Ronald Reagan's legacy lives on in many ways, good and bad. But Americans have forgotten too much about what he did with, and to, Iran. Here's why that matters.
Surprise! The newest Banksy artwork in London, a large-scale sculpture titled "Blinded by the Flag," was installed in the early hours of Wednesday, April 29, 2026. The piece appeared mysteriously on a traffic island in Waterloo Place, St. James’s. Banksy later confirmed his authorship on the afternoon of April 30 by posting a time-lapse video on his Instagram showing the installation being carried out with a low-loader and heavy machinery. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MBvlRNmrqkI?si=LcU5_KozQYehdhwe" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The arrogance of power meets the power of ignorance, plus manipulation by Bibi. Trump et al really didnt understand any of this, though some military and diplomatic professionals did and no doubt tried to explain it.
A Peace to End all Peace, as you note, is indispensable to understanding the Mideast as it exists today. It filled an important gap in my knowledge of history. I highly recommend it.
This brought back Oliver North's gap toothed testimony that shifting Congressional restrictions gave Reagan no choice but to seek weapons for the Contras from Iran.
About the US/Iran memory gap: Not only do Iran’s leaders remember big events of the 1980s, but the current leader of the IRGC, Ahmad Vahidi, took part in covert contacts between Iranian representatives and intermediaries close to the Reagan administration during Iran Contra. And he may well be the most powerful leader in the new regime.
Sources: Al-Jazeera, Kim Ghattas of Financial Times on “Morning Joe” today, Wikipedia.
USS Vincennes, Bring back memories and a San Diego connection. 9 months after the shootdown, Mrs. Rodger's Minivan was bombed in San Diego as she was driving to her teaching job. Pipe bomb. First thought of course was revenge terrorism, but to this day unsolved.
Charles P. Pierce uses a colorful metaphor for the Reagan years. It’s when the GOP acquired the equivalent of the brain-destroying prion disease people get from eating infected monkey brains.
Mr. Fallows: Thank you for your thoughtful and illuminating discussion of the fraught relationship between America and Iran. Your observations – or I should say, recollections – of the roles played by your old boss and, especially, President Reagan, provide context for the present events and help us judge how they are being managed. Your commentary is, I think, extremely valuable, and I think these pieces are among your best. A very high standard.
I’d like to address the “other front” – the violence being carried out in Lebanon and the IDF’s confrontation with Hezbollah. I will emulate your approach and provide clarifying context. This will require going a little further back in history, to around 950 CE in Jabal Amil in Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. I will also highlight President Reagan’s role and underscore his (and maybe James Baker’s) brilliant decisions at the time.
As you may recall, my recent novel, In Arabia, Terrorism and Defiance, focuses on the events surrounding the bombing of the US Marine Base (Reagan’s “Peacekeepers”) in Beirut in the fall of 1983. So I know something about these matters.
I will make my observations offline since they are so at odds with deeply ingrained conventional wisdom that they’re likely to stir up trouble and detract your readers from your analysis. However, as Kissinger once noted, they have the extra advantage of being true. Check your inbox.
Many of the biggest failures in American foreign policy were the result of our failure to consider, or even acknowledge, the perspective of the other party to the dispute. For example, the United States policymakers considered Vietnam only through the prism of the Cold War, and never considered the purely nationalistic nature of the conflict. That Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese Communists were first and foremost anti-colonial nationalists should have been obvious from anyone familiar with Vietnamese history--Ho had, after all, appealed to Wilson in the post-WWI Paris peace talks for assistance in throwing off the shackles of French colonialism. We repeated this failure in the second Iraq War in failing to understand Saddam Hussein's need to maintain a facade of having "weapons of mass destruction" (whatever that means) for domestic political reasons, I.e., his legitimate fear that he would be overthrown and murdered if he acknowledged that he did not have WMD's. As Mr.Fallows demonstrates here, we are repeating this failure in Iran.
James: The day after ‘Part 1’, I realized that history is indeed important but it is not sufficient. And now today you’ve made it clear: the object is “trying to imagine how the world looks through the other side’s eyes.” And what is missing? Language and culture. [Aside: David Sanger has an excellent article in the NYT today comparing the ‘negotiating style’ of the trump delegation and that of the Obama representatives pursuing the JCPOA. Spoiler: “Mr. Trump’s negotiating team travels light, with no entourage of experts and few briefings.”]
