Foreign Affairs of the 1980s by Nick Ross

            Throughout the 1980s, there were many events that involved the United States and many other countries all together.  Certain events had the United States directly involved with other countries, and other events forced the United States to intervene and make their presence known.  One of these events that forced the United States to act was an attack on the La Belle discotheque, which is a nightclub in Berlin, Germany; this nightclub was a main attraction for U.S. soldiers during that time.  On April 5, 1986, the nightclub was bombed by an explosive that was place underneath the DJ’s table.  Through in depth investigation, the United States found out that Libyan terrorists were behind the attack after messages from the terrorists and the East Berlin Embassy of Libya were seized.  Reagan, the president of the U.S. at the time responded by sending in airstrikes on Tripoli, Libya’s capital city and on Benghazi, which resulted in the death of 15 civilians, but more than 2,000 people were severely injured.  The message was clearly sent across that the United States was not to be trifled with.

            Another foreign affair that took place in the 1980s, was the issue with the U.S. embassy in Iran.  In 1979, Iranian civilians overran the U.S. embassy and took 52 embassy members hostage.  Six other members escaped and snuck out of the country based on a fake movie that was made up called, “Argo.”  However, as for the rest of the 52 members of the embassy, there were held hostage for over a year.  Jimmy Carter, the president of the United States at the time, wanted to get the hostages out of Iran; however, with the election of 1980 coming up, he had his mind set on Ronald Ragan, who was running against him.  During the election, Reagan won clearly, winning a much superior number of electoral votes than Carter, making him president.  Later that day, Iran announced the release of the hostages, after being stuck in Iran for more than a year.  Interestingly enough, there was a conspiracy that was formed which said that the Reagan Administration gave Iran weapons, which they needed at the time, and allowing Iran to access their monetary assets in U.S. banks.  The connection was made the Reagan helped out Iran, and in return, Iran helped out Reagan by allowing him to get “brownie point” with the people of the United States, lifting him up on a pedestal for being the president to finally get the hostages out of Iran.

      One of the more interesting foreign affairs that went on in the 80s was the Iran-Contra situation.  Basically the Reagan Administration sold weapons to Iran in hope that Iran would free the American hostages, which is what the scandal was originally intended to entail.  Iran needed guns and weapons at the time, and they thought that they could get these weapons from the U.S. and in turn they would return the hostages to the U.S.  However, the mission quickly turned into a strictly arms-for-hostages action.  Reagan also wanted to use the money made from the Iran weapon selling to help the Contras in Nicaragua.  It doesn’t look good when you trade people for weapons; this would devalue the human race in America greatly and Reagan didn’t want this to happen.  This is exactly what ended up happening though, as most of the government officials who were convicted were eventually pardoned later on.