HOW THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION TAUGHT THE WRONG LESSONS Nathan Thrall*

The prospect of peacefully preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons looks bleaker by the day. Iran appears more emboldened than it has in decades, and support for the Bush administration’s foreign policy is at an all-time low. As a presidential election year approaches, conservatives are seeking to distance themselves from Bush by eulogizing Reagan. Yet they forget or ignore that the present predicament is in large part Reagan’s legacy. This article examines how the Regan administration, through a seemingly endless series of self-deceits and capitulations, nurtured the ambitions of Iran’s current leadership, ruined U.S. credibility, and eroded America’s power to deter the Islamic Republic. Still, while Democrats may welcome any shifting of blame from the failed Iran policies of Reagan’s predecessor, it is they who have the most to learn from Reagan’s mistakes; for Reagan’s errors were realist errors, and the influence of realism is now rising most markedly on the left. Carter gave birth to the decades-long U.S. appeasement of Iran; Reagan fostered it.

What experience and history teach is this—that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.

-G.W.F. Hegel

On December 31, 1977, in the banquet augury of the approach taken by later room of Tehran’s Niavaran Palace, the administrations. “I would be willing to bet,” president and the first lady of the United Young said, “that in another year or so… States attended a dinner hosted in their honor Khomeini will be [seen as] some kind of saint by the shah and the shahbanou of Iran. An when we finally get over the panic of what is hour and a half before the New Year, Jimmy happening there.”2 Carter proposed a toast. “Iran,” he said, Within months, members of Carter’s “because of the great leadership of the Shah, is National Security Council (NSC)—which had an island of stability in one of the more been the main promoter of “the Pahlavi troubled areas of the world. This is a great supremacy premise,” the idea that the shah tribute to you, Your Majesty, and to your would continue to rule—were meeting with leadership, and to the respect and the Muhammad Reza Pahlavi’s successors. On admiration and love which your people give to November 1, 1979, at a 25th anniversary you.”1 commemoration of the Algerian revolution, The waves of mass demonstrations that Iran’s new prime minister, foreign minister, would culminate in the shah’s downfall began and minister of defense hosted Carter’s less than a week after Carter’s visit; barely a national security advisor, Zbigniew year after he raised his glass, the shah and the Brzezinski, in the suite of their Algiers hotel.3 shahbanou fled Iran. Ayatollah Ruhollah Accompanying Brzezinski as a note-taker was Khomeini, Iran’s first and future supreme a promising young NSC staff member, leader, returned from exile just over two Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The weeks later. Carter’s ambassador to the UN, Iranians demanded that the terminally ill shah, Andrew Young, welcomed the chaos with who had been brought to the the words both comforting and delusional—an week before, be turned over to them for trial.

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Brzezinski—who had fought Secretary of Differing perceptions of the causes and State Cyrus Vance to permit the shah’s entry consequences of that year’s events delineate, to the United States—refused. “To return the more than the events of any other year, those Shah to you,” he said, “would be incompatible today who are willing to accept a nuclear Iran with our national honor.”4 from those who are not. Three days later, the U.S. embassy in The year 1983 is also of special relevance Tehran was seized. Carter responded with to the contemporary United States, because the attempts at conciliation, another tactic that year’s events brought about an American would be employed, in extremis, by his troop withdrawal (or redeployment, as it was successors. Yet his letter to Khomeini (“from then called) from Lebanon, an unraveling one believer to a man of God”), seemed only Arab country whose long-suppressed and to reinforce the supreme leader’s oft repeated Iranian-backed Shi’a plurality was on the rise. conviction that “America cannot do a damn The U.S. withdrawal resulted from three thing.” primary factors, all of which exist in 2007. Official diplomatic ties between Iran and First, as America’s adversaries knew too well, the United States have now been severed for domestic support for the American military nearly three decades. As a new crisis escalates presence was dwindling and would only between them, the two countries have little shrink further as the upcoming presidential more than shared history on which to rely in election approached. Second, Iran possessed gauging one another’s intentions. For Iran, this the power to create conditions that would alter history consists of the CIA’s role in the 1953 U.S. public opinion and effectively force overthrow of Muhammad Mossadegh, America’s expulsion. Third, America failed to American support for the repressive shah, U.S. perceive, in the tangled web of Middle Eastern aid to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq politics, how its actions and interests War, and U.S. capitulation to extortive throughout the region were intertwined; only hijacking and hostage-taking. For the United after considerable and repeated injury did States, it consists of the virulently anti- America discover that it could be punished in American Islamic Revolution, the hostage the Mediterranean for its actions in the Gulf. crisis, and the decades of that For all the change in U.S.-Iranian relations followed. Now this history is used, by that 1983 brought about, the year began with partisans in each country, to advance the next relative constancy. The United States was still steps in the quickening confrontation. viewed by Iran as the Great Satan, the source Yet other histories now also play a role in of all the world’s ills, the national embodiment shaping U.S. policy toward Iran. Two rival of what the Koran’s final sura (chapter) calls analogies, détente with China and the Soviet “the insidious whisperer who whispers in the Union on the one hand, and appeasement of hearts of men.” Iran’s leadership was still Nazi Germany on the other, each attempt to consolidating its power, prosecuting its frame the debate over the central question of domestic policy of Islamization, and pursuing whether or not Iran can be contained. Properly its two primary foreign policy objectives of addressing that question, however, requires defeating Iraq and exporting the Islamic turning to the history of the Islamic Republic Revolution. The United States, by leading the itself; for the assertiveness displayed by Iran’s multinational force in Lebanon, providing aid present leaders can be traced to the to Iraq, and attempting to broker an Arab- impressions they formed in their first decade Israeli peace, continued to stand in the way of, of interacting with the United States. and on the most fertile soil for, the Islamic Revolution’s export.5 A WARNING The changes that were taking place at the beginning of the year were largely positive. A No year is more important to understanding sense of relative normalcy had returned to current U.S.-Iranian relations than 1983. Lebanon. In those first, optimistic months of

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the year, many Lebanese who had fled their For all its boldness, the embassy bombing bloodstained country were returning. The had little impact on U.S. foreign policy. The multinational force, despite a March grenade United States effectively ignored what turned attack that wounded five Marines, was out to be a warning and remained focused encountering few problems. had instead on its primary regional objective of withdrawn from most of the country, and a achieving an Israeli-Lebanese agreement that peace agreement that would assure its could serve as a foundation for a broader complete withdrawal appeared near. Arab-Israeli peace. When Secretary of State These developments came to an abrupt end George Shultz flew to the region for that on the afternoon of April 18, 1983. A dented, purpose only days after the attack, the first late-model GMC pickup truck, laden with stop on his itinerary was not changed to hundreds of pounds of explosives, slammed Beirut. Reagan’s response was nothing more into the main entrance of the U.S. embassy in than perfunctory. “This criminal attack on a Beirut. It was the first large-scale attack diplomatic establishment will not deter us against a U.S. embassy anywhere in the world. from our goals of peace in the region,” he said. Seven stories of the building collapsed and 63 “We also remain committed to the recovery by people died, 17 of them Americans. The the Lebanese Government of full sovereignty wedding ring of Robert Ames, CIA’s national throughout all of its territory,” and will intelligence officer for the Near East, was “continue to press in negotiations for the found floating a mile off the coast of Lebanon, earliest possible total withdrawal of all still affixed to his severed hand. external forces.”6 The Shi’a group al-Jihad al-Islami, Islamic The administration hoped that a negotiated Jihad, claimed responsibility. The name was Israeli withdrawal would encourage Syrian, one of several used by a wing of Hizballah, Pasdaran, and Palestinian Liberation the Party of God, in the organization’s early Organization (PLO) forces operating from years. Islamic Jihad also claimed Syrian-occupied territory to follow suit. responsibility for a number of kidnappings of Though Shultz succeeded in brokering a Americans that took place in Lebanon at the Lebanese-Israeli agreement in May, hopes for time. Several of the abducted, including the a broader Arab-Israeli peace, national CIA’s station chief in Beirut, William reconciliation in Lebanon, and foreign troop Buckley, were held by the Pasdaran, or Iranian withdrawal all proved illusory. As a result, the Revolutionary Guards, in eastern Lebanon’s United States was forced to change tactics: Shaykh Abdallah Barracks. Located in Shi’a- Weeks after negotiating Israel’s withdrawal, populated Ba’albak, the barracks had been the Reagan Administration began pressing it seized from the Lebanese Army, on Lebanon’s to stay, now hoping that its presence in Independence Day in November of 1982, by Lebanon would force the departure of other several hundred Pasdaran and a group of foreign fighters. Khomeinist Lebanese Shi’a led by Hussein Yet Israel’s presence brought only Mussawi, a future commander of Hizballah. mounting casualties and overwhelming Algeria informed the United States that domestic opposition. In July 1983, the Israeli Hizballah’s chief of operations, Imad government approved plans for a unilateral Mugniyah (who is said to go by the nickname redeployment to a position south of Lebanon’s “the Fox”), had kidnapped Buckley and Awali River. Meanwhile, the Reagan others. To its everlasting discredit, the United Administration began facing growing internal States later sold arms to Iran in exchange for opposition of its own: While Reagan and the release of some of those hostages; but in Shultz remained committed to obtaining their the case of Buckley, who had been severely objectives in Lebanon and had, in addition, beaten and died in captivity, the concerns about the effects of appearing to representatives of Iran could trade only a 400- have been driven out, Secretary of Defense page transcript of his interrogation. Caspar Weinberger, who had opposed the

Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 2007) 9 How the Reagan Administration Taught Iran the Wrong Lessons deployment from the start, was strengthening introduce American forces directly into the his case. “We shouldn’t be the Beirut police region should it appear that the security of department,” Weinberger said.7 access to Persian Gulf oil is threatened.”9 As its financial ability to continue fighting was THREATS OF SUICIDE almost entirely dependent on its export of petroleum, and because it was then winning By the end of August 1983, the United the war, Iran lacked the incentive (but not the States appeared unlikely to remain in aptitude) to threaten that access. Yet as a Lebanon. Israel was packing its bags, and its desperate Iraq appeared poised to receive from beleaguered prime minister, Menachem Begin, France an October delivery of five Super announced his intention to resign. The Etendard planes—with which it could use Marines in the multinational force took their French Exocet anti-ship missiles to attack first casualties the following day. Iran, Syria, Iranian petroleum shipments—Iran had and the PLO knew then that they would only newfound cause for alarm; so much so that have to bide their time. For the first time since what it promised in return—to close the Strait it was adopted ten years before, Congress of Hormuz, through which approximately two- invoked the War Powers Resolution, which fifths of globally traded oil, as well as Iran’s requires the president to either withdraw own petroleum, passes—brought to mind troops within 60 to 90 days or gain Bismarck’s characterization of preventive war: Congressional approval for their use in “Suicide from fear of death.” combat; but Shultz then helped to turn the tide It was not only the economies of Western with an effective testimony before the House and Gulf countries that were menaced, and Senate, arguing that a withdrawal from however. In the weeks before the French plane Lebanon would have disastrous delivery, Iranian officials made a series of consequences.8 On October 12, 1983, escalating public threats. Iran closed both the Congress approved the extension of the French consulate and the Society for French Marine deployment for an additional 18 Culture in . Iran’s then-President and months. future supreme leader, Ali Khamene’i, said The blindsiding of the Marines that would that delivery of the aircraft would not go propel their premature and ignominious unanswered.10 Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, departure came less than two weeks later. It speaker of the Iranian Majlis, or parliament, was caused by three developments which and later , delivered a Friday conspired in the fall of 1983 to cause Iran to sermon warning that if France went through drastically escalate its actions in Lebanon. The with the delivery it would be regarded as first was the congressionally approved “Iran’s enemy,” and that Iranians would “take extension of the Marine deployment. The revenge.”11 On another occasion, he said that second was America’s inaction in the face of those who supply Iran’s enemies would not attack. The third (which stemmed, ironically, escape punishment. Muhammad Bakir al- from Iran’s successes in fighting Iraq), was the Hakim, the head of the Iranian-backed aid provided to Iraq by France, another Supreme Council for the Revolution in Iraq member of the multinational force in Lebanon. (SCIRI), promised that after deposing Saddam The promise of French aid came amid Hussein, the Iraqi people would also avenge reports that Iraq might soon lose the war. the French delivery.12 In October 1983, there America’s primary concern was that neither were large anti-French demonstrations in side would become so desperate that it would Tehran and in front of the French embassy in threaten oil flows in the Persian Gulf. The London. The demonstrators warned France U.S. Defense Guidance report, the Pentagon’s that the delivery would “seriously endanger its statement of strategy and policy for the 1984- interests throughout the world.”13 Iran’s prime 1988 period stated that “Whatever the minister, Mir-Hossein Moussavi, said that the circumstances, we should be prepared to arms delivery was “an act of suicide” and that

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neither France nor the United States would that regularly stopped near the barracks. In the have “a minute of rest.” early dawn of Sunday, October 23, 1983, Over U.S. objections and complaints to Hussein Mussawi’s group ambushed the real France, Iraq received the planes in October. water delivery truck and sent its replacement Seeking to deter the possible consequences of on its way. The fake water truck, driven by an France’s actions, the United States met Iran’s Iranian named Ismalal Ascari, sped toward the threats to close the Strait with a mid-October compound, broke through the protective increase in its presence in the Gulf. America’s barrier of sandbags and concertina wire, and willingness to defend its access to Gulf oil and detonated in the center of the barracks at to appear to be France’s protector came as no approximately 6:22 a.m. Like the political surprise to Iran, however; indeed, this was leaders who had sent them, most of the likely to have been among the reasons that Marines were sleeping. Iran had already decided, weeks before, to use “The resulting explosion,” as described in an alternative theater—one of less vital Peterson v. Islamic Republic of Iran, the U.S. interest to the United States and less danger to District Court case that found Iran responsible itself—to compel Western powers to rethink for the bombing, “was the largest non-nuclear their presence in the Middle East. explosion that had ever been detonated on the face of the Earth.”16 While the official inquiry ACTS OF SUICIDE of the Department of Defense—the Long Commission—found only that the bomb was In the final week of September, 1983, U.S. “laden with the explosive equivalent of over naval intelligence intercepted a message sent 12,000 pounds of TNT,” and was “the largest to the Iranian ambassador in Syria from Iran’s conventional blast ever seen by the FBI's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, which forensic explosive experts,” the Memorandum operationally controlled Hizballah.14 The Opinion of the Peterson case states that the message directed the Iranian ambassador to force of the explosion was equal to 15-21,000 contact Hussein Mussawi (the Hizballah pounds of TNT. “The force of its impact,” the commander who had previously seized the Memorandum Opinion states: Shaykh Abdallah Barracks together with the Pasdaran). Mussawi, the message said, was to ripped locked doors from their be instructed to lead attacks against the doorjambs at the nearest building, multinational force in Lebanon and to “take a which was 256 feet away. Trees spectacular action against the United States located 370 feet away were shredded Marines.” The ambassador proceeded to and completely exfoliated. At the contact the leader of the Pasdaran’s Lebanese traffic control tower of the Beirut headquarters. The Pasdaran leader then met in International Airport, over half a mile Ba’albak with three future secretary generals away, all of the windows shattered. of Hizballah—Shaykh Subhi Tufayli, Shaykh The support columns of the Marine Abbas Mussawi, and Shaykh Hassan barracks, which were made of Nasrallah—where, according to deposition reinforced concrete, were stretched, as testimony by a Hizballah member (whose an expert witness described, “like reliability was avowed by an expert witness rubber bands.” The explosion created a from U.S. intelligence), they planned crater in the earth over eight feet deep. simultaneous suicide attacks on the Marines The four-story Marine barracks was and the French paratroopers. reduced to fifteen feet of rubble.17 The Marine compound was cased and a Mercedes stakebed truck acquired.15 The truck Two hundred and forty-one American was taken to an underground warehouse near a servicemen died, and many more were injured. gas station, fitted with explosives, and painted The attempted simultaneous suicide truck to resemble the yellow water delivery truck bombing of the French barracks came