So … back to last week: It then occurred to me to cite a splendid little book I read a few years ago that describes what happens to us when we succeed in training our brains to *think* like someone from a culture not native to us. And I found my copy of that book, the title of which is Dreaming in Chinese. And *only then* - I kid you not! - did I recall who the author is. [Personal note: I too remember the thrill and the wonder I felt the first time I woke and realized I had dreamt ‘in a foreign language’, an experience I’m sure many commenters here share.]
Thus I suggest you not end this series without addressing that seminal, core matter that, incidentally, the Obama team understood well. (John Kerry, for instance, is bilingual and bicultural from birth.) I expect you may be able to enlist an eminently qualified ‘co-host’ to help to ‘close the circle’ on this very important topic that has begun here.
Hoping you’re still reading, Jim, but off-topic: whenever I encounter your wife’s name, I smile in recalling that a guide at Sagamore Hill told the story that in later life Alice Roosevelt Longworth said she had been tempted to give her daughter that name because her father was not Alice’s husband the Speaker of the House but rather the Senator from Idaho William … wait for it … Borah. Probably you know that already - it’s scarcely a national secret - but, if not, it’s a story worth knowing.
But Mr. Fallows -- you left out the Sultan of Brunei!! And Hasenfus. But more seriously, thanks for trying to pass along, understandably, the lunacy of Iran-Contra. When all the criminal madness of the current regime comes out, it will likely be even more baroque. And even stupider than Ollie North.
And what was true then is still true: innocent people die when American power and American leaders go rogue.
Hasenfus was the unsuccessful mercenary pilot who crashed while trying to deliver arms to the Contra and was captured by the Nicaraguan government -- and paraded through the jungle. Following Fallows' schema -- I bet even today when all that has degenerated, if you asked Nicaraguan school children, they've seen the captive's picture and know the name.
What a pleasure to read this history, so much of which I had forgotten, despite having lived through it. I will admit I was one of the people glued to the TV during the Iran-Contra hearings. (I was on summer break from grad school.) I didn't have a high opinion of Oliver North, whose smug righteousness was irritating. Thank you, Jim.
I did *not* know that North and Hall got married. Whoa.
I remember that "potted plant" line, from Brendan Sullivan. In a further entry for the "life is strange" file, our family moved back to DC, from Japan, as Iran-Contra was winding down, and Sullivan was already a locally famous figure.
My memory of the explanation of the US playing both sides of the Iran - Iraq war was that we were happily bleeding both sides down.
My feeling about the public’s reaction to Iran - Contra, we just didn’t have the stomach to go down the impeachment process again. Ironically the Republican leadership didn’t get the memo since they went gunning for Clinton to revenge Nixon’s downfall.
In all of this, not so much unintended but unwelcomed consequences followed.
Another illustration of the principle that humans do not forgive grievances they can remember, including our latest "Christian" soldiers. There's no war, like a religious war! Especially when you think that your side has the very creator of the universe behind it. Who would dare oppose you?
There are some advantages to forgetting. Like being able to start anew.
If only one generation could become wiser than the next, but we seem to be better at passing along bad habits, and lack of learning.
Surprise! The newest Banksy artwork in London, a large-scale sculpture titled "Blinded by the Flag," was installed in the early hours of Wednesday, April 29, 2026. The piece appeared mysteriously on a traffic island in Waterloo Place, St. James’s. Banksy later confirmed his authorship on the afternoon of April 30 by posting a time-lapse video on his Instagram showing the installation being carried out with a low-loader and heavy machinery. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MBvlRNmrqkI?si=LcU5_KozQYehdhwe" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I’m late to the piece but wanted to comment. It’s so good!—both as a memory refresher and history lesson.
And with regard to the pardons, how ironic that the second George Bush was always yapping about “accountability.”
The arrogance of power meets the power of ignorance, plus manipulation by Bibi. Trump et al really didnt understand any of this, though some military and diplomatic professionals did and no doubt tried to explain it.
A Peace to End all Peace, as you note, is indispensable to understanding the Mideast as it exists today. It filled an important gap in my knowledge of history. I highly recommend it.
