Reagan Administrations Decision to Withdraw American Troops from the Peacekeeping Mission - Essay Example

Direct involvement in Lebanon by sending their forces in the peacemaking troops proved to be precarious in the long run as direct victory was far from being achieved. Reagan administration had to face serious setbacks in this context which led to a change in counterterrorism strategies.

Reagan administration often associated with the conservative right-wingers had a strong alliance with the Christian President Gemayel, thus the U.S agreed upon sending their troops for the peacemaking mission in the spring of 1982 to control the unrest going on in the area.  The forces were dispatched on March 24, 1983, to the area where the conflicts were going on. U.S saw the most severe reaction by the Lebanese on April 28, 1983, when a suicide attack took place at the U.S embassy in Beirut which saw the death of about seventeen Americans. Moreover, after about four months the U.S troops were attacked by Rockets which proved to be another eye-opener for the administration. October 23 saw another suicide attack at the headquarters building which resulted in the loss of lives of 241 Americans. As a response, Reagan withdrew the US forces from Beirut and deployed them at the offshore positions instead. (Diaz and Newman 2005)

The withdrawal of forces inflicted some serious impacts on the Reagan presidency as well as on the counterterrorism strategies. The first and the most immediate impact lies in the loss of trust and credibility on the American President which Lebanon and the rest of the Middle Eastern states had entrusted upon him. Also, congress as well as the entire administration that had previously supported the President over the deployment of troops was now campaigning against the wishes of the President deterring his powers. Though the president had labeled the withdrawal merely as redeployment, the entire state actors as well as other strategic actors perceived this move as the loss of US interest in the region, which was a huge setback for the Reagan Presidency. Thus, Reagan lost support from the Middle Eastern Allies as they were aware of the fact that the U.S had no interests in the region anymore.

In context to the counterterrorism policy, the interest of the Reagan administration (also the ones following him) enhanced in terrorism as a foreign policy agenda as he now perceived this threat to be even more severe than before. Since Reagan and his companions within the Cabinet were all hawks, and the victory of the terrorists over the troops proved to be more of a challenge for the U.S. They realized that countering terrorism is a hard job as their strategies are hard to predict and since they don`t take any defensive measures it`s near to impossible to defeat them (Bovard 2003). Thus, one thing was for sure that defensive measures won`t work which led towards the conceivement of terms like preemptive strikes i.e. combating the enemy before they attack. Reagan then started to promote strategies of retaliation and active prevention to strike hard on these hidden enemies (Bargeron 2002). Thus, the policy during the contra-affairs was quite different and later during Bush-era took an even major shift.

Reagan was one of the most popular presidents who passed during the history of the U.S, especially after he was attacked by a gunshot. His persona was quite charming which appealed to almost everyone. However, his loss in the Beirut operation turned out to be a complete disaster to his persona though by manipulating the facts he was later able to retrieve his image. He had a close alliance with the Middle Eastern strategic partners; however, the withdrawal proved to weaken his strategic depth in the region as the partners lost trust within the presidency. Also, Congress as well as the administration blamed him for the wrong decision which led to the tarnishing of the US image in the world. Moreover, the counterterrorism measures also saw a shift from defensive strategizing to preemptive ones and according to some authors, the presidency was then rather obsessed with counterterrorism as they had realized the seriousness of the issue.