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approximately twenty seconds later; it was Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Senate partially thwarted when the truck’s driver was Foreign Relations Committee. “President shot and killed as he steered toward the French Reagan is determined that we will not be barracks, but the bomb was then detonated by driven out of Lebanon by the enemies of remote control, and 58 French soldiers died. peace,” he said. “We will stay, and we will The United States designated Iran a state carry out our mission.”21 The Reagan sponsor of terrorism three months later. The Administration then deliberated over joining State Department’s annual report, Patterns of France in an aerial bombing of the Pasdaran’s Global Terrorism: 1983, concluded: Lebanese headquarters at the Shaykh Abdallah Barracks. Yet Defense Secretary Caspar radical Lebanese Shias, using the nom Weinberger, who had repeatedly expressed de guerre Islamic Jihad, operated with concerns about stoking Muslim anger and had Iranian support and encouragement consistently opposed the U.S. military from Syrian-controlled territory [in presence in Lebanon, prevailed. “I’m not an Lebanon]. They were responsible for eye-for-an-eye man,” he said.22 the suicide bombing attacks against the Weinberger offered his French counterpart US Embassy and the headquarters of a wish of good luck and sent him off to strike the US and French contingents of the alone. “Unfortunately,” Weinberger told him, Multinational Force (MNF) in Beirut, “it is a bit too late for us to join you in this which resulted in unprecedentedly high one.”23 According to then National Security numbers of casualties.18 Advisor Robert “Bud” McFarlane, “Secretary Weinberger aborted it [the planned retaliatory In a single blow, Iran had simultaneously joint-attack] out of a sense that it could have a advanced its two primary foreign policy harmful effect on our relations with other Arab objectives of defeating Iraq and exporting the states.”24 The defense secretary had the USS Islamic Revolution. The attacks dissuaded New Jersey lob several shells into an empty Western support of Iraq and forced the hillside instead—an episode that calls to mind expulsion from Lebanon of the Western a scene from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of powers that had been keeping the country Darkness: “In the empty immensity of earth, from complete disintegration. As the Iranian sky, and water, there she was, ambassador to Lebanon stated in an interview incomprehensible, firing into a continent… two and a half months later, “if activities and nothing happened. Nothing could continue as they are, Lebanon will reach the happen.”25 stage of an Islamic revolution.” Governmental The position of the Reagan authority is “the biggest obstacle to starting Administration’s realists—Weinberger, Baker, Islamic movements in the world,” he said. and Vice President Bush among them—were “But since the Lebanese government does not well encapsulated by current Defense have much power, there is no serious obstacle Secretary Robert Gates (a co-author, together in the way of the people of Lebanon. We can with Brzezinski, of a 2004 report that argued conclude,” he went on, “that the existence of against using military force to prevent Iran’s an Islamic movement in that country will nuclearization and an early member of the result in Islamic movements throughout the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group).26 Gates Arab world.”19 wrote in his memoir that when he was at the In his memoir, Reagan called the day of the CIA in the mid-1980s, “The downside of an barracks bombings “the saddest day of my attack on Iran, to everyone’s regret, presidency, perhaps the saddest day of my outweighed how much Iran deserved life.”20 Yet as with the embassy bombing, the punishment.… Thus Iran proved ‘too hard’—a American response was rhetorically firm but limited attack would, as a participant in one substantively hollow. The day after the meeting delicately put it, ‘just piss them off’ attacks, Shultz spoke before the House and make things worse.”27

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Still, three months after the barracks bombings—despite the upcoming presidential Others who shared Weinberger’s view that elections, invocations of Vietnam by Baker, the costs of withdrawal would be negligible and pressure from Weinberger and George included Baker, Vice President Bush, and H.W. Bush—Shultz and Reagan continued to Weinberger’s Military Assistant, Major resist calls for a troop withdrawal. “Yes, the General Colin Powell. Shultz, however, saw situation in Lebanon is difficult, frustrating the importance of signaling American resolve and dangerous,” Reagan said in a February 4, differently. “If we are driven out of Lebanon,” 1984 radio address from Camp David. “But he said on the day after the barracks that is no reason to turn our backs and to cut bombings, and run. If we do, we’ll be sending one signal to terrorists everywhere. They can gain by it will be a major blow to the American waging war against innocent people.”28 position in the Middle East. If we want Again the administration’s strong words the role and influence of a great power, belied its forthcoming deeds, and three days then we have to accept the later Reagan caved in. At the end of February responsibilities of a great power. If we 1984, under the ridicule of their French as Americans decide we do not want partners, the last Marines departed Lebanon; the role and influence of a great power, to this Tripoli’s shores, they have not returned. then I shudder to think what kind of world of anarchy and danger our CASPAR’S FRIENDLY GHOST: children will inherit.30 RESIDUALS OF A REALIST DEFENSE SECRETARY President George W. Bush is certainly closer in his views to Shultz than to the If we are driven out of Lebanon, radical and Reagan realists. Like Shultz, he sees a direct rejectionist elements will have scored a major and unacceptably costly link between the victory. withdrawal from Beirut in 1984 and the -Secretary of State George Shultz, October terrorism confronting contemporary America. 24, 1983 In a speech delivered in the Building and International Trade Center in Would the withdrawal prove mistaken? At Washington DC, Bush said: issue was whether perceptions of America’s resolve would be affected, and, if so, whether Al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, those altered perceptions would harm U.S. has called on Muslims to dedicate, national security. As Weinberger wrote in a quote, their “resources, sons and memoir of his Pentagon years: money to driving the infidels out of their lands.” Their tactic to meet this The arguments raged back and forth, goal has been consistent for a quarter- with the President always concerned century: They hit us, and expect us to about how it would look to the rest of run. They want us to repeat the sad the world if the MultiNational Force history of Beirut in 1983…31 were removed. The State Department and the NSC staff played to this worry Bin Ladin too has spoken of the connection of the President by telling him that it between al-Qa’ida’s attacks and America’s would always appear that we had ‘cut withdrawal from Beirut. “We have seen in the and run,’ that we had been ‘driven last decade,” he said in a 1998 interview, “the out,’ and similar phrases designed to decline of the American government and the encourage the belief that only if we weakness of the American soldier who is stayed in Lebanon could we ready to wage Cold Wars and unprepared to demonstrate our manhood…”29 fight long wars. This was proven in Beirut

Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 2007) 13 How the Reagan Administration Taught Iran the Wrong Lessons when the Marines fled after two explosions.”32 leadership operating from Iran includes Sa’d Similarly, in 2005, Hizballah Secretary bin Ladin, one of Usama bin Ladin’s eldest General Hassan Nasrallah said: “Are you sons; Sayyif al-Adel, al-Qa’ida's chief of Lebanese afraid of the American naval fleets? military operations; Abdallah Ahmad These naval fleets have come in the past, and Abdallah, the organization's chief financial were defeated, and if they come again, they officer; and “perhaps two dozen other top al will be defeated again.”33 Qaeda leaders.” “Al-Adel and Abdullah,” the Despite bin Ladin’s rhetoric, many scoff at Post reported, “are considered the top any implied connection between al-Qa’ida and operational deputies to Osama bin Laden and the Iranian-backed Shi’a terrorism of 1983. his second-in-command, Ayman Yet the connection exists. In the mid-1990s, Zawahiri…”36 Hizballah chief of operations Imad Mugniyah, For many, September 11 added credibility reportedly the operational architect of the to Shultz’s notion that perceptions of 1983 Beirut Embassy and Marine barracks America’s resolve had more consequence than bombings, met in Sudan with bin Ladin to what Weinberger dismissed as a concern with discuss the exchange of Hizballah training for demonstrating “manhood.” Indeed, after al-Qa’ida weapons. According to The 9/11 September 11, even Weinberger stated in a Commission Report: Frontline interview that America’s displays of weakness had invited attack. “Some people are Not long afterward, senior al Qaeda asking why deterrence failed,” he said. operatives and trainers traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives. In the Why did these people feel that they fall of 1993, another such delegation could launch an attack on our Trade went to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon Center and on the Pentagon and all of for further training in explosives as that? Why did they feel they could get well as in intelligence and security. Bin away with it? And I'm afraid it's Ladin reportedly showed particular because our responses in the past, interest in learning how to use truck during the Clinton administration, had bombs such as the one that had killed been too weak, too feeble, too 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983. unconcentrated.37 The relationship between al Qaeda and Iran demonstrated that Sunni-Shia This blaming of his successors was, of divisions did not necessarily pose an course, less a concession to Shultz’s position insurmountable barrier to cooperation than a devious attempt to exonerate himself; at in terrorist operations.… al Qaeda least when it came to defending his own contacts with Iran continued in ensuing honor, Weinberger could be quite bold. years.34 Yet though Reagan’s realists favored withdrawal and disdained, as Weinberger A February 11, 2007 Washington Post phrased it, talk of “cutting and running and all article reported that “Tehran has refused to that nonsense,” they were not entirely hand over a number of senior al-Qaeda unconcerned with perceptions of America’s operatives it has claimed to be holding under resolve. Weinberger wrote in a memoir of his ‘house arrest’ for years.”35 The Post reported Pentagon years that he had been determined to more than three years earlier that U.S., do all he could to “prevent America from European, and Arab officials had stated that continuing down that path of drift and self- many members of al-Qa’ida’s leadership were disparagement and weakness that I was sure operating from Iran under the protection of the could lead to another war.” More bluntly, Qods, or Jerusalem, Force—the extra- Gates wrote of how the Reagan territorial operations wing of the Pasdaran. Administration’s fear of confronting Iran did According to these officials, the al-Qa’ida not prevent it from choosing an alternative,

