How similar are they? What would Ronald Reagan think about our current difficulties in Iraq?
Terrorism is a difficult subject for any American president. It represents the most difficult scenario in international relations, period. Every president who has dealt with terrorism, with hostage taking in the Middle East, has had his presidency hung up in some fundamental way around that issue. Think about Jimmy Carter and the Americans held hostage in Tehran; it literally gripped his presidency and may be one of the core factors why he lost in 1980. We saw that also in Reagan’s presidency. The Iran-Contra crisis grows directly out of trying to find a way to get Americans liberated who were being held in Lebanon – using a relationship, an opening to Iran, that violated America’s strategic objective of staying neutral in the Iran-Iraq War. That led to this major crisis in Reagan’s presidency and almost brought it down. In this current administration, I think we see the same problem. Democrat or Republican, when the human dimension of international relations becomes apparent – and mos
