To What Extent was President Reagan’s Personal Role in the Iran-Contra Affair Significant?

The Hostage Crisis in the late 1970s was considered one of Carter’s biggest failures. More than 60 members of the United States Embassy were taken hostage in Tehran. Their capturers were mere Iranian Students who were able to keep them captive for 444 days ("Jimmy Carter", 2016). This event portrayed President Carter as inept (“Jimmy Carter”, 2009). He did not negotiate their release and the rescue attempt the government tried failed. A group of student had held American citizens for over a year and nothing much was done about it. This was one of the most undermining events of Carter’s Presidential career and an embarrassment to America (Fink, 2002). Carter’s private negotiations with Panama about the canal led to more mistrust of the American citizens. They thought he was going to simply give it away without thinking about the consequences for America. Once again he lost more respect and distrust from his country (“Jimmy Carter”,

Wikipedia, Hector Villalon and Christian Bourget began the initial negotiations for the release of the hostages. They “delivered a formal request to Panama for extradition of the Shah” which was "a pretext to cover secret negotiations to free the American hostages." This happened as the Soviets invaded Iran's neighbor Afghanistan an event America hoped would "illustrate the threat" of its superpower neighbor and need for better relations with the

The Iran Contra affair is historically defined as the “Reagan administration scandal that involved the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for its efforts to secure the release of hostages in Lebanon and the redirection of the proceeds of those sales to the Nicaraguan Contras.” As the Nicaraguan counterrevolutionaries, known as the Contras, began their efforts to retaliate against the Socialist Sandinista Regime, American government forces stepped in to support the Contra cause in a hope to support the world-wide elimination of Communism. To understand the entire history of the scandal, many individuals, groups, policies, and deals must be researched and put together to tell the complete history of the Iran Contra affair.

To fully understand Iran-Contra, you must know the history behind it. Draper explains to us that the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979 brought the

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.

President Ronald Reagan, the man who is accredited with ended the forty six year cold war was elected on Nov. 4, 1980. Reagan won his election with fifty percent of the popular vote over former President Jimmy Carter who had forty one percent. While Reagan as a president is praised for such successes as strengthening the national defense, stimulating growth in the U.S. economically, and as mentioned before he is considered the President who ended the Cold War. President Reagan had achieved many things by the end of his administration, but just as he had many successes his presidency was plagued with shortcomings and a handful of what could be considered flat out failures. The purpose of this writing is to establish and identify the ‘cons’ or failures of the Reagan administration, and provide a brief description of each different aspect of the administration.

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.

The Iranian hostage crisis was one of the most dramatic events in a series of problems that took place during President Jimmy Carter’s term. The crisis, beginning in November of 1979, received the most coverage of any major event since World War II. It was one of many problems faced in light of the United State’s complex relationship with Iran. The effects on both the US and Iran were astronomical, especially politically as well as economically and socially. It took a heavy toll on American relations with the Middle East and changed the way we engage in foreign affairs. In light of this crisis, Iran started an international war that we are still fighting thirty-two years later.

The Iran-contra scandal of the 1980’s, first brought to light in November 1986, is a complicated mess of scandal, arms dealings, hostage deals, and illegal acts (“Iran-Contra Affair” Infoplease.com). The original purpose of the arms sales was to improve United States-Iran relations (Sanders SNU.edu). However, when American hostages were taken throughout the 1980’s, members of President Reagan’s staff negotiated implicit deals with Iranian groups, which resulted in the U.S. selling arms in return for the release of hostages (Wolf PBS.org). Later, the deal was modified so that the U.S. sold arms directly to Iran at a high markup, with no guarantee of hostages being released, and the markup funding the contras in Nicaragua (“The

"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

To begin, Congress, by fair vote, decided in the 1980s that the United States should not assist the contras fighting the socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua (Corn 2006). Yet, the Reagan White House concocted several imaginative ways to pull an end-run around democracy (Corn 2006). Reagan’s decisions such as selling weapons to Iran were made with the knowledge that he would not suffer a decline in presidential approval. Thus, Reagan took various steps that were violations of law that not only involved himself, but members of the CIA. By 1986, two big revelations happened that caused this scandal to abrupt publically. The first was the shoot-down of a cargo plane over Nicaragua and the admission by the sole survivor that the plane had been delivering arms to the Contras against congressional restrictions (Kornbluh 2011). The second, revelation was the news story of Lebanon that stated

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.

This essay will focus on the Reagan Administration which spanned from January 1981 to January 1989. When Reagan became President, he had only one clear, defined foreign policy goal – containment of the Soviet Union, or the “evil empire” as he referred to it. He primarily wanted to stop the USSR from growing larger and to keep other non-Communist countries from becoming Communist. In the past, American presidents had used a theory called the “Domino Theory” to justify the need for intervention around

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.