The allies and friends of the US cannot but be aghast over the disclosure that President Reagan has secretly provided arms and spares to Iran as the price for the release of three Americans held hostage by Shiites in Lebanon. This shameful deal exposes the enormous gap that exists between the Reagan administration’s rhetoric and performance and must make it difficult for its supporters abroad to give credence to its word. While Washington has waxed eloquent on the need, and its commitment, to fight terrorism and has even sought to justify its bombing raids on Libya on that basis, it has not been able to resist the pressure from the families of six American hostages in Lebanon and made a secret deal with Teheran. America’s self-proclaimed war on terrorism itself focused attention on another contradiction in its policy; for this commitment could not be squared with the US support to the rebels in Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Mozambique. But that contradiction was a measure of America’s power, arrogance and self-confidence; it put the world on notice that the United States under President Reagan could do anything it thought necessary or desirable in its national interest and get away with it. In our world where might is generally right, this arrogance, which no one could effectively challenge, could be said to add to Washington’s credibility. The deal with Iran is, however, a different affair. It shows the United States to be a helpless giant which is not willing to risk half a dozen American lives in order to live up to its loud protestations. It proves conclusively that there is no assurance (of neutrality to Iraq in its war with Iran and of support to pro-western Arab regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) which the Reagan administration will not abandon in order to save American lives.
Clearly this behaviour is unworthy of a great power, not to speak of a super-power on the credibility of which hinges the issue of war and peace in our times. But the harsh truth is that only the naive or those blinded by their faith in the United States can be surprised by the deal with Iran. Indeed, the surprise on a clear-sighted view would have been if the administration had refused to make the deal. It is legitimate to speak of the Vietnam syndrome or trauma in this connection. But that explanation is more apt in the case of the withdrawal of the marines from Lebanon as soon as the risk to their lives became evident than in the present one. While the defeat in Vietnam has ensured, as is widely recognised, that the US would resist direct involvement in a similar conflict as far as it can, it also reinforced the more fundamental American unwillingness to risk death, whatever the cause. Indeed, this would explain the American passion for more and more “sophisticated” weapons which can make wars a push-button affair – from a safe distance. The Star Wars programme is a logical culmination of that approach. Interestingly enough, the so-called liberation movements Washington is sponsoring and supporting also happen to be located thousands of miles away from America.