Well to be fair, that situation was for the Russians and Afghanistan. We can play what-if scenarios and none of us can be proven right or wrong as a solution for one problem (Reagans) may not have worked for Afghanistan or Iraq (Bush's).
What we do know is that the U.S. sucks as nation builders in Iraq so let's all learn from this and get the hell out of it. I didn't like much of what Bush I did, but I have the utmost respect for him on how he handled the Iraq/Kuwait crisis by not going all out and invading Iraq and toppling the government.
Well.....here is how World History takes a look at it. But you are Right about the Nation Building. Which is why Reagan wasn't about it to much.
Four events were decisive.
1.
The Reagan administration cemented Egypt, the largest and most important Arab country, into the U.S. alliance system.
2.
Reagan oversaw the weakening of the Soviet’s strongest Arab ally, Iraq.
3. Middle East events forced the Soviet Union toward an (ultimately doomed) reconstruction of its economy.
4. Then the final shove: In 1985, the Reagan administration persuaded Saudi Arabia to increase oil production.
Between 1985 and 1986, Saudi Arabia increased oil production from two million barrels a day to five million barrels. The oil price tumbled as oil supply surged: from US$30 a barrel to US$20 in just a few months.
The effect on the Soviet economy was devastating. Oil was the Soviet Union’s main – practically only – exportable product, the most important source of hard currency for the economically stagnant regime.
As former Soviet prime minister Yegor Gaidar details in a 2006 book, the Saudi action cost the Soviet Union $20 billion a year, money that had been used to pay for food imports from the West. How to close the sudden financial gap? The Soviets borrowed from Western banks.
As the Soviet economy stalled, borrowing needs increased. By 1989, the Soviet Union needed US$100-billion to avoid food shortages. That desperate need for Western loans precluded any Soviet intervention when first Poland and then the rest of the Warsaw Pact shook off Soviet rule in the spring, summer and fall of 1989.
The Reagan administration’s Middle East policy broke the Soviet empire. But no political achievement lasts forever. The price of oil has soared again, re-empowering Russia and other bad actors like Venezuela and Iran.
The Reagan policy has run its course, as all policies do. But no statesman is expected to solve the problems of all time. The 40th President of the United States magnificently surmounted the problems of his time.
We honor Ronald Reagan most not by replicating him, but by emulating him: by doing not what he did, but as he did. He was the right leader for his time. Modern conservatives need to discover the right leadership for their time.....snip~
How Reagan’s Mideast Policy Won the Cold War
The main lines of Reagan's record on democracy promotion can therefore be summarized fairly briefly:
Reagan distinguished between allies and adversaries. In relation to U.S. adversaries, Reagan issued ringing and sincere denunciations of undemocratic practices in order to indicate moral concern as well as to weaken hostile regimes. In relation to American allies, on the other hand, Reagan was usually much more circumspect, because he understood that to destabilize an autocratic but U.S.-aligned government might very well lead to something worse. There was certainly some movement toward more pointed forms of pro-democracy pressure on U.S. allies during Reagan's second term, but even then, Reagan's first instinct was always to bolster, support, and reassure allies, rather than to critique them......snip~
RealClearPolitics - Conservative Foreign Policy & Reagan's Legacy
http://www.debatepolitics.com/afric...-hit-christian-churches-3.html#post1062210950
