Ronald Reagan's Biggest Blunder

You know how every time the United States intervenes in another country's affairs we hear the media's popular refrain, "Only time will tell if this was the right move." Well I consistently hear this refrain from the Conservative shock jocks as they fall over themselves trying to revise the historical reality of our failed war in Iraq. But this is a refrain we must remember because history has not been kind to the Christian Conservative Right Wing-nuts.

Remember the Reagan Doctrine? In the 1980's that was the Republican Party's foreign policy. It was basically the Domino Theory applied to the entire world. The reasoning was that if one country went "socialist" (read: "communist"), the rest of the countries in the region would follow. Moreover, by defeating just one socialist state, America would be protecting Democracy itself and the American way of life for decades to come.

The Reagan Doctrine's best salesman was Ronald Reagan himself. He would come on the TV with that stern look befitting a concerned parent and proclaim that, although the rest of us didn't realize it, fragile "Democracies" were budding all over the world and we had a duty to support them. For example, under Reagan's administration our country supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, the English in Ireland, and the white minority in South Africa. And then would come the inevitable Reagan moment. The moment when he would get that "aww shucks" kind of grin that mesmerized the public and made people forget the ultimate immorality of his policies. How could a guy that innocent be anything but completely trustworthy?

Of all Ronald Reagan's evil adversaries, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega was the most demonized. Ortega was a leader of the Socialist revolution in 1979 Nicaragua that overthrew US sponsored dictator, Anastasio Somosa. Reagan and the Republican Party saw this as the expansion of Communist influence in Latin America. They made Nicaragua the poster child of the Cold War and were determined to defeat Ortega and the Nicaraguan Revolution in the name of protecting the fragile, budding Democracies of the region.

Make no mistake about it, Ronald Reagan could have cared less about Ortega personally or the people south of our border. What he recognized was that the ongoing battle with the so-called "Communists" of Latin America got Republicans all in a tizzy. The poor Latinos south of the border were people they could pray for. If that didn't work they could fantasize about it being God's will that we invade. In other words, Nicaraugua was good for political business because it motivated the Republican Party base (cooky as they might be). But remember that refrain, "Time will tell."

So, what does history tell us, all these years later, about the Reagan Doctrine and, for that matter, about the wisdom of the Republican Party?

In 1986 at the height of Reagan's power and a time when Republicans were resolutely applying the Reagan Doctrine to Latin America, there were 11 governments in that region friendly to the United States. Indeed, in 1990 Reagan got his wish and Daniel Ortega and the Nicaraguan Revolutionaries were voted out of power. Following Reagan Republican logic, the region should have given birth to even more "budding Democracies." However, today there are only 5 conservative governments in Latin America while there are 13 Socialist or left of center governments. And many of them are openly hostile to the United States.

Face it Reaganites, your biggest prize was your biggest blunder.

Oh yeah, did I mention that Daniel Ortega is currently President of Nicaragua?