Reagan's Iranian "Timidity"

So former FBI director Louis J. Freeh now considers Ronald Reagan’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Lebanon in 1983--after 241 Marines were murdered in their barracks--an act of “timidity”?

Why, then, do he and his fellow hawkish Clintonites and allied neoconservatives always use President Reagan to justify their interventionist foreign policies? Of course, Bill Clinton committed U.S. troops to overseas military actions more than any recent president and Ronald Reagan deployed his revered troops the least, so there is some logic to the charge--but why all of a sudden are they criticizing the Gipper’s prudence?

No president spoke as much about American interests and the need to protect them as did Reagan. He devoted the greatest energy and treasure of his administration to modernization of American forces after years of neglect, restoring strength and pride. He demanded Mikhail Gorbachev “tear down this wall, Mr. Chairman,” and labeled the Soviet Union an evil empire. He conceived and began building a “star wars” missile defense. But he was extremely prudent in committing U.S. ground forces. He mostly relied on one-shot air strikes and covert actions, with one exception against tiny Grenada, hardly the size of a small city.

Reagan’s Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger propounded a six point doctrine, all of whose principles were to be met before the deployment of troops, concluding with the injunction that they only should be used as a last resort. Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously upbraided military chief of staff Colin Powell for attempting to follow the doctrine and conserve the use of American military forces by asking, “What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" Of course, 9/11 “changed everything” but President Reagan had to face a potential Soviet nuclear strike force capable of killing tens of millions, rather than thousands.

Freeh’s charge of timidity is part of his claim there has been a long history of American appeasement of Iran, reaching back to President Jimmy Carter and the hostage crisis and the Khobar Towers attack on American forces in Saudi Arabia under President Clinton, while Freeh was FBI director. As a result of the U.S. simply breaking diplomatic relations and undertaking a failed rescue attempt in the former case and a mere indictment of 14 uncaptured terrorists in the later, combined with the Reagan withdrawal after the Hezbollah (not Iranian) attack, Freeh claims Iran “once again received a message loud and clear from the U.S., its consistent message that there would be no price to pay for its acts of war against America.”

Why have all these recent presidents, including George W. Bush, been so cautious with Iran?  Certainly its President Mahmud Ahmadinejad would test anyone’s patience. He and the mullahs would probably be as easily defeated on the battlefield as Iraq but Iran would be almost three times larger to control afterward. As in Iraq, the population is ethnically diverse, with Persians only constituting 51 percent of the population. Most of the power is concentrated in a national web of Shiite clerics who would be more difficult to confront and harder to separate from the people during an occupation, especially in the rural areas.

Iraq is proving quite enough for the moment anyway. According to the latest figures, insurgent attacks are back at 2004 levels, averaging 600 per week, even with the new more religiously and ethnically representative government headed by the courageous Nouri-al-Maliki. While he recently announced that eleven Sunni groups had agreed to halt attacks, the condition was an announced U.S. departure within two years. Even then, the largest Sunni groups and the al-Qaeda front were not part of the deal. At the same time, eleven Sunni tribal leaders in the Ramada area alone were assassinated for cooperating with U.S. forces. Recently, Shiite militias have taken to the streets even in Baghdad, set up roadblocks and killed or maimed Sunnis. The militias are in control even in the peaceful Kurdish areas and even dominate the regular army.

Afghanistan is back in the news too. The Taliban has been reconstituted and has been blamed for over 500 deaths since mid-May, including the recent beheadings of four leaders accused of collaboration with U.S. and national forces under President Hamid Karzai. Ominously, following the death of two coalition forces and dozens of civilians, Karzai just announced he will “dramatically increase” arms going to tribal militias because NATO and Afghan troops cannot provide security, much to the distress of American leaders who want more support for the national army and fear the long term consequences of power to the militias.

Indeed, militias are the main forces in the Middle East today, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but also in Lebanon and Palestine, where the recent elections have actually strengthened them. Hamas won its election outright in the Palestine Authority parliament and its militia is fighting the Fatah one in and outside the presumably official security forces. In Lebanon, Hezbollah was able to use its democratic legitimacy and bargaining power to force the government to accept its armed militia as a legitimate social organization, sheltering it from U.S. and world demands it be considered a terrorist organization until it disarms.

Perhaps President Reagan was not timid but realistic about cutting his loses in the caldron that is the Middle East. While President Bush is necessarily refusing to set a public date-certain for withdrawal from Iraq, during the recent debate in Congress top administration officials assured legislators that troop levels were set to fall and would do so without a Congressional mandate. A British general said his forces would be out in months and Iraqi defense officials promised an early U.S. withdrawal, perhaps even by the end of the year.

The mission in Iraq is coming to a close and President Bush has made it clear he does not intend a military invasion of Iran under present conditions and is “committed to a diplomatic solution.” It may sound timid to those not responsible for the lives of America’s dedicated troops but it sounds like Reagan practicality to me.

Donald Devine, Editor.

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