I am not sure how old you are, Doug, but I was a child when the Cuban missile crisis happened and an adult when Ronald Reagan was in office. As a matter of fact (as I've mentioned on a few previous threads), my boss at United Technologies was Alexander Haig, who left our company to become Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of State. So, you have to understand the context of these times and where people's head were at back then.
From the day I was born, the Cold War was going on --mutually assured destruction of the entire earth, if the Soviets, China or we blinked, or made a wrong move. As a child, not only did we say the Pledge of Allegiance everyday at school, but we were taught to hide under our desks in case of nuclear attack. People had bomb shelters in their yards to endure a potential nuclear winter. I, like most of those who grew up when I did, grew up scared to death that some leader was going to put their finger on that red button and blow up the world. And this feeling endured until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Because of these conditions, the US and the Soviets avoided direct confrontations, while still trying to play the world as a chessboard to expand their spheres of influence. So instead of fighting directly, they used surrogates to challenge us for spheres of influence.
The Cuban Missile Crisis happened when the Soviets tried to put nuclear missiles in our backyard, the Western Hemisphere, that could hit the US within minutes. It was an imminent threat to America. JFK did not have any real choice as president other than to do what he did to challenge it -- the imminent safety and security of the US and the American people were directly at stake.
The Cuban Missile Crisis non-comparable to a regime on the other side of the earth potentially getting a nuke -- as many unfriendly regimes around the world already do, including several in Iran's backyard.
Because the Cold War was still going on when Ronald Reagan was president, that also guided his actions. People seem to want to remember Ronald Reagan as some sort of hard-nosed cowboy who kicked butt everywhere -- but he wasn't that at all. He talked with a lot strength and bravado, but when it came to actual military confrontations, he avoided them at virtually all costs -- preferring instead to negotiate and make deals. What do you think the Iran/Contra affair was about? Trading arms for our Iranian hostages! Even Newt owned up to that in last night's debate when Ron Paul brought it up, although others tried to deny it.
So given that context, what do I think that Ronald Reagan would do?
Ronald Reagan would be negotiating with Iran. He'd have envoys to Iran to reassure them that we were not going to invade them. He would be on the phone to China to get the N. Koreans to stop the sale. He'd be on the phone to Russia to get them to pressure Iran not to buy those nukes. All the players in that region, including China and Russia, have a much greater stake in preventing Iran from getting a nuke than we do. Ronald Reagan would use every mutual friend or enemy in Iran's neighborhood to discourage Iran from even trying to get that nuke and make it be in their best interest if they didn't -- right down to bribing Iran if he had to. He'd be removing bases around Iran that threatened them.
But only if all of that didn't work would Ronald Reagan even think about an ultimate blockade -- and then, he'd use his brain, weigh the costs to US interests, the risks and the potential benefits -- and there's still a very good chance that he might have done nothing -- or maybe he would have. You seem much more confident that you know what Ronald Reagan would do than I am -- and I know several people who knew RR personally
Just do the military body count on Ronald Reagan's presidency -- a total of about 200 US soldiers lost in 8 years -- and they were lost in one fell swoop when we allowed ourselves to get drug into the confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians in Lebanon, and Muslim forces decided to suicide bomb a barracks full of American soldiers in Beirut --196 US soldiers dead. It was one of Reagan's biggest regrets, as he said in his memoirs, that he should have known better and that ME politics were too irrational to get involved in.
That was THE REAL RONALD REAGAN, not the mythic neocon that people want to remember. The real Ronald Reagan used his brains and realized that war is a failure of diplomacy -- that war makes us vulnerable and weakens us -- economically and socially. The threat of force is far greater than the actual use of it -- but even then threats are nearly a last line of defense, not a first line.
The US style today, everywhere, is confrontation, not negotiations --sanctions, threats and then military action. We dictate, intimidate and don't negotiate -- and that is our weakness, not our strength. We've surrounded Iran with military bases, infiltrated them, sanctioned and threatened them, which is the main reason that they want a nuke to begin with.
We teach our children that their "actions have consequences", yet when it comes to our foreign policy, we seem to forget that. There is a price for everything -- including behaving like we can order around the world, threaten them, bomb them, take over their countries and bend them to our will.
Point is that Iran wanting a nuke is a result of our threat and failed confrontational policies. Ronald Reagan would have already known that, and I believe that he would have adjusted US behavior accordingly, rather than immediately jumping to confrontation. Ron Paul knows that, too.
A very thoughtful post. I was in 8th grade during the crisis. The crisis happened, historians would say, because the Soviets thought Kennedy was weak. That is the problem I see with Ron Paul. I don’t know what he would do to protect our interests, but I know that the radical Muslims would see him as weak. That is dangerous.
We will continue to respectfully disagree. These times are very different than the Reagan times and the cold war. We have never fought an enemy like this who does not care if their children die as long as they kill Jews in the process. I don’t believe Ron Paul understands the threat we face as Islam is outbirthing the nations of Europe. It is truly frightening. I believe them when they say they want us to convert or die.
But this is all an exercise in mental gymnastics. Surely you know that Ron Paul has no chance of being nominated. The only thing he can do is run as a third party candidate and, in the process, help Barack Hussein Obama spend another four years destroying this nation.