President Ronald Reagan - Case Study Example

History 8 When Ronald Reagan was President of the United s, he referred to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” However, Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev overlooked this characterization and had four meetings with Reagan. Gorbachev removed the Soviet army from Afghanistan and signed a nuclear missiles reduction agreement with the U.S. There was extensive instability among the ‘communist block’ countries of Eastern Europe by 1989. Unlike previous Soviet leaders, Gorbachev chose not to interfere militarily as these nations broke off from the Soviet Union. That year, the Berlin Wall was torn down, again uniting East and West Berlin. The demise of this symbol of Soviet domination along with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union itself soon after marked the end of the Cold War (Pike, 2005). The evidence that this is the case is available when one looks into U.S. involvement and motivation in other conflicts. Prior to the end of the Cold War in 1989, the U.S. battled the proliferation of communism in by various means. Ronald Reagan, president from 1980 to 1988 made no pretenses about his loathing of communism going as far as to refer to the Soviet Union as the ‘evil empire.’ Part of his administration’s effort to eliminate the spread of communism was the financial backing and military training of the Contras in Nicaragua. This paramilitary group fought against the Sandinistas which were supported by the communist Cuban government and its leader, long-time U.S. foe Fidel Castro. Reagan was eager to assist the Contra’s calling them “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers” (Wolf, 2000). The CIA trained and supplied several groups worldwide who were fighting communist regimes including the Contras under the auspices of the ‘Reagan Doctrine.’ How Iran became forever linked in history with the Contras sets this scandal apart from all others. As a result of the Iranian hostage crisis in 1980, tensions between the U.S. and Iran were still running high in the mid-1980’s. In addition, the U.S. was supplying Iraq, under the regime of Saddam Hussein, with armaments and funds for its war against the Iran war during this time. In 1985, Iran secretly made a request for arms from the Reagan administration. Reagan approved the sale despite a U.S. embargo that prohibited selling weapons to Iran. The sale was contingent on Iranian terrorists releasing seven U.S. hostages being held in Lebanon. Though during his campaign for President, Reagan promised that he would never negotiate with terrorists, he justified the deal to the senior administration officials by saying that “he had the duty to bring those Americans home” (Wolf, 2000). The ‘arms-for-hostages’ plan was opposed by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of State George Shultz but was supported by CIA director William Casey and McFarlane but because of Reagan’s insistence, the plan was put in motion. The money from the sales were diverted to the Contras. Iran bought at least 1,500 missiles by the time the covert action was uncovered by the Lebanese newspaper Al-Shiraa in November of 1986. Only three U.S. hostages were ultimately released by the Iranian terrorists who then captured three more to take their place. However, very little fallout occurred for those politicians who made these kinds of deals possible at the same time that the public was being told of the evils of Iran and the necessity of supporting Iraq. From the end of the Cold War in 1989, as symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.S. was undoubtedly the world’s greatest power militarily, economically and therefore politically. However, this time in which the U.S. operates as the only superpower and therefore the world’s dominant force, known as the ‘unipolar moment’ was first, superficial to begin with and second, fleeting. The Soviet Union’s collapse left the U.S. as the lone superpower and it quickly showed a willingness to operate unilaterally when pursuing its interests. “Those in Washington who believed that superpower status was equal to a unipolar international system justified making decisions without the cumbersome involvement of allies.” (Hogan, 2004 p.2) This unipolar moment was, of course, a myth because a gap has always existed between the U.S.’s military capacity and its capability to control world events to its liking. The U.S. certainly enjoyed and took full political advantage of the widely accepted perception of its unipolar status following the Cold War’s end. It is this perception, this myth that should be examined when attempting to understand the concept of a world superpower and its limitations in an era of globalization. A unipolar world never existed, it was a term made up by observers that only saw the surface effects of the Cold War’s end. The U.S. was also referred to as the first hyperpower by the French but both of these terms are misleading at best and if believed, especially by the U.S., dangerous, as has been shown by the arrogance displayed in the invasion of Iraq. There are other descriptions of the supposed power wielded by the U.S. including ‘leader of the free world’ and ‘indispensable power’ that should be re-thought when defining America’s political position in the world community today. A vast disparity exists between America’s perceived capacity to wage war and its actual capability to twist events in accordance with its ambitions. The potential military power and technological edge the U.S. has over all other nations is not in dispute, however, because it spends more for defense than nearly all of the other nations of the world combined. “An $11 trillion economy that facilitates enormous technological prowess and a defense budget that exceeds the combined total of the next 25 powers should leave no doubt about the potential of the United States” (Olney, 1990: 78). A product of justifications stemming from the Cold War and anti-communism sentiments, the Vietnam War became the benchmark by which American military limitations can be measured. Though the U.S. ‘won’ the Cold War, the aftermath was handled poorly and this legacy lives on today. The U.S., because of its involvement in ‘nation building’ that began in Korea and continued during the Vietnam era and is in full effect today, has lost political credibility throughout the international community. It is this ambiguity of our actual standing in the world that causes uncertainty and fear in the post-Cold War world. Most Americans now agree with what the rest of the world has known all along, that the invasion of Iraq was not in the best interest of western-Arab relations and was unquestionably illegal as defined by the International Court of Justice and the UN, the two most preeminent legal bodies on the globe. At best, the information provided to Bush was faulty, at worst his justification for war was based purely on fabrications. The alleged link between the terrorist group Al Qaeda and Iraq was referenced before the war and became the primary excuse of the Bush administration following the lack of weapons evidence. This flawed justification has since been proven to be untrue as well. The illegal war in Iraq has caused terrorist attacks to increase as well as the loss of many thousands of Iraqi and Allied lives and as a consequence has cost the U.S. dearly as far as international respect is concerned. Additionally, this ‘war’ has monetary costs reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars which has crippled the U.S. economy and will continue to for many years in the future. It has caused the U.S. national debt to skyrocket, which will have to be paid instead of spending federal revenues on healthcare, welfare programs, education, defense systems, etc. The U.S. military is crippled as well, both literally and conceptually. It could not respond to a crisis of any size which potentially could result in a disastrous situation. Bush’s foreign policy was based on greed, was promoted by lies and has cost the U.S. worldwide respect that may never be recovered. Today’s post-Cold War world is faced with the task of rebuilding the democratic system’s reputation as a system that can both protect the rights of its citizens and operate as a member of the world community. Works Cited Hogan, David W. Jr. “The Cold War Army.” Centuries of Service The U.S. Army 1775-2004. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History United States Army, (September 7, 2006). Olney, Richard. “Growth of Our Foreign Policy.” The Atlantic Monthly. Vol. 85, N. 509, (March 1990) cited in Niall Ferguson Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004. Pike, John. “Cold War.” Global Security. (July 6, 2005). Web. September 16, 2010. Wolf, Julie. “The Iran-Contra Affair.” PBS. 2000. Web. September 16, 2010. Read More