Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The Reagan Years A to Z, essay
Failures of Reagan's presidency
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The Reagan Years A to Z, essay
Iran-Contra Affair With the 1960s and 1970s, came a growing need for change among the American people. A previously dominant liberal government was not taking a hard enough stance on the fight to end communism. All it took, was a final nudge to shift the vote from democratic to republican. For decades, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East had depended on a friendly government in Iran. The newly appointed leader, the shah of Iran, began Westernizing the country and taking away power from the Ayatollah, powerful religious leaders. The United States poured millions of dollars into Iran’s economy and the shah’s armed forces, overlooking the rampant corruption in government and well-organized opposition. By early 1979, the Ayatollah had murdered the Shah and taken back power of the government. A group of students who took the American embassy hostage on November 4th, 1979, turned the embassy over to the religious leaders. Carter knew he must take action in order to regain the American embassy and the hostages, but with all of the military cutbacks, the rescue attempt was a complete failure and embarrassment. It took the United States 444 days to rescue the hostages. This was the final straw for many Americans, and enough to push them to the “right” side of the political spectrum, Republican. The election of 1980 brought the re-nominated Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter, against the newly nominated Republican candidate, Ronald Reagan. While Carter ran a rather “gloom and doom” campaign, Reagan came into the election upbeat and with high hopes of rebuilding the military. Americans, weary of the liberal government, elected Ronald Reagan. Reagan came into the Presidency wanting to restore United States leadership in world affairs w... ... middle of paper ... ...g Israel as a go-between. Millions of dollars from these sales were given to the Contras in complete disregard for the Boland Amendment. At the congressional hearings, Oliver North took full responsibility for the scandal, claiming he did it in the name of patriotism. In reality, he and his security advisor, Admiral John Poindexter had lied to Congress, shredded evidence, and refused to inform the President of details in order to guarantee his “plausible deniability”. Ultimately, the Iran-Contra investigation raised more questions than it answered. Reagan held fast to his plea of ignorance, the full role of the CIA director remained murky, and the role of Vice President Bush remained mysterious as well. The Iran-Contra affair revealed how secretive government officials undermine the Constitution and compromise Presidential authority under the facade of patriotism.
The Iran-Contra affair survives as one of the most dramatic political scandals in American history. Approximately a decade after Watergate, the Iran-Contra scandal both shocked and captivated the public. The affair began in Beirut, 1984, when Hezbollah, a militant Islamic group sympathetic to the Iranian government, kidnapped three American citizens. Four more hostages were taken in 1985. The conservative Reagan administration hurriedly sought freedom for the Americans. Despite a 1979 trade embargo prohibiting the sale of weapons between the U.S. and Iran, members of Ronald Reagan’s staff arranged an arms-for-hostages deal with Iran in an attempt to free the American hostages in Lebanon. Meanwhile, back in the Americas, Reagan was pursuing an aggressive foreign policy in response to the Cold War. The Reagan administration was doing its best to curb Communist influence in Central and Latin America. In Nicaragua, Reagan wanted to support the democratic rebel Contras against the Marxist Sandinista regime, despite legislation passed in the early 1980s, the Boland Amendment, that made federal aid to the Contras illegal. In 1985, Oliver North, a staff member in the National Security Council, devised the scheme to divert surplus funds from weapons sales with Iran to the Contra cause in Nicaragua, violating the Boland Amendment. Following public exposure of the scandal, Oliver North and many other members of Reagan’s staff were put on trial; however not a single one of them was appropriately punished. Each person involved was either pardoned, granted immunity or had convictions overturned. The Iran-Contra scandal and its aftermath exposed both the executive branch’s lack of accountability to the American people and the other branches of g...
The Contra War consisted of many parties, although primarily included the Contras, the Sandinistas or FSLN, and the United States Government. The Nicaraguan Revolution spanned from 1970 to 1990, while the Contra War in which the Contras rebelled against the Sandinistas occurred from 1979 to 1990. The Contras rebelled with the support of the United States against the Sandinistas who recently obtained power in Nicaragua. The current state of tension created by the Cold War, having to do with Communist and Democratic disputes, set the stage for the conflict. The Contra War was a highly controversial period of conflict in Nicaraguan history that comprised of many clashing perspectives. The major parties involved in the war included the United States Government that supported the rebelling Contras and strongly opposed the Sandinista authority in Nicaragua. Along with the Contras or counterrevolutionaries that were disaffected by the Sandinista policies and wanted freedom from the Sandinista Government. A final major party involved in the conflict was Sandinistas, who detested the U.S. backed Contras and were fighting for peace in Nicaragua, after a long period of turmoil and insurrection.
