Word: lebanonization
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...role in the gulf war did not come without a price, monetarily and otherwise. Tehran's voracious appetite for weaponry with which to wage the conflict led directly to the Iran-contra affair, the secret attempt by the Reagan Administration to ransom U.S. hostages in Lebanon with arms for Iran. In 1987, largely to prevent the Soviet Union from assuming a greater role in the region, Washington agreed to reflag Kuwait oil vessels with the Stars and Stripes and escort them through gulf waters under U.S. naval protection. That decision sparked some Democratic demands for Reagan to seek congressional approval...
...political naivete, as demonstrated by a series of more in-depth questions which the pollsters asked over 1600 Americans. The survey found that not more than half of adult Americans know that the Sandinistas and contras are fighting each other in Nicaragua; most placed the conflict in Iran, Lebanon or Afganistan. In addition, 50 percent of Americans could not name a single member of the Warsaw Pact; 10 percent erroneously placed the United States as a member of the Soviet bloc...
...offered the same or varying amounts, and whether the Administration can find the money under existing appropriations or will have to ask Congress to put up the money. Several lawmakers immediately made grandstanding demands that release of the funds be tied to freedom for U.S. hostages held in Lebanon. Nonetheless, the offer of compensation underscored a dramatic difference between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, which to this day has refused to pay anything to the families of passengers aboard Korean Air Lines Flight 007, shot down by the U.S.S.R. in 1983. That difference undoubtedly helped the U.S. escape...
There were uncharacteristic calls for restraint from some Iranian leaders and their allies. Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, spiritual leader of the pro-Iranian Hizballah in Lebanon, urged that no harm come to the nine American hostages held by Muslim extremists. "I find no justification for making the hostages account for a matter to which they are not connected," Fadlallah said. Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's powerful and pragmatic Assembly speaker, last week warned against "some amateurish action" that might "remove the wave of propaganda that is now heaped on America's head." By showing moderation, the Iranians apparently hope to press...
...John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former prisonerof war in Vietnam, said that as long as Americansremain hostage in Lebanon by pro-Iranian elements,"there will be resentment to any payment, to anyIranian, under any circumstances...