Closer to Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas -- rather than pleading for mercy -- grew stronger, while pro-U.S. dictators in places like Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Jordan grew more unpopular. Many Egyptians sharply criticized President Hosni Mubarak for standing aside while Israel's military pummeled Gaza in a brutal campaign in late 2008 and early 2009.
Meanwhile, the global financial collapse that marked the end of Bush's Reagan-redux presidency added more steam to the Middle East pressure cooker, which was getting ready to blow. The only question was when.
The explosion started with a popular uprising in Tunisia, where the longtime dictator Ben Ali resigned and fled into exile. The popular revolt soon spread to Egypt, the most populous Arab country.
There, massive street demonstrations forced Mubarak to agree not to seek reelection, though protesters have kept up their demands that he leave immediately. Monarchies in Jordan and Saudi Arabia were shaken, too.
So, even as a lavish celebration is readied for Reagan's 100th birthday -- including a special act of homage to the late president at the Super Bowl -- the Middle East is becoming just the latest part of his legacy to come undone.
The region now appears to be careening toward potentially bloody upheavals and possibly future war, especially if Israel with its high-tech weapons (and nuclear arsenal) fears its survival is threatened.
A Different Narrative
Things could have been very different if Reagan had not succeeded in wresting the White House from Jimmy Carter in 1980.
Carter was pushing a starkly different approach to the region, pressuring Israel to surrender Arab lands conquered in 1967 in exchange for peace agreements with its neighbors.
In 1978, Carter secured the first step in this peace process, the Camp David Accords in which Israel's Likud Prime Minister Menachem Begin agreed to return the Sinai to Egypt in a peace deal.
However, Begin was furious, feeling that Carter had bullied him into accepting the arrangement. Beyond that resentment, Begin feared that Carter would use his second term to push Israel into accepting a Palestinian state on West Bank lands that Likud considered part of Israel's divinely granted territory.
Former Mossad and Foreign Ministry official David Kimche described Begin's fury in the 1991 book, The Last Option.
Kimche wrote that Israeli officials had gotten wind of "collusion" between Carter and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat "to force Israel to abandon her refusal to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, and to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state."
Kimche continued, "This plan -- prepared behind Israel's back and without her knowledge -- must rank as a unique attempt in United States' diplomatic history of short-changing a friend and ally by deceit and manipulation."
However, Begin recognized that the scheme required Carter winning a second term in 1980 when, Kimche wrote, "he would be free to compel Israel to accept a settlement of the Palestinian problem on his and Egyptian terms, without having to fear the backlash of the American Jewish lobby."
In his 1992 memoir, Profits of War, Ari Ben-Menashe, an Israeli military intelligence officer who worked with Likud, agreed that Begin and other Likud leaders held Carter in contempt.
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