Reagan Given Credit for Soviet Downfall

In an editorial titled "Two Dissidents" in The New York Sun available online http://www.nysun.com/article/5169. The writers discuss the bond that has developed between President Bush and deputy prime minister of Israel, Natan Sharansky.

At Mr. Bush's invitation, the two men spent more than an hour discussing Mr.Sharansky's new book, "The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror." Mr. Bush has not only read the book, but also recommended it to other officials in his administration, such as the secretary of state
designate, Condoleezza Rice.

Mr. Sharansky writes in his book that there were few dissidents in the Soviet Union in the 1930s because they were all killed. When the penalty changed from death to imprisonment, more dissenters emerged. Mr. Sharansky found the courage to stand up against the Soviet Union because he knew the free world would stand with him. That was the significance of Reagan's "evil empire" speech. "We dissidents were ecstatic," Mr. Sharansky has written. "Finally, the leader of the Free World had spoken the truth, a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us."

One thing that infuriates me is the denial on the left of Reagan's contribution to the downfall of Soviet Russia. I have read it several times in the past months over here. They want to give all the credit to Mr Gorbechev and none to President Regan. I, on the other hand, do not deny the fact that it was a two way street and that it is a happy quirk of history that these two leaders came to overlapping power. However, President Reagan (and his policies that the left decried as warmongering) set the table for the ultimate demise of what Mr Reagan called the "Evil Empire." Without the build up of our military, there would have been no realization by Mr Gorbechev that Soviet Russian economy could not compete with the US. We would have simply spent the Soviet Union into bankruptcy and chaos. It took Mr Gorbechev to realize this and change the course of his country. This of course took great courage on his part. However, it also took President Reagan to understand the changing face of the Soviet Union. Without the two pieces, the puzzle would never have fit together. Without either the courage of Mr Gorbechev or the responsive politics of President Reagan, the change would never have occurred.

Mr Sharensky points this out in his remarks above. The evil empire speech awakened the dissidents and made them ecstatic, a little of which must have been hidden in Mr Gorbechev. The same is true of the Middle East. To abandon the common people over here to continued tyranny for the sake of "stability" is ludicrous. No only because it is inhumane, but because it has patently not worked to keep the United States secure. We tried to "keep stability" in the Soviet Union for 40+ years only to be under the constant threat of possible nuclear war. Radical change in Russia brought the peace of no nuclear holocaust of the (Massive Assured Destruction) MAD policy.

Now we are threatened by a different menace, terrorism, which is also born out of the tyrannical regimes of Middle Eastern countries. The only way to change this situation is radical change to the governments in this area. How will this be done? Either through revolution or through the US shifting the power to more moderate democratically minded people in the countries. Revolution was tried in the past (a couple of times) in Iraq. The revolutions (uprisings as they are called in the media) were brutally put down by Saddam. He had built a political machine, not in democratic sense but in blood that rivaled Hitler and Stalin. The only other option to bring about change was US intervention. I am hopeful that the change will bring about freedom and democracy to this country. I continue to hope that dissidents who want freedom and liberty will come forward to lead this country. Furthermore, I hope that dissidents in other tyrannical countries (Iran) are emboldened by the actions of a strong US President in Iraq and Afghanistan and throw off the yolk for the freedom of self rule by a truly democratically elected government. Liberty, freedom and prosperity are the only way to rid the world of terrorism and have safety for our descendants.