14 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 2007) Nathan Thrall relatively defenseless target on which to station, and at the residential area for the display American strength. “The process of employees of the American corporation elimination brought CIA to ,” Gates Raytheon. A seventh bomb was defused. wrote, referring to the bombing raids on that Including the suicide truck bomber of the U.S. country in April 1986: embassy, the coordinated explosions resulted in six deaths and more than 80 injuries. Once Ironically, Libya had been reluctant to again, responsibility was claimed by Islamic attack the United States directly out of Jihad—the Iranian-backed perpetrators of the fear of retaliation. But because it was barracks and embassy bombings in Beirut. in the poorest position to sustain itself The Kuwaiti authorities apprehended the against U.S. actions—military or organizer of the attacks, Mustafa Yusuf economic—it became the target for Badreddin. His co-conspirator was his brother- U.S. retaliation against all state- in-law (some reports say brother-in-law and supported terrorism.38 cousin), the alleged architect of the Beirut embassy and barracks bombings, Hizballah Such displays of Bismarckian realpolitik chief of operations Imad “the Fox” Mugniyah. reinforce realists’ reputation for ruthless Yet the majority of those arrested and tried for expediency. Indeed, in the first edition of a the Kuwait bombings were not members of still central realist text, The Twenty Years’ Hizballah. They belonged to a different Crisis, 1919-1939, the British historian Iranian-backed Shi’a group, al-Da’wa, or the Edward Hallett Carr argued for appeasing Call, an Iraqi opposition party that trained in Hitler. Yet as was all too clearly demonstrated, Iran and fought alongside it against Saddam first to Carr (he omitted the infamous Hussein.39 Da’wa members in Iran issued prescription from later editions), and then to repeated threats to the Kuwaiti government Weinberger, some states intend to attack long while their associates stood trial for the after concessions have been made and long bombings. Kuwait nevertheless sentenced after the defender has fled. Absorbing Iran’s several of the apprehended to death.40 Five attacks without retaliating was only the others were acquitted. The remaining group, beginning, however; before long, the Reagan though it included Lebanese members of Administration was subsidizing the Hizballah (including Mugniyah’s brother-in- kidnapping and bombing of its own citizens. law), was primarily Iraqi. It became known as the Da’wa 17, the Kuwait 17, or simply the THE CALL UNANSWERED Da’wa prisoners. Seeking the release of the Da’wa 17 would An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, be central to the subsequent anti-American hoping it will eat him last. violence initiated by Iran and Hizballah. It was -Winston Churchill as the sentencing of the Da’wa prisoners approached that the Islamic Republic, perhaps The sad tale of the Reagan encouraged by the little cost incurred from its Administration’s further descent begins on the previous experience in taking Americans morning of Monday, December 12, 1983. hostage, began acquiring collateral: prisoners Several weeks after the truck bombings of the of its own.41 Over the coming years—on some French Paratrooper and U.S. Marine barracks occasions directly through representatives of in Beirut, two vehicles exploded in short the Iranian government and on others through succession at the U.S. and French embassies in hijackers whom Iran claimed not to control— Kuwait. Over the next two hours, four car Iran and Hizballah would make a priority of bombs would explode at separate locations attempting to negotiate the release of these and throughout the country: at the control tower of other American hostages in exchange for the the Kuwait airport, at Kuwait’s main oil Reagan Administration’s guarantee that the refinery, at a government-owned power

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Kuwait-held Da’wa prisoners would be 2007 its speaker of parliament—hijacked a freed.42 Royal Jordanian Airlines flight at the Amal- After the Da’wa sentencing, events quickly controlled Beirut Airport. The plane flew to escalated. The string of March 1984 Beirut , Sicily, and back to Beirut, where the kidnappings was followed by an April hijackers released the passengers, blew up the Hizballah bombing of a restaurant near a U.S. plane, and escaped into the Shi’a Air Force base in Spain. Eighteen servicemen neighborhoods that surround the airport. The died, and more than 80 people were injured. lead hijacker, Fawaz Yunis, soon returned to Several months later, and more than half a help with another operation. This one— year after the last Marines had departed from organized by the Pasdaran and Mugniyah— Lebanon, a Hizballah truck bomb killed 24 sought the release of the Da’wa 17. Reagan’s people outside the relocated U.S. embassy in response would lay the foundation for the East Beirut.43 The next demand for the release final, fateful year and a half of his of the Da’wa prisoners came ten weeks later. administration’s dealings with Iran. On the day after another Islamic Jihad/Hizballah-abducted American was PRELUDE TO A KISS declared missing—a librarian at the American University of Beirut—Kuwait Airways Flight Three days after the Royal Jordanian’s 221 was hijacked and diverted to Mehrabad detonation, Hizballah hijacked TWA 847, a Airport in Tehran. An American employee of daily flight from Athens to Rome that the U.S. Agency for International regularly carried many Americans traveling Development (USAID) was forced out of the westward from the Middle East. On June 14, plane and handed a bullhorn. Appearing in a 1985, it contained eight crew members and white t-shirt before Iranian television cameras, 145 passengers, 135 of them American. he nervously pleaded for the hijackers’ Wielding grenades and guns, which had been demands to be met—primary among them, the encased in glass to pass through airport x-ray release of their “innocent brothers,” the Da’wa machines, the hijackers’ first demand was the 17—and warned that the hijackers were release of the Da’wa prisoners. “serious about their threats.” Five minutes Their second demand, which proved to be later, the American appeared again, the more realistic, was the release of 766 screaming. With the cameras still rolling, he detainees held by Israel, most of them was shot six times and thrown onto the tarmac. Lebanese Shi’a who had been captured in Another USAID employee was also killed by attacks against Israeli forces in Southern the hijackers. The director of the state Lebanon. Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak department’s office of counterterrorism at the Rabin told the U.S. embassy in Israel that if time, Robert Oakley, said of the hijacking, asked to release its prisoners in exchange for “we feel there is a great deal of sympathy, if the American TWA hostages, “it would be not support and active collusion, on the part of hard for Israel to refuse.”46 The United States, the Iranian government.”44 Reagan was however, was displeased with Israel’s offer, milder. The Iranians, he said, “have not been because it effectively forced America to take as helpful as they could be in this situation, or public responsibility for any capitulation. The as I think they should have been.”45 objection of the United States wasn’t so much The next months saw more Americans to the idea of an exchange as it was the kidnapped in Beirut. In May 1985, an alleged appearance of one; throughout the crisis, the Da’wa member took a suicide car bomb to the Reagan Administration tried to make it seem emir of Kuwait, Shaykh Jabir al-Ahmad al- as though it hadn’t requested anything of Sabah, but failed to assassinate him. On June Israel and that Israel had in fact been planning 11, members of the popular Lebanese Shi’a to release its prisoners all along. Amal party—which is led by Nabih Berri, The plane was diverted to the Beirut then Lebanon’s Minister of Justice and in airport, where it refueled, released several

