Reagan's Epoch Shatters in Egypt ---By Robert Parry

[kpete]

Reagan's Epoch Shatters in Egypt

By Robert Parry
February 4, 2011

The political crisis sweeping the Middle East is another part of Ronald Reagan’s dark legacy that is shattering into chaos even as the United States prepares to lavishly celebrate his 100th birthday.



Upon taking office in 1981, Reagan turned the United States onto a new course, away from Jimmy Carter’s intensive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and toward tolerance of the Likud strategy of expanding settlements on the West Bank and lashing out at Israel's enemies in Lebanon and the Occupied Territories.

...............

A three-decade epoch was begun with the neocons and the Reaganites emerging as the dominant forces in Washington; with stepped-up security protecting autocratic Arab leaders from the angry "street"; with Shiite-ruled Iran supplying militant Muslim organizations to undercut the mostly Sunni autocrats and to pressure Israel; and with Likud and its vision of a Greater Israel guaranteeing little sustainable progress toward a Palestinian state.

It was an epoch that Ronald Reagan and his foreign policy team helped launched in 1980-81; it was an epoch that Jimmy Carter's second term might have prevented; and it is an epoch that may be collapsing into violence and disorder now.

more:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2011/020411.html

...................

Five myths about Ronald Reagan's legacy
By Will Bunch
Friday, February 4, 2011

On Sunday, America celebrates the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan, whose presidency is a touchstone for the modern conservative movement. In 2011, it is virtually impossible for a major Republican politician to succeed without citing Reagan as a role model. But much of what today's voters think they know about the 40th president is more myth than reality, misconceptions resulting from the passage of time or from calculated attempts to rebuild or remake Reagan's legacy. So, what are we getting wrong about the Gipper?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2011/02/04/ST2011020403674.html?hpid=topnews

[lonestarnot]

1. the result of which has culminated in the likes of which we see in Egypt, Yemin, Saudi, Jordan Syria

[rhett o rick]

A list of Reagan "accomplishments" is supposed to be posted on Think Progress today.

At least that's what I heard on Thom Hartmann yesterday. Nothing there yet. Anyone else heard of this?

[somone]

2. A major Democratic politician also thinks he can't succeed without citing Reagan as a role model

[northoftheborder]

3. Excellent recommended reading to refresh the history and..

bring it up-to-date during this worship era of St. Reagan.