Was Reagan right?

Pulitzer prize winning American journalist Steve Coll, in his book Ghost Wars, reveals that Ramzi Yousef, an Islamist terrorist, had “come to the conclusion that only extreme acts could change the minds of people and the policies of nations. He cited as one example the suicide bombing of the US Marine barracks in Lebanon.”

But behind the sledgehammer approach, Reagan had a subtle, cunning plan, bordering on the illegal. During his Presidency, the Ayatollah’s Iran and the Soviet Union were regarded as America’s main enemies.

So much so, that this, once again, permeated popular culture of the time. The World Wrestling Federation (WWF), professional wrestling shown on American and international television had an enormous following in the mid 1980s. To reflect the political currents, two bad guy characters appeared: The Iron Sheik and Nikolai “The Bolshevik” Volkov. The Iron Sheik wore traditional Persian pants and shoes and would wave the Iranian flag as he came to the ring. He would shout to the hostile crowd “Iran number one, America, haaak p-too (simulate spitting). “

Volkov would wave the Soviet communist flag of hammer and sickle and then sing the Soviet national anthem. Eventually, both bad guys would get their comeuppance when a “Corporal Kirchner” a Vietnam veteran would defeat them in the wrestling ring during pure ideological theatre.

But Reagan saw through the good guy, bad guy rhetoric. From 1980 to 88, the US gave covert aid to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as it waged a war with neighbouring Iran. In 1986, the Iran-Contra scandal came to light, when two US officials close to the White House, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Admiral John Poindexter, were caught illegally selling arms to arch enemy Iran and using the proceeds to fund a covert war in central America. However, no direct link was ever established to Reagan and North and Poindexter’s subsequent criminal convictions were later overturned on appeal.

In the current crisis affecting Libya, the dictator Colonel Muammar Qaddafi is ruthlessly trying to put down a popular rebellion.  Both the US and its allies have launched air strikes against the Qaddafi regime. At one time the Libyan strongman was a darling of the radical left in the west. But now is seen as a bad guy by these very same elements.

However back in 1986 in response to Libyan sponsored terrorism against US targets, Reagan bombed Qaddafi. He explained:

'Colonel Qaddafi is not only an enemy of the United States, his record of subversion and aggression against the neighboring states in Africa is well documented and well known. There is no security, no safety in the appeasement of evil.

'This mad dog of the Middle East has a goal of a world revolution... I find he's not only a barbarian, but he's flaky.'

Reagan’s doctrine of “talk loudly and carry a medium sized stick” was with hindsight the correct course of action in an imperfect world. Bearing in mind he had to shake off the shackles of Vietnam, avoid nuclear holocaust with the Soviets and navigate unchartered waters to deal with middle-east terrorism.