moderate Iranian elements that could lead to re-
gime change from the existing radical anti-Ameri-
can religious fundamentalists, and obtain the re-
lease of American hostages in Lebanon considered
to be the captives of Iranian-controlled Shiite mili-
tias.
By August, 1985, McFarlane, despite the opposi-
tion by Secretary of State Shultz and Secretary of De-
fense Caspar Weinberger, persuaded the president
to approve delivery of fifty antitank missiles to Iran.
Later, in November, 1985, eighty HAWK missiles
were shipped. During this interlude, there were
behind-the-scenes U.S.-Iranian negotiations. All of
this happened under cover of a presidential direc-
tive of January 17, 1986, authorizing direct but co-
vert arms sales to Iran despite the arms embargo
against all countries involved in “international ter-
rorism,” earlier defined as being sponsored by Syria,
Libya, and Iran. By this time there was a third reason
for the Iranian arms sales: The proceeds would be di-
verted to support the anticommunist Contra move-
ment against Daniel Ortega’s leftist Sandinista gov-
ernment in Nicaragua.
Meanwhile, Washington was also trying to play
its Iraq card. Accordingly, in November, 1984, the
United States renewed its diplomatic relations with
Baghdad, a Soviet client. As both Iran and Iraq came
to threaten the flow of Persian Gulf oil by attacking
tankers at various ports, a U.S. task force began es-
corting tankers and even reflagging some. Washing-
ton also provided limited amounts of intelligence to
President Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime in its “bal-
anced” approach to the two combatants.
These strategies and tactics were largely ineffec-
tive. Fewer than five American hostages were ulti-
mately released in Lebanon, Iran’s war with Iraq was
fought to an indecisive conclusion after the exhaus-
tion of the adversaries in 1988, and the Sandinista re-
gime was toppled not by the Nicaraguan Contras but
as a result of subsequent elections.
Canadian Foreign Policy Canada continued its ear-
lier tradition of making contributions to various
peacekeeping forces in the Middle East and else-
where. Even though it was a member of the Western,
American-led alliance, Canada’s conciliatory trend
in foreign policy as well as its status as a middle-sized
power made it espouse a much less muscular policy
than the United States. Indeed, in 1985, Canada’s
external affairs minister, Joe Clark, issued a major
official statement regarding his country’s foreign
policy striving for international security and eco-
nomic competitiveness in addition to world peace,
political freedom, social justice, human rights, and
national unity.
Impact By the time President George H. W. Bush
replaced Ronald Reagan in the White House in Jan-
uary, 1989, the earlier attempts by the United States
and the Soviet Union to improve their respective po-
sitions in the Middle East, mostly through surro-
gates, had been replaced by more cooperative rela-
tions, heralding the conclusion of the Cold War.
With the Palestinian uprising in the occupied terri-
tories and the increasing power of Iran-sponsored
Hezbollah in Lebanon, Middle Eastern foreign pol-
icy was being transformed into a kind of social move-
ment, often made in the “Arab street” rather than in
foreign offices. The fact remained that, as long as
Washington continued to consider its Israeli con-
nection more important than Palestinian peace—an
infectious issue with region-wide implications—the
ambivalence, indirection, and contradictions of the
1980’s could be expected to be unavoidable.
Further Reading
Gerges, Fawaz A.America and Political Islam: Clash of
Cultures or Clash of Interests. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1999. Explains how the multi-
plicity of elite thinking in the American foreign
policy establishment as well as among opinion
makers and pressure groups accounted for its
contradictions witnessed especially under Presi-
dent Reagan.
Hadar, Leon.Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle
East. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. A
contrarian view of American foreign policy in the
Middle East covering the 1980’s.
Hallowell, Gerald, ed.The Oxford Companion to Cana-
dian Histor y. New York: Oxford University Press,- Norman Hillmer’s essay entitled “peace-
keeping” is the most relevant to the 1980’s.
Laham, Nicholas.Crossing the Rubicon: Ronald Reagan
and U.S. Policy in the Middle East.Burlington, Vt.:
Ashgate, 2004. How and why the Reagan adminis-
tration veered from the evenhanded foreign pol-
icy of President Carter to a decidedly pro-Israeli
one in the 1980’s.
Little, Douglas.American Orientalism: The United
States and the Middle East Since 1945.Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2002. A very
The Eighties in America Middle East and North America 647