield, 1986, para. 1).” Reagan knew about the arms embargo to Iran, but still went ahead to sell arms to further the American effort in Nicaragua. In essence he declared involvement in war with supplying a hostile nation with arms, and a party-torn country with money. The controversy is not the actions any leader did, but how the American public was left out of the decisions being made in Washington D.C. For all of time the American government has been seen as a clear pane of glass where both sides can see through. These hidden events tinted the window from the public. The Government did not inform the public and they

The Iran-Contra affair can be described as the type of event expected to give rise to a demonstration of public support for the president. However, this incident had the opposite effect. The public’s response to the Iran-Contra affair led to a sharp decrease in the support of President Reagan. Due to President Reagan’s role in the political scandal of aiding armed conflict in Nicaragua, the United States Congress used its constitutional power to investigate and check the role of the executive branch. The impact of this congressional oversight highlights the checks and balances the Founder’s instilled in our political government during our nation’s conception.

Reagan won the election at 69 and was the then oldest person ever elected into office as president (A&E Television Networks, LLC, 2009). Ronald Reagan’s inauguration was help on January 20, 1981. He is famous for his address for saying, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem (A&E Television Networks, LLC, 2009).” After being in office only two months Reagan survived an attempted assassination by John Hinckley Jr. The bullet went through the president’s lungs nearly hitting his heart. Reagan returned to office and work within several weeks (A&E Television Networks, LLC, 2009). This incident made Reagan’s popularity climb at a rapid rate (Freidel, Sidey, 2006). Reagan helped to increase the economy by increasing employment, driving down inflation, and cutting taxes (Freidel, Sidey, 2006). In 1984 Reagan was reelected into office for a second term. During this presidential term Reagan’s goal was to achieve “peace through strength (Freidel, Sidey, 2006).” He negotiated a treaty with the then Soviet Union that would extinguish intermediate-range nuclear missiles. He declared war on international terrorism, bombing Libya after receiving evidence of Libya’s involvement on an attack against American soldiers in West Berlin. Over his presidency his goal of “peace through strength” looked to be near (Freidel, Sidey,

Reagan wanted to obtain peace with the Soviet Union, but simultaneously built up arms by increasing defense spending by 35%.

Reagan’s knowledge of the covert operations is unclear, and with a lack of written detail from the president on what he had and had not authorized, it was plausible for him to deny knowledge of, and involvement in,

To this day, the exact role of President Reagan in the Iran-Contra scandal is unclear. However, it appears that in July 1985, in a strategic attempt to build relationship with some moderate elements within Iran’s regime, and to secure the release of seven American hostages held by Iranian backed Shiite extremists in Lebanon, Reagan ordered an operation to sell arms to Iran, which violated the U.S. arms sales embargo against Iran 's regime. Congressional committees that later investigated the Iran–Contra affair concluded that the shredding of the documents and the death of Casey, left the record incomplete.

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.

Meanwhile, during 1985-86, as mentioned earlier, the Reagan administration was selling weapons to Iran illegally in order to encourage Iran to free hostages in the Middle East. After the 1979 hostage situation at the United States Embassy in Tehran,