This brought back Oliver North's gap toothed testimony that shifting Congressional restrictions gave Reagan no choice but to seek weapons for the Contras from Iran.
Thanks for the memories, I guess.
Great historically informed reporting, as usual!
About the US/Iran memory gap: Not only do Iran’s leaders remember big events of the 1980s, but the current leader of the IRGC, Ahmad Vahidi, took part in covert contacts between Iranian representatives and intermediaries close to the Reagan administration during Iran Contra. And he may well be the most powerful leader in the new regime.
Sources: Al-Jazeera, Kim Ghattas of Financial Times on “Morning Joe” today, Wikipedia.
Thank you!
And, wow, this is one more on the list of Things I Didn't Know And Wish I Had Known. Appreciate it.
USS Vincennes, Bring back memories and a San Diego connection. 9 months after the shootdown, Mrs. Rodger's Minivan was bombed in San Diego as she was driving to her teaching job. Pipe bomb. First thought of course was revenge terrorism, but to this day unsolved.
I had forgotten about that one.
Charles P. Pierce uses a colorful metaphor for the Reagan years. It’s when the GOP acquired the equivalent of the brain-destroying prion disease people get from eating infected monkey brains.
Just checking the news: Trump makes Holly Golightly seem a model of stability, doesn’t he?
Mr. Fallows: Thank you for your thoughtful and illuminating discussion of the fraught relationship between America and Iran. Your observations – or I should say, recollections – of the roles played by your old boss and, especially, President Reagan, provide context for the present events and help us judge how they are being managed. Your commentary is, I think, extremely valuable, and I think these pieces are among your best. A very high standard.
I’d like to address the “other front” – the violence being carried out in Lebanon and the IDF’s confrontation with Hezbollah. I will emulate your approach and provide clarifying context. This will require going a little further back in history, to around 950 CE in Jabal Amil in Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. I will also highlight President Reagan’s role and underscore his (and maybe James Baker’s) brilliant decisions at the time.
As you may recall, my recent novel, In Arabia, Terrorism and Defiance, focuses on the events surrounding the bombing of the US Marine Base (Reagan’s “Peacekeepers”) in Beirut in the fall of 1983. So I know something about these matters.
I will make my observations offline since they are so at odds with deeply ingrained conventional wisdom that they’re likely to stir up trouble and detract your readers from your analysis. However, as Kissinger once noted, they have the extra advantage of being true. Check your inbox.
Thank you. I appreciate it, and will be in touch off line.
Many of the biggest failures in American foreign policy were the result of our failure to consider, or even acknowledge, the perspective of the other party to the dispute. For example, the United States policymakers considered Vietnam only through the prism of the Cold War, and never considered the purely nationalistic nature of the conflict. That Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese Communists were first and foremost anti-colonial nationalists should have been obvious from anyone familiar with Vietnamese history--Ho had, after all, appealed to Wilson in the post-WWI Paris peace talks for assistance in throwing off the shackles of French colonialism. We repeated this failure in the second Iraq War in failing to understand Saddam Hussein's need to maintain a facade of having "weapons of mass destruction" (whatever that means) for domestic political reasons, I.e., his legitimate fear that he would be overthrown and murdered if he acknowledged that he did not have WMD's. As Mr.Fallows demonstrates here, we are repeating this failure in Iran.
Thank you for spelling it out this way.
James: The day after ‘Part 1’, I realized that history is indeed important but it is not sufficient. And now today you’ve made it clear: the object is “trying to imagine how the world looks through the other side’s eyes.” And what is missing? Language and culture. [Aside: David Sanger has an excellent article in the NYT today comparing the ‘negotiating style’ of the trump delegation and that of the Obama representatives pursuing the JCPOA. Spoiler: “Mr. Trump’s negotiating team travels light, with no entourage of experts and few briefings.”]
So … back to last week: It then occurred to me to cite a splendid little book I read a few years ago that describes what happens to us when we succeed in training our brains to *think* like someone from a culture not native to us. And I found my copy of that book, the title of which is Dreaming in Chinese. And *only then* - I kid you not! - did I recall who the author is. [Personal note: I too remember the thrill and the wonder I felt the first time I woke and realized I had dreamt ‘in a foreign language’, an experience I’m sure many commenters here share.]
