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CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDEROUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORYrevolutionaries calling themselvesSandinistas overthrew the repressiveright-wing Somoza regime andestablished a pro-Cuba, pro-Sovietdictatorship. Regional peace effortsended in failure, and the focus ofadministration efforts shifted tosupport for the anti-Sandinista resistance,known as the contras.Following intense political debateover this policy, Congress ended allmilitary aid to the contras in October1984, then, under administrationpressure, reversed itself in thefall of 1986, and approved $100 millionin military aid. However, a lackof success on the battlefield, chargesof human rights abuses, and the revelationthat funds from secret armssales to Iran (see below) had beendiverted to the contras undercutcongressional support to continuethis aid.Subsequently, the administrationof President George H.W. Bush,who succeeded Reagan as presidentin 1989, abandoned any effort tosecure military aid for the contras.The Bush administration also exertedpressure for free elections andsupported an opposition politicalcoalition, which won an astonishingupset election in February 1990,ousting the Sandinistas from power.The Reagan administration wasmore fortunate in witnessing a returnto democracy throughout therest of Latin America, from Guatemalato Argentina. The emergence ofdemocratically elected governmentswas not limited to Latin America; inAsia, the “people power” campaignof Corazón Aquino overthrew thedictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos,and elections in South Korea endeddecades of military rule.By contrast, South Africa remainedintransigent in the face ofU.S. efforts to encourage an end toracial apartheid through the controversialpolicy of “constructive engagement,”quiet diplomacy coupledwith public endorsement of reform.In 1986, frustrated at the lack ofprogress, the U.S. Congress overrodeReagan’s veto and imposed a set ofeconomic sanctions on South Africa.In February 1990, South AfricanPresident F.W. de Klerk announcedNelson Mandela’s release and beganthe slow dismantling of apartheid.Despite its outspoken anti-Communistrhetoric, the Reagan administration’sdirect use of militaryforce was restrained. On October25, 1983, U.S. forces landed on theCaribbean island of Grenada afteran urgent appeal for help by neighboringcountries. The action followedthe assassination of Grenada’sleftist prime minister by membersof his own Marxist-oriented party.After a brief period of fighting, U.S.troops captured hundreds of Cubanmilitary and construction personneland seized caches of Soviet-suppliedarms. In December 1983, the lastAmerican combat troops left Grenada,which held democratic electionsa year later.The Middle East, however, presenteda far more difficult situation.A military presence in Lebanon,where the United States was attemptingto bolster a weak, but moderatepro-Western government, endedtragically, when 241 U.S. Marineswere killed in a terrorist bombing inOctober 1983. In April 1986, U.S.Navy and Air Force planes strucktargets in Tripoli and Benghazi,Libya, in retaliation for Libyaninstigatedterrorist attacks on U.S.military personnel in Europe.In the Persian Gulf, the earlierbreakdown in U.S.-Iranian relationsand the Iran-Iraq War set thestage for U.S. naval activities in theregion. Initially, the United Statesresponded to a request from Kuwaitfor protection of its tanker fleet; buteventually the United States, alongwith naval vessels from Western Europe,kept vital shipping lanes openby escorting convoys of tankers andother neutral vessels traveling upand down the Gulf.In late 1986 Americans learnedthat the administration had secretlysold arms to Iran in an attempt toresume diplomatic relations with thehostile Islamic government and winfreedom for American hostages heldin Lebanon by radical organizationsthat Iran controlled. Investigationalso revealed that funds from thearms sales had been diverted to theNicaraguan contras during a periodwhen Congress had prohibited suchmilitary aid.The ensuing Iran-contra hearingsbefore a joint House-Senatecommittee examined issues of possibleillegality as well as the broaderquestion of defining American foreignpolicy interests in the MiddleEast and Central America. In alarger sense, the hearings were a constitutionaldebate about governmentsecrecy and presidential versus congressionalauthority in the conductof foreign relations. Unlike the celebratedSenate Watergate hearings 14years earlier, they found no groundsfor impeaching the president andcould reach no definitive conclusionabout these perennial issues.U.S.-SOVIET RELATIONSIn relations with the Soviet Union,President Reagan’s declared policywas one of peace through strength.He was determined to stand firmagainst the country he would in1983 call an “evil empire.” Two earlyevents increased U.S.-Soviet tensions:the suppression of the Solidaritylabor movement in Poland inDecember 1981, and the destructionwith 269 fatalities of an off-coursecivilian airliner, Korean AirlinesFlight 007, by a Soviet jet fighter onSeptember 1, 1983. The United Statesalso condemned the continuing Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan andcontinued aid begun by the Carteradministration to the mujahedeenresistance there.During Reagan’s first term, theUnited States spent unprecedentedsums for a massive defense buildup,including the placement of intermediate-rangenuclear missilesin Europe to counter Soviet deploymentsof similar missiles. And onMarch 23, 1983, in one of the mosthotly debated policy decisions of his312313