President Ronald Reagan strongly opposed the Sandinista government of Nicaragua in 1979, suggesting its communist nature as the reason for a necessary opposition. While the workings of the Iran-Contra affair were entirely covert, there was a time when Reagan openly supported Nicaraguan rebel factions. The president was understood to strongly oppose the Sandinista regime as evident by the termination of Nicaraguan aid and the support of the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance. At one point, Regan goes on to state his readiness "to accept the idea of overt aid to the anti-Sandinista guerrillas in Nicaragua." Reagan went on to address Congress and compel them to take action in Nicaragua as a function of United States foreign policy. A joint session of Congress however was unconvinced as Reagan’s support of anti-Sandinista groups would not prevail. The Democratic majority of the House of Representatives would succeed in their doubt of anti-Sandinista efforts, actualized by specific legislation. Representative Edward P. Boland introduced the “Boland Ammendment” for the ...
The Iran-Contra Affair took place in 1986 during the Reagan Administration. It started with a clash between 2 different belief systems and Countries that refused to work together and with The U.S being a Capitalism Giant, attempted to prohibit the spread of communism. The CIA’s backing of the Mujahideen war in Afghanistan would become its largest covert operation in history, funded by an intricate series of clandestine and illegal activities, known as the Iran-Contra Affair, which involved the complicity of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudi regime as well. Essentially, the tremendous wealth created in Saudi Arabia through the orchestration of the Oil Crisis, would act as a slush fund to fund the CIA’s covert operations. When Reagan became
Oscar Danilo Blandon became involved in the Iran Contra Scandal through supplying cocaine to the drug dealers. He came to the United States after the Sandinistas took over the government in Nicaragua in 1979. He lived in Los Angeles and sold cocaine under the commands of Norwin Meneses to support the Contra movement. He became a widely famous known drug dealer that received cocaine from Mexican, Colombian, and Nicaraguan cartels, and distributed to Ricky Ross and others drug dealers in Los Angeles. The federal agencies suspected that Blandon was involved in drug trafficking and conducted a search of his premises. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Agency assisted the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) in obtaining
November 4th, 1979 was a normal day for many people across the globe, however in Tehran, Iran a 444 day long journey had just begun for 60 plus Americans. Today, this issue is better known as the Iranian Hostage Crisis. This plight started with the United States' attempt to westernize Iran. Which resulted in severe backlash from Iran against the United States citizens. This quickly became a crisis for the United States and a scurry to try and save American lives.
When Reagan’s term came to an end, George ran for President from the Republican Party against Democrat Michael Dukakis in the election of 1988, George was able to totally dominate Dukakis in the electoral vote 79% to 21% and beat him in the popular vote 53.4% to 45.6%. During his presidency George faced many problems but he dealt with these problems carefully taking it one step at a time.