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passengers, picked up two more gunmen, and Lebanese hit squad that might have been able flew to Algiers. There it refueled again, to do this for us, but they failed to do the released several more passengers, and again job.”49 Thus even in its attempt at retaliation, took off for Beirut. Without naming the Reagan Administration, by hoping to Mugniyah, Nabih Berri, who was negotiating attack anonymously, and through calamitously on behalf of the hijackers, explained to the unreliable proxies, sent Iran and Hizballah yet U.S. ambassador in Lebanon that he had little another signal of American impotence. leverage over an “inner group” of the terrorists With little reason to believe the United because some of them were related to States would risk another failure in Lebanon, members of the Da’wa 17. In Beirut, the the hijackers, having demonstrated their hijackers beat a U.S. Navy diver, shot him in resolve through the dead American on the the head, and threw his body on the tarmac. tarmac, brought several more gunmen on the When the air traffic controller censured the plane and raised their demands. One of their shooter for the killing, the shooter replied, associates had been caught at the Athens “Did you forget the Bir al Abed massacre?”— airport. They said that if he was not a reference to the March 1985 car bombing immediately flown to meet them in Algiers, that failed to kill Sayyid Muhammad Hussein several Greek passengers would be executed. Fadlallah, a Shi’a leader in Lebanon with They soon picked up their co-conspirator, close ties to Da’wa, Hizballah, and Iran.47 released several dozen passengers, and Fadlallah is sometimes described as the returned to the safety of Beirut. The remaining spiritual leader of Hizballah. The car bomb 40 passengers, all of them Americans, were left him unscathed but killed 80 civilians and dispersed to secret locations in West Beirut, injured more than 200. Lebanese Shi’a held leaving only a few hijackers and crew the CIA responsible. At the bombing site, a members on the plane. The passengers with banner that read “Made in USA” was placed Jewish-sounding last names were controlled in front of a building blown out by the bomb. by Hizballah; Amal and the remaining Bob Woodward’s Veil: The Secret Wars of the hijackers jointly controlled the rest. CIA, 1981-1987 asserts that the failed Neither Weinberger nor Vice President assassination had been a joint U.S.-Saudi Bush had any intention of returning to Beirut. effort formalized when CIA Director Bill They had pushed for withdrawal the year Casey gave Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the before and now argued that the United States Saudi Ambassador to the United States, a should simply ask Israel to release the 766 handwritten note with the number to a Geneva prisoners. Shultz disagreed and succeeded in bank account that contained three million persuading an initially reluctant Reagan of his dollars.48 position. On June 18, 1985, Reagan declared: The U.S. role in the attempted assassination “America will never make concessions to of Fadlallah was corroborated by terrorists—to do so would only invite more Counterterrorism Director Robert Oakley, terrorism—nor will we ask nor pressure any who, when asked in a 2001 interview whether other government to do so.” Berri called the United States had supported the failed Reagan’s bluff. Although he maintained that attempt, said, “we never actually provided any the hijackers were not Amal members but support to the group. They got frustrated and “pious Shi’is who followed the line of went off on their own.” When pressed further Hizballah,” Berri added a demand for the on whether the Reagan Administration had release of two Amal members jailed on considered using its own forces against terrorist charges in Spain. Shultz, meanwhile, terrorists in Lebanon, he revealed more. persisted in requesting that a final deal include “There were differences of opinion within the the release of the seven American hostages executive branch, but in the final analysis the that had been previously abducted in Beirut. In president decided, ‘No, we're not going to go a speech on June 26, 1985, when 39 TWA that route.’ So we did try to organize the passengers remained captive, Shultz declared,

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“We insist on release of our hostages, all 46 of the remaining 735 detainees. The half month- them, immediately.”50 long crisis finally ended. Israel released 300 U.S. intelligence would later discover that prisoners a few days later, and the last of the several of the original seven, as well as other 766 was freed by mid-September. Americans who were later abducted in Neither the Da’wa prisoners nor the seven Lebanon, were held by Hizballah and the previously abducted Americans were released. Pasdaran at the latter’s headquarters in Reagan’s public approval ratings had soared Ba’albak. Yet knowledge of the hostages’ during the crisis, and he appears to have whereabouts would not have been enough to deemed his handling of it a success. He claims impel action on the part of Weinberger’s in his memoir to believe that Israel’s release of Department of Defense, which was still 766 hostages didn’t constitute an exchange. reeling from the Marine barracks bombings “Although one American lost his life during and wary of returning to Lebanon in even the the hijacking of TWA Flight 847, thirty-nine most limited capacity. According to the others went home safely,” Reagan wrote. memoir of then CIA case officer Robert Baer, “After seventeen days, we had gotten them whose station chief in Beirut, William back without making any deals with the Buckley, was among the abducted, the terrorists.”53 Reagan gave a televised address Pentagon “wouldn’t even agree to send a Delta to the nation and headed off with Nancy to a Force team, the army’s elite counterterrorism jubilant dinner hosted by Shultz. “We all felt a unit, unless a Delta member had ‘eyes on’ the sense of relief that the TWA 847 hostage crisis hostages at least twenty-four hours in had been resolved successfully,” Shultz wrote advance—a condition that could never be in his memoir. “Nancy, departing from her met.”51 usual practice, had a hard drink ‘just to During the TWA hijacking, there was a celebrate with you boys.’”54 Delta Force team in the area and rumors Mugniyah, who was seen planeside with a swirled of its possible use. “But,” as Reagan Pasdaran officer at the height of the crisis, was put it in his memoir, “it couldn’t be used in the indicted for the hijacking but never caught. hostile atmosphere of Beirut.”52 Memories of CIA Director Bill Casey and National Security the Delta Force’s previous attempt to rescue Advisor Bud McFarlane emphasized to hostages held by Iran—those in the seized Reagan that the deal could not have been U.S. embassy in Tehran—may have made without Iran’s consent. They told contributed to the Pentagon’s reluctance: In Reagan that the speaker of Iran’s parliament, April 1980 Carter had belatedly aborted Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, had played a Operation Eagle Claw, a Delta Force mission critical role; and since Iran had been gracious that left a transport plane, seven helicopters, enough to allow the ordeal to end without and eight dead servicemen behind in the killing more than the single American navy Iranian desert. diver, President Reagan sent Rafsanjani a When ten days into the TWA crisis Israel message of thanks.55 released 31 prisoners, Berri held fast, announcing that it meant nothing until all 766 AN UNREQUITED ANNIVERSARY were released. Berri was continuing to hold up GIFT a final deal in part because he feared, it turned out unnecessarily, that Reagan might have It is hard to know which effect of the TWA meant it when he said “terrorists, and those crisis has been the most damaging. The who support them, must, and will, be held to experience taught Reagan that he could account.” Once he received assurances that capitulate to Iran and Hizballah, go back on this was no more true than Reagan’s vow not his word, and publicly deny that he had done to make concessions to terrorists, Berri so, all while enjoying extraordinarily high publicly announced both America’s promise public approval. Iran learned that it could send not to retaliate and Israel’s pledge to release its speaker of parliament to secure Hizballah’s

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release of the TWA hostages—hostages held into American hostages exchanged for Israeli- in order to free the bombers of the U.S. owned, American-replenished arms, and, embassy in Kuwait—without paying a finally, the direct exchange of American political price. Rafsanjani’s display of hostages for America’s arms. direction over Hizballah removed any The first deal was to consist of an August reasonable doubt about whether control of the 1985 delivery of 100 TOW (tube-launched, organization lay in some unwieldy faction of optically-tracked, wire-guided) anti-tank the Pasdaran or in Iran’s very centers of missiles exchanged for the release of a single power; and when Reagan sent Rafsanjani his American hostage. When the missiles arrived thanks, he, too, removed doubt—that held by in late August, they were picked up at Iran’s Iran about whether the preceding two years of airport by the Pasdaran—another clear American inaction had been driven by indication that it was the vanguards of the ignorance or cowardice; Reagan’s message revolution, not some moderate Iranian faction, made clear that his administration had been whom the United States was strengthening. driven by both. Even though Israel was in the midst of Yet the most damaging aspect of the releasing the last of the 766 Lebanese ordeal, more damaging, even, than the myopic prisoners, as had been demanded by the TWA encouragement provided to Iran and Hizballah hijackers, Iran reneged on the promise of its or the lies to the American public about the prime minister, Mir Hussein Moussavi, to exchange that had taken place, was the self- release one of the seven kidnapped Americans. deception that the crisis had initiated. The twin Moussavi, having gauged the nearly fictions that America was negotiating with boundless credulity of his adversaries, then moderates and that moderates could control proposed another deal: the release of all seven Hizballah opened the United States to the hostages in exchange for Iran’s receipt of 400 further extortion that finally culminated in the more TOW missiles. America agreed. On largest blight on the Reagan Administration’s September 14, 1985, Israel delivered to Iran, legacy. Once Reagan could believe that no with the U.S.’s authorization and promise of exchange was made with Israel’s release of replenishment, 408 TOW missiles. Again Iran several hundred Shi’a prisoners, or that reneged on its promise. Instead of receiving all Rafsanjani could be thanked for having the seven hostages, the Americans were told they hostages released but not blamed for having could select one. They chose William them taken, it was but a small, casuistic step to Buckley, the CIA Beirut station chief whose believe what Reagan wrote in his memoir: that abduction was a source of embarrassment and heavy arms could be sold to “the moderate guilt for the administration. Buckley was Iranians” because they would “use their believed to have been tortured. He had known influence with the Hizballah and try to get our Vice President Bush when they were both at hostages freed.”56 the CIA and had been quite reluctant, in spite Not only did the TWA crisis form the of CIA Director Bill Casey’s pressure, to take moral and strategic foundation for the series of the Beirut assignment—in part because his arms-for-hostages deals that would become identity had been outed some years before. known as Irangate, but it was on the very day The Iranian response came that Buckley was that the TWA hostages were transferred to too ill to travel. In fact, he had been dead for Hizballah safe houses in West Beirut that the three months. A different hostage, Reverend NSC circulated the first National Security Benjamin Weir, was released within hours of Decision Directive that proposed the United the second TOW delivery. Accompanying States break with its policy by encouraging its Weir was a note from his captors conveying a allies to provide arms to Iran. The slippery familiar message: a demand for the release of slope that started with the exchange of the Da’wa 17. American TWA hostages for prisoners held by “We were disappointed, yes,” Reagan Israel, at a ratio of nearly one to 20, descended wrote in his memoir, “but we had succeeded in

