WWRD -- What Would Reagan Do?
Tom Snyder
By Pat Buchanan
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Posted: June 14, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Would Ronald Reagan have invaded Iraq? Would he have declared a
doctrine of preventive war to keep any rival nation from rising to
where it might challenge us? Would he have crusaded for "world
democratic revolution"? Was Reagan the first neoconservative?
This claim has been entered in the wake of his death. Yet, it seems
bogus, a patent forgery, a fabricated claim to the Reagan legacy,
worked up in the same shop where they made the documents proving
Saddam was buying up all the yellowcake in Niger.
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Ronald Reagan was one of us, a Cold War anti-communist union leader in
the 1940s when neocons were still in mourning for Leon Trotsky. He was
a militant free-market conservative in the 1950s when they were still
wild about Harry. He was a fiery Goldwaterite in the 1960s when
neocons were going all the way with LBJ.
None can say with certitude how Reagan would have responded to 9-11.
Yet, it is hard to believe he would have invaded Iraq, absent hard
evidence of Saddam's involvement in Sept. 11. For, in spite of
Reagan's reputation as a cowboy, prudence – that most conservative of
virtues – was a hallmark of his presidency in the Cold War conflict.
In 1981, when Gen. Jaruzelski crushed Solidarity on the orders of
Moscow, Reagan refused to put the regime in default on its debts,
which would have collapsed the credit rating of the Warsaw Pact.
When he challenged Moscow directly, it was on the battleground of
ideas. He declared its ideology, communism, to be an unnatural and
evil system, not long for this world, as it denied children of God
their human dignity and thus could not and did not work.
When he aided resistance movements in Afghanistan, Angola and
Nicaragua, it was on the periphery of Moscow's empire. And he aligned
America again with patriotism, nationalism and anti-imperialism. In
Iraq, it is the United States, no matter the purity of the president's
motives, that is perceived as the occupying and imperial power.
While Reagan restored U.S. military might and produced the ships,
planes, guns, satellites and smart bombs that won the Gulf War in six
weeks, he believed in speaking softly and carrying a big stick.
His strike on Libya in 1986 in retaliation for the bombing of the
Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. soldiers was a measured
response. In Grenada, he seized an opportunity to sweep Moscow's most
vulnerable pawn off the board. When the Soviets shot down the Korean
airliner, he concluded the action had not been ordered by Moscow and
declined to turn the atrocious crime into an international crisis.
When the Soviet Union deployed mobile SS-20 missiles in Eastern
Europe, Reagan countered with Pershing and cruise missiles in Western
Europe. But when Gorbachev agreed to take down the SS-20s, Reagan
agreed to take out the Pershings. He was proud of the first strategic
arms reduction treaty of the Cold War. Among the reasons he loved the
Strategic Defense Initiative was that he hated nuclear weapons and
wanted to see them gone from the face of the earth. Ronald Reagan was
anti-war, because Ronald Reagan was pro-life.
And because he had confidence in himself, his convictions and his
country, he was always ready to sit down and talk to the adversaries
of the United States.
Where the neocons are implacable enemies of the Saudi monarchy, Reagan
sold the Saudis AWACS and F-16s. Where the neocons are fearful of the
outcome of our clash with radical Islam, Reagan was serenely
self-confident of the outcome of our clash with communism. Where they
are bellicose and compulsive interventionists, Reagan was cautious.
The one occasion where he did intervene was Lebanon. It was a blunder
to put Marines in the middle of that cauldron of hate. But when the
U.S. embassy and Beirut barracks were bombed with hundreds dead,
Reagan retaliated, but pulled the Marines out.
For there was never a vital U.S. interest in Lebanon. Ronald Reagan
had the courage to concede and correct a mistake, but is today
denounced for not going in with massive punitive force.
As for the neoconservative demand that we put incessant pressure on
dictators to reform or perish, Reagan got along fine with kings,
autocrats, generals and presidents-for-life, as long as they took
America's side in the war that mattered: the Cold War. When Congress
voted sanctions on South Africa, Reagan vetoed them, the State
Department be damned.
He took the world as he inherited it. His mission was simple and
clear: Defend the country he loved against the pre-eminent threat of
the Soviet Empire, avoid war, for time was our side, and accept the
assistance of any friend who would stand with us.
Reagan did not harbor some Wilsonian compulsion to remake the world in
the image of Vermont. When Dick Allen, his security adviser, asked him
what was his basic strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union, Reagan
replied with a smile, "How about, 'We win, they lose.'"
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Patrick J. Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican
presidential nomination and the Reform Party's candidate in 2000. He
is also a founder and editor of the new magazine, The American
Conservative. Now a political analyst for MSNBC and a syndicated
columnist, he served three presidents in the White House, was a
founding panelist of three national television shows, and is the
author of seven books.
jacinthfish
-jacinthfish
"Tom Snyder" <titu...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:39023b3b.04061...@posting.google.com...
> Reagan's reputation as a cowboy, prudence - that most conservative of
> virtues - was a hallmark of his presidency in the Cold War conflict.