organization. The international body thus had to
meet in Geneva, Switzerland, in December, 1988,
where Arafat not only confirmed the Palestinians’
position but also renounced terrorism as a political
instrument. Thereupon the United States began
discussions with the PLO. It was now Israel’s turn
to express its disappointment with this substantive
change in U.S. foreign policy. Still, because of Israeli
objections, an international conference on an Arab-
Israeli settlement was not to occur during Reagan’s
tenure.
Lebanon This formerly French-mandated terri-
tory became independent in 1943. Its postwar his-
tory epitomizes how Washington got entangled in a
Middle Eastern morass by its lack of clear under-
standing of the region and poorly implemented pol-
icies. The civil war in Lebanon under way since 1975
involved all the various local sects—Maronite Chris-
tians, Orthodox Christians, Sunni Muslims, Shiite
Muslims, Druzes, Kurds—as well as Palestinians
(mostly refugees and guerrilla groups), Syrians, and
Israelis. With the Israeli invasion in June, 1982, the
situation had become serious enough to cause the
United States to send Marines to Beirut on several
occasions. However, various deadly acts of anti-
American terrorism by militias in 1983 and 1984,
interspersed with the taking of American hostages,
led to the ultimate withdrawal of American forces
followed by retaliatory bombardments by the U.S.
Sixth Fleet. In the meantime, Syria, a Soviet ally,
managed to establish a hegemony in Lebanon with
the tacit approval of the United States, moderate
Arab countries, and possibly even Israel. In fact,
Syria was to remain the stabilizing arbiter of Leba-
nese affairs for many years to come.
Libya There was increasing tension between the
Reagan administration and the Libyan regime of
Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, who, according to
Washington, was using some of his country’s oil
wealth to finance terrorists in Europe targeting
Americans, among others. Consequently, the Libyan
embassy in Washington was closed in May, 1981, and
there followed a number of incidents involving the
two countries. The most notorious was the 1988
bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scot-
land, killing 270, most of whom were Americans.
Earlier, the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985 had
also been blamed on Libya. Also, there was disagree-
ment between the two countries over whether the
Gulf of Sidra was part of Libya’s territorial waters, as
Libya had claimed, or international waters, as the
United States did. On several occasions, U.S. Navy
vessels entered that contested area and combat
planes its airspace to make that point. Incidents in-
volved aerial dogfights, the shooting down of Libyan
aircraft, and the sinking of Libyan naval vessels.
President Reagan’s executive order of January 7,
1986, severed trade and transportation between the
two countries, froze all Libyan assets in the United
States, and mandated American oil companies to
end their operations in Libya. On April 5, 1986, a
bomb explosion in a West Berlin nightclub killed
and injured American servicemen. Libya was again
held responsible. On April 14-15, 1986, American
combat planes attacked Libyan targets in Tripoli and
Benghazi, causing casualties and extensive collateral
damage. Bilateral relations did not improve in the
1980’s.Iran and Iraq The Carter Doctrine, spelled out in
the president’s state of the union address of January
23, 1980, had been precipitated by the toppling of
the pro-American shah of Iran’s regime in late 1979.
It reaffirmed the United States’ interest in the Per-
sian Gulf and its determination to protect its vital in-
terests there. The Reagan administration was to per-
petuate this doctrine, especially now that Ayatollah
Khomeini, Iran’s spiritual leader and head of its rev-
olution, identified the United States as “the Great
Satan.” Reagan’s policy highlighted the role that
American forces were to play in safeguarding the
Gulf region and ensuring the uninterrupted flow of
oil even under the new radical Islamic regime of the
fundamentalist clerics. However, the war between
Iran and Iraq under way since September 22, 1980,
posed additional problems for U.S. foreign policy.
At first, Washington viewed the conflict as not neces-
sarily a bad thing, since both hostile contestants
were countervailing each other and getting weaker
from their reciprocal mayhem.
After Iranian militants took American diplomats
and citizens hostage in Tehran in late 1979 (they
were released on Reagan’s assumption of office in
January, 1981), the United States imposed an arms
embargo on Iran. In characteristically contradictory
manner, the National Security Council, represented
by Robert McFarlane and his aide Lieutenant Colo-
nel Oliver North, concocted a scheme that was sup-
posed to achieve two objectives: establish ties with646 Middle East and North America The Eighties in America