Iran had Hezbollah kidnap CIA station chief Buckley and six
other Americans in Lebanon in retaliation for the U.S. supporting Iraq in the
Iran-Iraq War The Reagan administration would later try to get its hostages
released by offering Tehran weapons which would be exposed in the Iran-Contra
Scandal
In 1985 The Reagan administration attempted
to reconcile with the Iranian government by offering it arms sales,
which it desperately needed to maintain its military during the war with Iraq.
Profits from these sales were later diverted to the Contra rebels which the
United States was banned from funding under the Boland Amendment. The White
House was also hoping that if secret ties were made with Ayatollah Khomenei’s
government he might decide to release several Americans seized in Lebanon. The deals
with Iran were later exposed by a leak by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to a
Lebanese paper in November 1986. This later became known as the Iran-Contra
Scandal. What was little known was that this whole affair was caused by the
United States’ decision to back Baghdad in its war with Tehran, which led the
Iranians to retaliate by kidnapping American citizens in Lebanon.
The Reagan administration was deeply concerned by the turn
of events in the Iran-Iraq War in the early 1980s. Saddam Hussein had decided
to invade his neighbor with a poor plan and little strategy believing that
Tehran was weak after its revolution that had led to a purge of its military.
The war immediately went wrong, and Iraq was thrown on the defensive. As early
as 1981 the Saudis,
the Gulf States, Jordan
and Egypt were all lobbying the White House to back Iraq in the war.
That year the White House took its first steps towards Baghdad sending a State
Department official to set up informal contacts with Saddam Hussein. In February
1982, the U.S. removed Iraq from its list of state sponsors of
terrorism, which opened up trade. In July 1983 the president ordered a review
of Middle East policy, which led to National Security Decision Directive 114 in
November 1983 that the U.S. would not allow Iraq to lose the war. In December 1983, Reagan sent his special
envoy to the Middle East Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad to meet with Saddam to
start restoring official relations. While the U.S. did not provide military
material it increased trade in things like agricultural goods that helped feed
the Iraqi population during the conflict, as well as military intelligence on
Iranian operations. These both proved to be great aides to Baghdad.
For Saddam, he was open to new ties with the United States
because he wasn’t sure about the Soviets intentions during the war. The Soviet
Union was Iraq’s main military supplier but when the Iran-Iraq War started it
originally said it would be neutral. Saddam sent Tariq Aziz to Moscow saying
that Iraq was going to restore relations with the U.S., but would not do so if
the USSR officially supported Iraq in the war and forgave its debt. Soviet
Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko offered weapons and a $2 billion loan, but it
would not openly back Iraq because it was open to talks with Iran. That pushed
Saddam to accept the Reagan administration’s overtures.
The Reagan administration’s swing towards Saddam led the
Iranian government to retaliate. In March 1984, the CIA station chief in Beirut
William Buckley was kidnapped by the Islamic Jihad-Hezbollah. He was sent to
Iran. Buckley was subsequently tortured and died in captivity in June 1985. By that
month a total of seven Americans were in the hands of the Iranians. In 1984
National Security Adviser Robert McFarland ordered a review of relations with
Iran, and in 1985 that would lead to what would become the Iran-Contra scandal.
SOURCES
Battle, Joyce, “Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S.
Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984,” National Security Archive, 2/25/03
Dobbs, Michael, “U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup,”
Washington Post, 12/30/02
Hiro, Dilip, The
Longest War, The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict, New York: Routledge, 1991
Razoux, Pierre, The
Iran-Iraq War, Cambridge London: Belkmap Press of Harvard University Press,
2015
Tower, John, Muskie, Edmund and Scowcroft, Brent, The Tower Commission Report, The Full Text
of the President’s Special Review Board, New York: Bantam Books, 1987
Tucker-Jones, Anthony, Iran-Iraq
War, The Lion of Babylon, 1980-1988, South Yorkshire: Pen And Sword
Military, 2018
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