When the world’s nations began to change and conflicts starts popping up and begins to rise, that one important decision can, for better or for worse, benefit or hinder a governor, such as Nixon’s Watergate Scandal and Vietnam War. Every small, sharp, and obscure detail done either publicly, privately, or both counts towards the moral, reputation, and trust from the governed. But nobody, and by all means did nobody ever told President Ronald Reagan when he traded weapons to fund a rebel group. Boy how that really, really had not as much impact as it should have been. But the Iran Contra Affair did had an good sized affect socially, politically, and economically
In 1980, Casey reemerged in politics and became Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign manager. Reagan's campaign lost the Iowa caucuses to the competing George Bush, and was seriously in trouble. Casey was never interested in political strategy; nevertheless, he managed a successful campaign by maintaining overall responsibility while delegating the tasks among his assistances and providing them with significant latitude on making decisions. Furthermore, Casey conducted a secretive intelligence operation monitoring any possible effort by Jimmy Carter’s administration to negotiate with Iranian officials to free U.S. embassy hostages held in Tehran. Interestingly, after Reagan won the election and a few minutes after his inaugural address, Iran’s
Iran has both historic and current legitimate reasons to distrust the United States. In 1953, Muhammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected leader of Iran, was overthrown in a coup d’etat, codenamed Operation Ajax by the CIA. Although Operation Ajax was at first a failure, American spy Kermit Roosevelt ignored a telegram from the CIA to call off the coup. Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian analyzes the result of his decision, “the next day, on August 19, 1953, with the aid of “rented” crowds widely believed to have to have been arranged with CIA assistance, the coup succeeded. Iran’s nationalist hero was jailed, [and] the monarchy [was] restored under the Western-friendly shah”. Although relations between the Iranian government and the United States
The lie bested observed in this historical event would be the lie of out-and-out lie which Ericsson describes as the simplest form of lying. According to PBS, Reagan released a statement that denied the ongoing of any such activities, but later he retracted the statement and an investigation proved he was aware of the events. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North was responsible for the diverting of funds to the Contras, and he was under the impression that Reagan was in complete knowledge of the exchange. With an overwhelming amount of evidence it can be concluded that President Reagan was knowledgeable in the occuring sales even if he did not know every intimate detail of the process. When Regan specifically addressed the nation and very clearly denied these events taking place he was simply distributing an out-and-out lie; the lie was simple to prove and after it was proved through an investigation there was a profound effect. The American public has lost its strong respect for the president and his approval rating soon plummeted although it should be noted that he was eventually able to regain the trust of the American people by the end of his presidency. Many lies, such as the Iran Contra Affair, have shaped the course of history; the affair had many consequences on both the American people, the Reagan presidency, and the United States as a
The Iran-Contra scandal was one of the few criticisms during the Reagan administrations time in the white house. President Ronald Reagan claimed to have no knowledge of the events that took place but key witnesses and evidence seem to have suggested otherwise. Members of the Reagan administration were violating two major American policies during the time of the scandal and the level at which the scandal took place makes it one of the more well-known government scandals. The United States was selling weapons to Iran in order to free hostages held in Lebanon and use the money to support the Contras in Nicaragua. The support for the Contras was against American policy instituted in three amendments between 1982 and1984.
In September, one out of the seven hostages had finally been rescued by the United States. In another attempt to free the rest of the hostages, the United States had 500 surfaces to the air missiles off in Iran to release the other six hostages. In 1985, while Iran and Iraq were at war, Iran had a secret request to buy weapons from the United States. McFarlane needed President Reagan's approval, despite the result of what might happen with Iran. Reagan wanted to go into a different approach then other presidents have ever. He had become frustrated at his inability to secure the release of the seven American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. For several months, the deal to get the hostages back from Iran was held off because Iranians were dissatisfied with many of the ideas that Americans had come up with. Americans needed someone to help so they brought in Lt. Oliver North. North was a National Security Council staff member during the scandal. North masterminded the
The 1953 Iranian coup d’état was the CIA’s first successful overthrow of a foreign government. It was seen as an action to stop a possible Iranian communist takeover led by Mohamed Mossadeq, the Iranian prime minister at the time. But in actuality, the U.S. and Britain were more afraid of the imposing Soviet threat in the region. Because Britain and other western countries issued sanctions on Iran as a consequence to oil nationalization, the Britain and the U.S. feared that Mossadeq would turn to the Soviet Union in an effort to stabilize Iran’s economy. Fearing that Iran would soon be influenced by communism, the U.S. looked at the option of regime change as an answer to the ongoing crisis. In 1953, under the Eisenhower administration, a CIA coup to overthrow Mossadeq was authorized. After three days of CIA organized riots in Iran, Mossadeq surrendered, Fazlollah Zahedi, as chosen by the CIA, succeeded Mossadeq as prime minster of Iran. Now that Mossadeq, once a leader of the democratic movement in Iran, was no longer a political force, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi came back to power, now with little political opposition and supported by the United States and Britain. The CIA coup was originally intended as a solution for the Iranian oil crisis, but its occurrence later caused undesirable results in future. Although the real reason for the CIA overthrow of the Iranian government was to protect geopolitical interests from the Soviet threat in the region, the United States, did not foresee the negative, long term effects of coup, some of which are still evident today.
It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheaval when a group of Iranian students attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran. This seizure was an outright attack on American soil; it was an attack that held the world's most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency. The attack on this sovereign US embassy set the stage for the events to follow for the next 23 years.