Global political conditions make a direct American intervention difficult, but President Reagan's messianic and visceral attitude toward the Nicaraguan revolution could mean it will happen as an act of desperation.
Honduras is strongly anti-Communist, maintains no diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, and has provided vital support for United States-backed rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinistas in neighboring Nicaragua.
I think for the U.S. government the Sandinistas represented a threat to their dominance of Latin America.
In 1983, most Nicaraguans had still not fallen to the depths of deprivation and despair which they would reach in later years, but many were already unhappy and restive.
When Ronald Reagan's administration was exposed for having illegally sold arms to Iran to raise money covertly for the Contra rebels fighting the Nicaraguan government, Reagan acknowledged that the evidence was damning - yet defended the principle behind the scheme.
I thought using the Ayatollah's money to support the Nicaraguan resistance was a neat idea.
No one will ever be able to say what the comandantes would have done with their historic opportunity in Nicaragua if they had not been confronted with civil war.
In the 1920's U. S. Marines were periodically sent to Nicaragua to prevent the fiscal protectorate from revolution. The administration was accused of making war on Nicaragua:] We are not making war on Nicaragua any more than a policeman on the street is making war on passers-by.
'Sandinista!' is a masterpiece.
The little dictator who went to Moscow in his green fatigues to receive a bear hug did not forsake the doctrine of Lenin when he returned to the West and appeared in a two-piece suit. (On Daniel Ortega Saavedra)
The Sandinista revolution was without any question a popular insurrection.
The Sandinistas are a tough bunch of guys, with a fabulous amount of Soviet Bloc equipment and Soviet Bloc advisers.
I have always been willing to admit when I made a mistake. I made a mistake in my understanding of the composition of the Contras, not on my opposition to the Contra war.
