Contra-indicated

Contra-Indicated

PRESIDENT REAGAN'S Nicaraguan policy may yet survive the next fortnight, but if it does, it will be small thanks to him.

The Reagan Administration has supported the Contras since it came into office. Its reasons for doing so have been clear and compelling. The Sandinista regime is a tool of Moscow and Havana and an enemy of America. It is forcing a Communist state on an unwilling population at home, and gearing itself up to export its revolution throughout Latin America. The Contras represent a broad front of popular opposition; their victory would help America, and America should make sure that they win. The conservative movement, and the Reagan Administration, have made this case again and again. President Reagan went so far as to compare the Contras to the Founding Fathers. The Administration has repeatedly tried, most recently this spring, to push a military-aid package through a recalcitrant Democratic House.

In the midst of this political and military struggle, the Administration dispatched the State Department's favorite traveling salesman, Philip Habib, to Central America as a Special Envoy. Habib took especial note of the Contadora process. The Contadora countries --Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, and Colombia--have been trying to come up with their own solution to the Central American civil war for a number of years. They have finally got portions of a treaty on the table, and have given the Sandinistas a deadline of June 6 to sign it. Habib, incredibly, announced that, as soon as the treaty is signed, the United States will suspend its aid to the Contras. The White House, more incredibly still, did not repudiate him (except to suggest that the cutoff might wait until the treaty's "implementation').

There is a chance that the Sandinistas will not sign. They would be insane not to. The Contadora arrangement places a number of potentially serious restrictions on their sovereignty--expelling Cuban advisors, scaling back their monster army, taking the clamps off political opposition. But there is no credible enforcement mechanism. Meanwhile, the only force that has kept them to any extent in line--the pressure of armed free Nicaraguans--would be removed; removed, if Habib's eager endorsement holds up, as soon as the ink is dry.

It is true that the Contadora arrangement was cooked up by four Latin American countries. More important, four countries most directly threatened by Nicaragua--Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador--have signed on. But this is only to be expected. Action catalyzes consensus, it does not follow from it. So long as the Sandinista regime is a fact of life, its neighbors will make shift to live with it. If it were decisively confronted, they would fall into line too.

And anyway, since when does American policy hang on the deliberations of dictators--dictators within a two-days' drive from Texas, no less? If Reagan's analysis of the balance of forces was correct before June 6, it should be equally correct afterward. The Contras will not become suddenly unlike the Green Mountain Boys just because Daniel Ortega signs a piece of paper.

Habib's blunder brings into focus what has been a contradiction at the heart of Reagan's Contra policy, for all its rhetorical consistency. For years, the Reagan Administration has justified its support of the Contras to faint-hearted Democrats as a way of forcing the Sandinistas to mend their ways. That was not an incredible argument, but it has limits. It is impossible to apply pressure forever. The result of five years of measured American hostility is that Managua has not ameliorated the worst features of its regime one whit. The Contras must not be cast away in return for the promises of people whom we have no reason to trust. It is time Reagan and America began backing the Contras--to victory. Before that happens, the Administration has to get back on track. Jack Kemp has suggested recalling Habib. That would be an excellent first step.

COPYRIGHT 1986 National Review, Inc.
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