The Real Story of the Iran-Contra Affair
The Cold war began in 1947. It was an era when geopolitical tension between the then Soviet Union and the United States and their loyal allies, the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc existed. The two world powers were in embattlement between 1947 and 1991.
By the 1980s, the Cold War was still going strong. During Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign, he promised to send the CIA to assist anti-communist insurgencies around the world.
The Reagan Administration had a keen interest in right-wing rebel groups called Contras. In Nicaragua, the groups were battling against Castro’s Cuban Communist group, the Sandinistas who came into power in 1979. Reagan likened these rebels to the United States’ founding fathers. Now at the time, the U.S. had a good relationship with Iran and the reigning Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, before the Iranian revolution. We’ll get to Iran in just a moment. Let’s continue with the Contras first.
