Iran-Contra Affair: The Iranian Political Scandal

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Iran-Contra Affair The Iran-Contra covert operation was a highly publicized political scandal that the public was made aware of in 1986 (Richelson, 419). The United States was involved with selling arms to Iran. In exchange for the arms, Iran was to secure the release hostages. In addition to the release of prisoners, the intelligence community was using the money from the arms deals to fund Contras in Nicaragua. This was controversial because the Reagan Administration had made it an explicit public policy not to engage in any deals with terrorists (Tower, 2). By selling weapons to terrorists in Iran and aiding Contras, the United States directly violated the public policy at the time. Additionally, Congress was never notified (Tower, 2).…show more content…
During the Reagan Administration and immediately followed by the Bush Administration, the CIA had been covertly looking for ways to aid Iran. Additional covert operations in Iran were designed to aid Iranian paramilitary and political exile groups, in order to counter soviet influence in Iran (Richelson, 419). It was also meant to give the United States a role of its own in the event that the Khomeini regime fell. The arms deals with Iran accomplished multiple objectives at one time. The United States felt that it needed a role in Iran if the current regime failed. The arms deal gave them that role. They felt that they needed to stop the Soviet spread from getting to Iran. By providing them with arms, they would be able to harass the Soviet flanks if they invaded (Richelson, 419). The Soviets became aware of this and it became a large deterrent to keep them from…show more content…
Specifically, the actions of North on the National Security Council staff were very questionable. Secondly, Presidential findings were postdated and signed ex post facto. This meant that the sale of missiles to Iran was not legitimate at the time of sale. Thirdly, disparate operations were merged when the funds generated through the arms deal was used to support the contras. Lastly, the executive branch failed to keep Congress informed. They did not brief Congress when they sold the arms to Iran and they completely disregarded laws restricting aid to the contras (Lowenthal, 169). The resulting blowback nearly ruined President Reagan’s efforts for global security. The power struggle between Congress and the President was problematic. It appeared that, even though Congress was supposed to be briefed on covert missions in order to decide if they should fund it or not, the National Security Council walked easily through a loophole in the
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