Thus I suggest you not end this series without addressing that seminal, core matter that, incidentally, the Obama team understood well. (John Kerry, for instance, is bilingual and bicultural from birth.) I expect you may be able to enlist an eminently qualified ‘co-host’ to help to ‘close the circle’ on this very important topic that has begun here.
Ya think?
Wow! Thank you. And I know just the right person to ask on these topics....
谢谢 !
Hoping you’re still reading, Jim, but off-topic: whenever I encounter your wife’s name, I smile in recalling that a guide at Sagamore Hill told the story that in later life Alice Roosevelt Longworth said she had been tempted to give her daughter that name because her father was not Alice’s husband the Speaker of the House but rather the Senator from Idaho William … wait for it … Borah. Probably you know that already - it’s scarcely a national secret - but, if not, it’s a story worth knowing.
Did not know! Thanks and will pass it on...
But Mr. Fallows -- you left out the Sultan of Brunei!! And Hasenfus. But more seriously, thanks for trying to pass along, understandably, the lunacy of Iran-Contra. When all the criminal madness of the current regime comes out, it will likely be even more baroque. And even stupider than Ollie North.
And what was true then is still true: innocent people die when American power and American leaders go rogue.
Those were the days .... thanks for all the reminders!
From memory: was Hasenfus the pilot?
Hasenfus was the unsuccessful mercenary pilot who crashed while trying to deliver arms to the Contra and was captured by the Nicaraguan government -- and paraded through the jungle. Following Fallows' schema -- I bet even today when all that has degenerated, if you asked Nicaraguan school children, they've seen the captive's picture and know the name.
All pilots are mercenaries. But in my experience most of them take their pay in ‘psychic dollars’ :)
What a pleasure to read this history, so much of which I had forgotten, despite having lived through it. I will admit I was one of the people glued to the TV during the Iran-Contra hearings. (I was on summer break from grad school.) I didn't have a high opinion of Oliver North, whose smug righteousness was irritating. Thank you, Jim.
Thank you!
“What am I? A potted plant?” My dad and I howled over that line from Ollie’s lawyer (Google sez: Brendan Sullivan)
Lest someone not know, Ollie North and Fawn Hall are married. To each other.
I did *not* know that North and Hall got married. Whoa.
I remember that "potted plant" line, from Brendan Sullivan. In a further entry for the "life is strange" file, our family moved back to DC, from Japan, as Iran-Contra was winding down, and Sullivan was already a locally famous figure.
His son, also named Brendan, was a contemporary of our kids, and was a standout student athlete in the area. I wondered what became of him, and found that he'd been a star pitcher at Stanford and actually had a pro baseball career (triple-AAA ball) after that. Details here: https://washingtonian.com/2013/03/05/the-other-brendan-sullivan-talks-baseball-and-summer-camps/
My memory of the explanation of the US playing both sides of the Iran - Iraq war was that we were happily bleeding both sides down.
My feeling about the public’s reaction to Iran - Contra, we just didn’t have the stomach to go down the impeachment process again. Ironically the Republican leadership didn’t get the memo since they went gunning for Clinton to revenge Nixon’s downfall.
In all of this, not so much unintended but unwelcomed consequences followed.
Another illustration of the principle that humans do not forgive grievances they can remember, including our latest "Christian" soldiers. There's no war, like a religious war! Especially when you think that your side has the very creator of the universe behind it. Who would dare oppose you?
There are some advantages to forgetting. Like being able to start anew.
If only one generation could become wiser than the next, but we seem to be better at passing along bad habits, and lack of learning.
This not auger well for the future of humanity...
Good point on the "hope they both lose!" stance of the US through that war.
Please make yourself available to Fox News, this is the audience that needs this information.
I've been on one Fox show, ever. Sean Hannity (!!!) actually did a nice segment with Deb and me after 'Our Towns' came out. Life is strange.
"Strange" doesn't begin to describe reality lately. Life increasingly resembles bad art, or sick jokes.
How about that hostile takeover attempt number 2 of Infowars by "The Onion"?
No need to "Dream in American" when we are just livin' the Dream!
Next episode: "Death on the Installment Plan," when the bills come due.