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bringing home one of the hostages, and I felt diary entry from December 9, 1985, records pretty good.”57 So the negotiations continued, McFarlane’s report: facilitated in part by the Iranians’ ability to tell the Americans exactly what they wanted to Bud is back from London but not in hear—that receiving additional weapons the office yet. His meeting with the would strengthen the moderate forces in Iran Iranians did not achieve its purpose and serve as a bulwark against an inflated which was to persuade them to free our threat of Soviet encroachment. The hostages first and then we’d supply the Americans, now practiced in self-deception, weapons. Their top man said he were only too happy to believe in notions that believed if he took that proposal to the might help to justify their continuing betrayal terrorists they would kill our people.60 of a repeated promise to “never make concessions to terrorists.” NSC staff member Lieutenant Colonel The next deal was to consist of 120 HAWK , who had taken notes at the (Homing All The Way Killer) anti-aircraft London meeting, in his December 9 NSC missiles, at a price of nearly $25 million, summary of the encounter, wrote: exchanged for Iran’s promise that no more “Gorbanifahr noted that nine Hezballah hostages would be abducted and that those leaders had been summoned to Tehran on remaining would be freed. With Weir released Friday [December 6] and that, given the and Buckley presumed dead, there were pressures inside Lebanon, all it would take for thought to be five hostages left.58 the hostages to be killed would be for Tehran The first attempted HAWK delivery failed; to ‘stop saying no.’”61 Yet Ghorbanifar, in his the second—18 HAWK missiles that belatedly testimony before the Tower Commission, arrived in Tabriz on November 25, 1985—was recalled telling McFarlane more than that. “I a disaster. The 18 HAWKs were to compose told him what the hell is this, what is the the first of five shipments; but the missiles problem, you leave a mess behind,” were old and, worse, bore Israeli markings, Ghorbanifar said, referring to the failed including, on nine of them, stars of David. The HAWK delivery, “and if you want to continue Iranians were outraged. They test-fired one at this way, I said, just is better you cut off and an Iraqi plane, then insisted that the remaining don’t put us, the blame on us, and by the fire 17 be returned. No hostages were released. on your side because then there will be fire Prime Minister Moussavi relayed a message to back on your interests.”62 Like Brzezinski at Reagan through Manucher Ghorbanifar, Iran’s his meeting with Iran’s leaders three days broker: “We have fulfilled our every promise, before the 1979 U.S. embassy seizure, and now you have cheated us. You must McFarlane, no less portentously, held to that immediately remedy this terrible situation or derided, antiquated notion of national honor. else dire consequences will follow.”59 He told Ghorbanifar to “go pound sand” and Within a week and a half, Reagan convened left the room.63 a National Security Planning Group meeting Four days later, on the second anniversary to discuss an even larger arms deal in of the six Da’wa bombings in Kuwait, there exchange for the release of the five remaining was quite literally “fire” on America’s living hostages. In one of their rare moments interests. As Reagan wrote in his memoir: of agreement, Shultz and Weinberger expressed strong disapproval of continuing On December 12, our nation got any such barter. Reagan was undeterred. He another reminder of the high price we sent Bud McFarlane, who had resigned as were having to pay for the continuing National Advisor several days before, to meet strife in the Middle East and our efforts Ghorbanifar in London the next day. By all to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict: accounts, the meeting went horribly. Reagan’s Nearly 250 American soldiers returning home after six months of

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duty as members of the international police force posted in the Sinai under Until the U.S. declassifies its findings, the the Camp David accords were killed public cannot know if the results of U.S. when their plane crashed after a investigations were withheld by the Reagan refueling stop in Newfoundland.64 Administration because they would have pointed to its secret negotiations with Iran. It was the largest single-day loss of life for The historic catastrophe is not so much as the U.S. Armed Forces since the invasion of mentioned in most memoirs of Reagan Normandy. As with the bombings of the U.S. Administration officials. What is a matter of embassy in Beirut, the kidnappings in public record, however, is how rapidly in the Lebanon, the truck bombings of the French wake of the crash the administration, in its all Paratrooper and U.S. Marine barracks, and the too familiar and masochistic pattern, advanced Da’wa bombings in Kuwait, Islamic Jihad toward more intimate contact with Iran. These claimed responsibility. negotiations slipped, at first unknowingly, Yet Reagan’s admission in his 1990 from contact with shady arms brokers to memoir that the crash was a “reminder of the witting, formal meetings with the hostage- high price we were having to pay for the takers themselves. continuing strife in the Middle East” is the Just weeks after the Arrow crash, in the closest that any high ranking U.S. official has first month of 1986, Reagan wrote in his diary, come to acknowledging terrorist involvement. “I agreed to sell TOWs to Iran.”66 To the In fact, all responsibility for the official outrage of America’s Arab allies, by the next investigation and report on the crash was December, at the last meeting of Iranian and deferred to the Canadian Government. Though Reagan Administration officials, the U.S. had the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation provided Iran over $50 million in arms, the Command, Defense Intelligence Agency, release of hundreds of Lebanese Shi’a, National Transportation Safety Board, FBI, intelligence to help it defeat Iraq, and pledges and CIA all investigated the crash, their to arrange for the freeing of the Da’wa 17. findings were not released to the Canadians. This was all in exchange for the death of two “The Canadian Aviation Safety Board was American hostages, the release of three others unable to determine the exact sequence of (each of whom was replaced by other events which led to this accident,” the Board’s kidnapped Americans), and a host of official report states. unfulfilled promises—that the remaining However, a dissenting opinion was issued hostages would be released, that no more by four of the Board’s nine members: would be kidnapped, that Buckley’s body would be returned, and that Iranian-supported In our judgment, the wings of the anti-American terrorism would cease. There Arrow Air DC-8 were not were more kidnapped Americans in Lebanon contaminated by ice—certainly not at the end of Reagan’s arms-for-hostages enough for ice contamination to be a initiative than there were at its beginning. factor in this accident.… Accordingly, we cannot agree—indeed, we AMERICA CANNOT DO A DAMN categorically disagree—with the THING majority findings.… The evidence shows that the Arrow Air DC-8 It is commonly stated that Iran ceased to be suffered an on-board fire and a a revisionist power in the 1980s; that after the massive loss of power before it war with Iraq, its leaders and foreign policy crashed. … [The fire] may have been became "quite pragmatic."67 Yet each of the associated with an in-flight detonation four most commonly cited instances of the from an explosive or incendiary Islamic Republic's pragmatism--or, in some device.65 versions, magnanimity--came in the wake of

Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 2007) 21 How the Reagan Administration Taught Iran the Wrong Lessons impressive displays of force in Iran's Clinton, was responsible for the Khobar immediate vicinity. When Iran finally sought investigation. Freeh wrote in a Wall Street to end its war with Iraq, it was after the latter Journal op-ed on the tenth anniversary of the had started to turn the war around and after the attack "that Mr. Clinton and his national United States had attacked Iranian ships, oil security adviser, Sandy Berger, had no interest installations, and, inadvertently, a commercial in confronting the fact that Iran had blown up airliner (killing all 290 aboard). In spite of the towers." Freeh found that he "was President George H.W. Bush's repeated overruled by an ‘angry' president and Mr. conciliatory gestures, it was only after Berger who said the FBI was interfering with America's overwhelming success in the their rapprochement with Iran." More than a Persian Gulf War (during which the Da'wa decade after the Arrow crash, Clinton and prisoners had escaped from Kuwait) that Iran Berger, according to Freeh, were interested released the final handful of American only in "Washington ‘damage control' hostages in Lebanon (concurrent with Israel's meetings held out of the fear that Congress, release of nearly 100 imprisoned Lebanese and ordinary Americans, would find out that Shi'a and Bush's payment to Iran of $278 Iran murdered our soldiers."69 Despite million, ostensibly for undelivered military stubbornly held American myths of an equipment ordered by the shah). When in imminent honeymoon, Iran and the United 2001 Iran offered to cooperate with the United States, since their disgraceful encounters in the States on , it was after the early 1980s, seemed to have changed their American military campaign against its policies toward one another not a whit. enemy, the Taliban, had begun; and when Iran's senior leadership allegedly approved a Many today serve Reagan and Clinton's proposal, relayed to the United States by the wine from new bottles, predicting that the rise Swiss ambassador to Iran, for comprehensive of Iranian moderates is nigh. These optimistic talks with Washington, it was just after seekers of rapprochement rightly stress that America's formidable 2003 invasion, and although President Ahmadinejad may be initially successful occupation, of Iraq. sincere in even his most abhorrent proclamations, he is not the arbiter of Iran's More importantly, these expressions of foreign policy. Yet he is not without influence, relative temperance were short-lived, all of and, unfortunately, the man who is Iran's final them followed by reassertions of Iranian decisionmaker, Supreme Leader Ali aggression--acts that were orchestrated by Khamene'i, is something short of a some of the most powerful leaders in conciliator's cause for hope. "There is only contemporary Iran. These men, who were one solution to the Middle East problem," complicit in the hijackings, kidnappings, and Khamene'i declared in 2000, "namely the embassy bombings of the Islamic Republic's annihilation and destruction of the Jewish early years, witnessed American timidity first- state." hand and responded with attacks that continued well into the 1990s. According to Hopes of moderation are hardly better the December 2006 Memorandum Opinion of placed in Ahmadinejad's possible successor, a U.S. Federal Court, the 1996 bombing that Expediency Council Chairman Rafsanjani. killed 19 U.S. airmen and wounded 372 Rafsanjani is yet again heralded in the West as people at the Khobar Towers housing complex a pragmatist who ought to be strengthened. in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia "was approved by Yet he appears no more moderate today than Ayatollah Khameini, the Supreme leader of he did when Reagan thanked him after the Iran at the time."68 TWA hijacking. In November 2006, Argentina issued international arrest warrants for Louis Freeh, who was nominated to Rafsanjani and nine others, including Imad become FBI Director by President Bill Mugniyah, for their role in the 1994 bombing

22 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 2007) Nathan Thrall that killed 85 people at a Buenos Aires Jewish Yet deterrence is premised upon two community center. On Tehran Radio, conditions: a credible threat of retaliation and Rafsanjani declared that "Hitler had only the ability to identify an attacker. America killed 20,000 Jews and not six million."70 lacks both. It ruined its credibility with Iran Rafsanjani is the pragmatic Iranian leader who long ago. In fact, it is difficult to imagine that famously stated three months after September anyone in Washington, much less in Tehran, 11 that if one day, the Islamic world is also believes that America would retaliate against equipped with weapons like those that Israel Iran for a terrorist nuclear attack whose possesses now, then the imperialists' strategy materials could as easily have come from will reach a standstill because the use of even Russia, Pakistan, North Korea, or the United one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy States itself. A rational Iran would have everything. However, it [Israel's nuclear learned from the past quarter century that retaliation] will only harm the Islamic world. America's resolve doesn't amount to a damn It is not irrational to contemplate such an thing. eventuality.71 As for the second necessary condition of Whether it would be irrational to deterrence, the existing technology to contemplate such an eventuality is precisely determine the country of origin of the what lies at the heart of the Western debate materials used in a non-missile nuclear attack over whether Iran can be deterred from using is woefully limited. This capability, known in nuclear weapons. Those who say Iran cannot the jargon of the Pentagon's Defense Threat be deterred need only point to the words of Reduction Agency as "nuclear event Khamene'i and Ahmadinejad, and to attribution," relies heavily on data from Rafsanjani's proclaimed willingness to absorb atmospheric nuclear tests. Yet the last such nuclear retaliation for the sake of Israel's test occurred in 1980, which means that the destruction. These deterrence pessimists point provenance of a new type of bomb, or of a out that in Iran, Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad bomb containing material from a new nuclear are no anomalies--it was declared by the power, could be undetectable. revered Ayatollah Khomeini himself that “We are ready to be killed and we have made a With hindsight, some argue that Iran's covenant with God to follow the path of our simultaneous bombings of the French leader, the Lord of the Martyrs.”72 In an paratrooper and U.S. Marine barracks were address to the papal nuncio in Iran, eight days rational, because the attacks offered some after the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy, hope of plausible deniability (even though the Khomeini said: “We have a population of United States discovered Iran's responsibility). thirty-five million people, many of whom are Yet given the problems of nuclear forensics, a longing for martyrdom. All thirty-five million nuclear terrorist attack could be just as of us would go into battle and after we had all plausibly denied. Moreover, the prospect of become martyrs, they could do what they liked intercepting the bomb would be, if anything, with Iran.”73 more hopeless than it was in 1983: A Hiroshima-yield bomb requires roughly 50 The majority view in the West is that these kilograms of highly enriched uranium--about words are mere rhetoric--that, as was written the size of a grapefruit--and a simple gun-type in The Economist's lead editorial in February nuclear device could easily fit in a truck or 2007, "for all its proclaimed religiosity," Iran car. "has behaved since the revolution like a rational actor." Therefore, the logic goes, "a Leaving aside all the arguments about nuclear Iran could probably be deterred."74 messianism, about the rise to power of a new, more conservative generation, and about the first government to have employed the tactic

Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 2007) 23 How the Reagan Administration Taught Iran the Wrong Lessons

of suicide bombing, one is still left with the disheartening realization that even the most and Principle: Memoirs of the National perfectly rational Iran would have little reason Security Adviser, 1977-1981 (New York: not to attack, cow, and expel the fumbling Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1983), p. 475. American giant who surrounds her; for what 4 Robert M. Gates, From The Shadows: The other inference can be drawn from witnessing Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents decades of U.S. capitulation, gullibility, and and How They Won the Cold War (New York: incompetence? Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 130. 5 The United States broke its official neutrality So thoroughly has the United States eroded in the Iran-Iraq War in the Spring of 1982, its credibility that today one must wonder when Iraq was on the brink of losing the war. whether it would be rational for Iran, in Howard Teicher, “Testimony before the contemplating another large-scale attack, to United States District Court, Southern District count on American retaliation. The question of Florida,” January 31, 1995, for America's leaders is not whether "a nuclear http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NS Iran could probably be deterred," but, rather, AEBB82/iraq61.pdf. whether "could probably" is good enough. "I 6 Ronald Reagan, “President Reagan’s and want you to know," Ahmadinejad declared in Secretary of State Shultz’s Remarks January 2007, "that the Iranian nation has Concerning the Bombing of the U.S. Embassy humiliated you many times, and it will in Beirut, April 18-26, 1983” U.S. Department humiliate you in [the] future."75 of State Bulletin, No. 2075, at 60, (June 1983). 7 George Pratt Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: Paraphrasing Khomeini's slogan, Iran's My Years as Secretary of State (New York: president has predicted: "By God's grace our Scribner’s, 1993), p. 109. powerful nation will continue its path and the 8 Afterward, Congressman Lee Hamilton told enemy cannot do a damn thing on the nuclear White House Chief of Staff James Baker, his issue."76 If history is any guide, it will require future co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, that nothing less than a reversal of American Shultz, in arguing against withdrawal, had policy to prove him wrong. been, if anything, “too gentle.” Baker then reported the conversation to Shultz, and *Nathan Thrall has written on culture and added: “But if things go badly and we do pull Arab-Israeli relations for The Jerusalem Post. out, we’ve written the script for the He lives in Tel Aviv and holds an M.A. in Democrats.” Ibid, p. 227. International Politics from Columbia 9 Richard Halloran, “Special U.S. Force for University. Persian Gulf is Growing Swiftly,” , October 25, 1982. 10 Ettela’at, September 17, 1983. All of the NOTES: quotes in this paragraph were originally found in David Menashri, Iran: A Decade of War 1 and Revolution (New York: Holmes & Meier http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php Publishers, 1990). ?pid=7080. 11 Kayhan, September 24, 1983. 2 Martin Peretz, “Tremors,” The New 12 Ibid, September 25, 1983. Hakim, one of the Republic, January 19, 2004, most powerful men in post-Saddam Iraq, was http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040119& killed by a car bomb in 2003 as he exited the s=diarist011904. Imam Ali in Najaf. His brother, Abd 3 Mehdi Bazargan was the Iranian prime al-Aziz al-Hakim, has since succeeded him as minister, Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi the foreign the head of SCIRI, the largest—and most minister, and Mustafa Ali Chamran the closely aligned with Iran—of Iraq’s political defense minister. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power parties.

