The Iran-contra incident was revealed when the United States secretly sold weapons to Iran, which caused a serious political crisis to the Reagan administration. Because people compare it with Nixon Watergate incident, it was named Iran-contra incident.
Watergate incident:
1972 in the presidential election, in order to obtain information about the internal campaign strategy of the democratic party, on June 1972, five people, led by James W. McChord, the chief security adviser of Nixon campaign team in the United States, broke into the office of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Building in Washington, D.C. and installed bugs. Because of this, Nixon announced his resignation the next day on August 8 1974, thus becoming the first president in American history to resign. Related to this are related film and television works.
Iran-contra incident:
1986165438+1On October 4th, Iranian Speaker Rafsanjani suddenly announced that MacFarlane had secretly visited Iran on May 28th.1986. At that time, MacFarlane arrived at Tehran International Airport with four people dressed as crew members and holding forged Irish passports. He brought a personal letter from President Reagan to the Iranian leader, in which he asked for the improvement of US-Iran relations and asked Iran to help release the American hostages in Lebanon. In addition, he also brought several gifts, including a Bible signed by Reagan, a key-shaped cake symbolizing the good relationship between the United States and Iran, and several Kurt pistols symbolizing that the United States can provide weapons to Iran to Iranian officials. Rafsanjani claimed that he ordered MacFarlane and his entourage to be placed under house arrest in the hotel for five days, after which they were deported.
Like a gust of wind blowing across the ground, the whole world was shocked. Stunned, cheerful, panicked ... this is the initial expression of all kinds of people after hearing these two news. Of course, those western journalists who are the most sensitive and quick to act are those who are "afraid of chaos in the world". They immediately tried their best to follow up the report. Repeated news exposure made this strong wind blow harder and harder, and finally turned into a storm.
The Arab countries reacted strongly, moderately and silently. What annoys me most is Iraq, which "feels betrayed". However, President Saddam Hussein, who has always been tough, is not prepared to "break off diplomatic relations with the United States" and thinks that this is a conspiracy of Israel to "destroy the relations between the United States and Arab countries by any means". Egyptian President Mubarak and King Hussein of Jordan? Ben? Talal expressed his shock and disappointment, and criticized the US for "discrediting Washington in the region". More Arab countries are silent and have their own ideas.
America's western European allies are also complaining. Some officials think: "We have a feeling of being fooled." They criticized the United States for violating the creed it once asked other countries to abide by. On the surface, it solemnly declared that it would never compromise with terrorists and spared no effort to oppose the sale of weapons to Iran, but secretly it did something else, damaging the credibility of the United States among its allies.
The domestic reaction in the United States is like a strong political earthquake. Although the United States is the world's number one military and economic power, the failure of the Vietnam War, the weakening of economic strength, the Watergate incident and the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 have made Americans feel the decline of their national strength and their confidence in the country has also been shaken. Carter, a private pollster of former President Carter, wrote: "The United States is in a deep crisis, which is almost invisible, unlike the Civil War or the Great Depression. It is not so much a material crisis as a psychological crisis and a crisis of trust. It shows that people have lost confidence in the future. " However, since 1980s, the ambitious President Reagan seems to have injected vitality into the United States. America's economic and military strength has recovered, and its diplomacy has become more active. The Soviet Union, America's rival, faced many difficulties and had to shrink from all over the world. These efforts to "revitalize the United States" have reshaped the public's confidence in national power and restored the sense of superiority of "America first." The psychology of Americans is "more and more balanced". Reagan's popularity also reached its peak during his six years in office.
However, at this moment, the news from Lebanon and Iran has made it difficult for Americans to balance their psychology. The press and Congress have exploded like a nest, setting off a storm in this city, and criticism and accusations swept like a frenzy: the government's negotiations with hostage-takers violated the consistent policy announced by the government, that is, it will never make a deal with terrorist organizations and never negotiate with "evil countries" such as Iran and Libya; The delivery of weapons to Iran violated the laws passed by the US Congress prohibiting the delivery of weapons to Iran and the strictly neutral laws in the Iran-Iraq war. Secret diplomatic activities are carried out behind the Congress, which violates the law that the administrative authorities should regularly inform Congress of secret activities. The excited critics finally concentrated on one voice: "President Reagan must come out and clarify the truth to the American people!