>My biggest issue with Reagan was the retreat after the bombing of the Marine barracks in 1983. The U.S. had good intelligence that the attack was from Hezbollah, which was funded/supported by Iran. The U.S. would have been absolutely justified in launching strikes in response, but Caspar Weinberger convinced Reagan not to attack. So the U.S. did NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING. By contrast, the French launched air strikes against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the Bekaa Valley. We had nothing to accomplish with Khomeini, no bargains or deals to make.

Fully agree that taking the correct course would always be better in such things, but I prefer the type of error Reagan made compared to the error Bush jun. made when deciding to go over the WMD they said to have good intelligence on. We armchair generals (myself fully included!) have the slight benefit of looking back in time...