24 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 2007) Nathan Thrall

13 Ibid, October 13, 1983. 24 Robert C. McFarlane, “Interview with PBS 14 Iran’s Ambassador to Syria, Hojatoleslam Frontline,” September 2001, Ali Akbar Mohtashami-Pur, was influential in http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sho creating Hizballah. He went on to become ws/target/interviews/mcfarlane.html. Iran’s Interior Minister and Secretary-General 25 Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (New of the International Conference to Support the York: Penguin Books, 1999), p. 22. Palestinian Uprising. 26 Gates’s realist credentials were widely 15 There are discrepancies in the reporting of lauded in Washington at the time of his the truck’s make and color. Peterson v. nomination. See Scott Shane and David Islamic Republic of Iran lists the truck as a red Sanger, “Robert Michael Gates; Cautious Dodge while the Long Commission and most Player from a Past Bush Team,” The New York other reports state that the truck was a yellow Times, November 9, 2006. Mercedes. The more common description is 27 Gates, From The Shadows, p. 351. used here. 28 Ronald Reagan, “Radio Address to the 16 Judge Royce C. Lamberth, Memorandum Nation on the Budget Deficit, Central Opinion, Peterson v. Islamic Republic of Iran America, and Lebanon,” February 4, 1984, (U.S. District Court for the District of http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speech Columbia, 2003), p. 8. es/1984/20484a.htm. 17 Ibid, p. 8. 29 Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, p. 111. 18 Patterns of Global Terrorism:1983 (U.S. 30 Shultz, “Secretary of State Shultz’s Department of State, 1984), p. 16. Statement Before the Senate Foreign Relations 19 “Interview with Hojjat al-Islam Fakhr Committee.” Rouhani,” Ettela’at, January, 1984. This quote 31 George W. Bush, “President Discusses War was originally found in Martin Kramer, on Terror at National Endowment for "Hizbullah: The Calculus of Jihad," in Martin Democracy,” October 6, 2005, E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (eds.), http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/200 Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking 5/10/20051006-3.html. Polities, Economies, and Militance (The 32 Usama bin Ladin, “Interview with ABC Fundamentalism Project, Vol. 3), (Chicago: News,” May 1998, University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 539- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sho 56, ws/binladen/who/interview.html http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/Ca 33 Hassan Nassrallah, “Speech Before a Pro- lculus.htm. Syrian Rally in Beirut,” March 8, 2005 20 Ronald Reagan, An American Life (New (Broadcast on al-Manar TV), York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 437. http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archive 21 George P. Shultz, “Secretary of State s&Area=sd&ID=SP87805. Shultz’s Statement Before the Senate Foreign 34 The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report Relations Committee and the House Foreign of the National Commission on Terrorist Affairs Committee, October 24, 1983,” U.S. Attacks Upon the United States (New York: Department of State Bulletin, No. 2081, at 44 W.W. Norton & Company, 2004), p. 61. (December 1983). 35 Karen DeYoung, “U.S. Keeps Pressure on 22 Lou Cannon, President Reagan: the Role of Iran But Decreases Saber Rattling,” The a Lifetime (New York: Simon & Schuster, Washington Post, February 11, 2007, 2000), p.395. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- 23 Weinberger’s counterpart was French dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR200702100 Minister of Defense Charles Hernu. 1275_pf.html. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace: 7 Critical 36 and Douglas Farah, “Iranian Years in the Pentagon (New York: Penguin Force Has Long Ties to Al Qaeda,” The Books, 1990), p.112. Washington Post, October 14, 2003.

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37 Caspar Weinberger, “Interview with PBS handed over for trial, Hamadi was freed by Frontline,” September, 2001, Germany, where he had been imprisoned for http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sho 19 years, in 2005. Craig Whitlock, “Hijacker ws/target/interviews/weinberger.html. Sought By U.S. Released: Germany Frees 38 Gates, From the Shadows, pp. 351-52. Hezbollah Member Who Killed Md. Sailor in 39 Da'wa is one of the largest political parties '85 Plot,” , December 21, in Iraq; at the time of the Kuwait bombings, 2005. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, then 48 Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of known as Jawad al-Maliki, was a Da'wa leader the CIA 1981-1987 (New York: Simon & in Damascus. Schuster, 2005), p. 397. 40 One of these, Jamal Ja'far Muhammad Ali 49 Robert Oakley, “Interview with PBS Ibrahimi, was sentenced in absentia and is a Frontline,” September 2001, member of Iraq's parliament. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sho 41 Though Iranian-backed operatives in ws/target/interviews/oakley.html. Lebanon had previously kidnapped David 50 “The Seven Left Behind,” Time Magazine, Dodge--the president of the American July 15, 1985, University of Beirut--and murdered his http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0, successor--the Lebanese-American political 9171,959666,00.html?promoid=googlep. scientist Malcolm Kerr--it was not until the 51 Robert Baer, See No Evil: The True Story of Da'wa trial neared completion that the a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on abduction of Americans began in full force. Terrorism (New York: Three Rivers Press, 42 The Da'wa prisoners were such an important 2002), p. 96. and repeated sticking-point of the Iran-Contra 52 Reagan, An American Life, p. 494. negotiations that George Cave, a Farsi- 53 Ibid, p. 498. speaking CIA officer who was brought out of 54 Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, p. 667. retirement to help with the negotiations, 55 Cannon, President Reagan, p. 538. testified that at one meeting the two 56 Reagan, An American Life, p. 507. delegations had "an all day argument... An 57 Ibid, p. 507. exhausting one. It lasted the whole damn day. 58 According to the report of President It was almost entirely devoted to the Da'wa Reagan’s Special Review Board investigating prisoners." George Cave Deposition, in Report the Iran-Contra Affair, the Tower of the Congressional Committees Commission: “In October, 1985, the U.S. Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair (United obtained reliable evidence that William States Congress: 1987), Appendix B-3, p. 56. Buckley had died in June.” 43 The embassy's previous Beirut location had 59 Michael A. Ledeen, Perilous Statecraft been demolished by the Islamic Jihad 17 (New York: Scribner’s, 1988), pp. 161-62. months earlier. 60 Reagan, An American Life, p. 510. 44 John Kohan, “Horror Abroad Flight 221,” 61 John G. Tower and Edmund S. Muskie, The Time Magazine, December 17, 1984, Tower Commission Report: The Full Text of http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0, the President’s Special Review Board (New 9171,923819,00.html?promoid=googlep. York: Bantam, 1987), p. 193. 45 Ibid. 62 Ibid, p. 193. 46 Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, p. 654. 63 Robert C. McFarlane, Testimony at Joint 47 The shooter was Muhammad Ali Hammadi. Hearings before the House Select Committee David C. Martin and John Walcott, Best Laid to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Plans: The Inside Story of America’s War Iran and the Senate Select Committee on Against Terrorism (New York: Harper & Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Row, 1988), p. 177. Despite long-standing Nicaraguan Opposition (United States requests from the United States that he be Congress: 1987), pp. 100-03.

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64 Reagan, An American Life, p. 511. 65 N. Bobbitt, L. Filotas, D. Mussallem, and R. Stevenson, “Dissenting Opinion,” (Arrow Air CASB Minority Report, Report Number 85- H50902, November 14, 1988), p. 3. 66 Tower and Muskie, The Tower Commission Report, p. 38. 67 See, for example, Ray Takeyh, "Time for Détente With Iran," Foreign Affairs (March/April 2007), pp. 17-32. The quoted expression can be found on p. 19. 68 Judge Royce C. Lamberth, Memorandum Opinion, Heiser et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 2006), p. 9. 69 Louis J. Freeh, "Khobar Towers: The Clinton Administration Left Many Stones Unturned," The Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2006, http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110 008563. 70 Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, "Sermon on Tehran Radio," http://www.adl.org/holocaust/Denial_ME/west ern_deniers.asp. 71 Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, "Speech at ‘Jerusalem Day’ Rally," 2001, http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070205& s=halevioren020507. 72 “Message to the Pilgrims,” issued in Tehran on September 12, 1980. Ruh Allah Khumayni, Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (1941-1980) (North Haledon, NJ: Mizan Press, 1981), p. 305. 73 “Address to Monsignor Bugnini, Papal Nuncio,” November 12, 1979; Ibid, p. 285. 74 "Next Stop Iran?," The Economist, February 8, 2007. 75 "Ahmadinejad: Iran Will 'Humiliate' U.S.," , January 2, 2007, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/02/ world/main2321311.shtml. 76 “Enemies Cannot Stop Our Nuclear Work: Iran,” Reuters, November 10, 2006.

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