Ronald Reagan, writing in his memoirs, on pulling US Marines out of harm’s way in the Middle East:
http://www.ronaldreagan.com/leb.html
LEBANON, BEIRUT AND GRENADA
In the weeks immediately after the (Beirut) bombing, I believed the last thing we should do was turn tail and leave. If we did that, it would say to the terrorists of the world that all it took to change Americans foreign policy was to murder some Americans. If we walked away, we�??d also be giving up on the moral commitment to Israel that had originally sent our marines to Lebanon. We�??d be abandoning all the progress made during almost two years of trying to mediate a settlement in the Middle East. We�??d be saying that the sacrifice of those marines had been for nothing. We�??d be inviting the Russians to supplant the United States as the most influential superpower in the Middle East. After more than a year of fighting and mounting chaos in Beirut, the biggest winner would be Syria, a Soviet client. Yet, the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics forced us to rethink our policy there.
How do you deal with a people driven by such a religious zeal that they are willing to sacrifice their lives in order to kill an enemy simply because he doesn�??t worship the same God they do? People who believe that if they do that, they�??ll go instantly to heaven? In the Iran-Iraq war, radical Islamic fundamentalists sent more than a thousand young boys - teenagers and younger - to their deaths by telling them to charge and detonate land mines - and the boys did so joyously because they believed, �??Tonight, we will be in Paradise.�??
In early November, a new problem cropped up in the Middle East: Iran began threatening to close the Gulf of Hormuz, a vital corridor for the shipment of oil from the Persian Gulf. I said that if they followed through with this threat, is would constitute an illegal interference with navigation of the sea, and we would use force to keep the corridor open. Meanwhile, another development promised to bring change to the Middle East: Menachem Begin, deeply depressed after the death of his beloved wife and apparently devoid of the spirit he once had to continue fighting against Israel�??s Arab enemies and its serious economic problems, resigned as prime minister.
King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, perhaps thinking American resolve on behalf of Israel might have been diminished by the horrendous human loss in Beirut, approached us with a new peace proposal that he said could end the warfare in Lebanon, and also take Syria out of the Soviet camp and put it in ours. But the proposal would have required us to reduce our commitment to Israel, and I said no thanks. I still believed that it was essential to continue working with moderate Arabs to find a solution to the Middle East�??s problem, and that we should make selective sales of American weapons to the moderate Arabs as proof of our friendship. Syria with its new Soviet weapons and advisors, was growing more arrogant than ever, and rejected several proposals by the Saudis aimed at getting them out of Lebanon.
Our intelligence experts found it difficult to establish conclusively who was responsible for the attack on the barracks. When Druse militiamen began a new round of shelling of the marines several weeks after the bombing at the airport, we had to decide whether to ignore it or respond with firepower and escalate our role in the Lebanese war. �??We�??re a divided group,�?? I wrote in my journal after a National Security Council meeting held to discuss the renew shelling in early December. �??I happen to believe taking out a few batteries might give them pause to think. Joint Chiefs believe it might drastically alter our mission and lead to major increases in troops for Lebanon �?? Then, the Syrians took an action that more or less made our decision for us. Syria had launched a ground-to-air missile at one of our unarmed reconnaissance planes during a routine sweep over Beirut.
Although there was some resistance from Cap and the Joint Chiefs over whether we should retaliate, I told him to give the order for an air strike against the offending antiaircraft batteries. We had previously let the Syrians know that our reconnaissance operations in support of the marines were only defensive in nature. Our marines were not adversaries in the conflict, and any offensive act directed against them would be replied to. The following morning, more than two dozen navy aircraft carried out the mission. One crewman was killed and another captured by the Syrians. Our planes subsequently took out almost a dozen Syrian antiaircraft and missile-launching sites, a radar installation, and an ammo dump. When the Syrians fired again at one of our reconnaissance aircraft, I gave the order to fire the sixteen-inch guns of the battleship New Jersey on them. Two days later, we had a new cease-fire in Lebanon, a result, I�??m sure, of the pressure of the long guns of the New Jersey - but, like almost all the other cease-fires in Beirut, it didn�??t last long.
As 1984 began, it was becoming clearer that the Lebanese army was either unwilling or unable to end the civil war into which we had been dragged reluctantly. It was clear that the war was likely to go on for an extended period of time. As the sniping and shelling of their camp continued, I gave an order to evacuate all the marines to anchored off Lebanon. At the end of March, the ships of the Sixth Fleet and the marines who had fought to keep peace in Lebanon moved on to other assignments. We had to pull out. By then, there was no question about it: Our policy wasn�??t working. We couldn�??t stay there and run the risk of another suicide attack on the marines. No one wanted to commit our troops to a full-scale war in the middle East. But we couldn�??t remain in Lebanon and be in the war on a halfway basis, leaving our men vulnerable to terrorists with one hand tied behind their backs. We hadn�??t committed the marines to Beirut in a snap decision, and we weren�??t alone. France, Italy, and Britain were also part of the multinational force, and we all thought it was a good plan. And for a while, as I�??ve said, it had been working.
I�??m not sure how we could have anticipated the catastrophe at the marine barracks. Perhaps we didn�??t appreciate fully enough the depth of the hatred and the complexity of the problems that make the Middle East such a jungle. Perhaps the idea of a suicide car bomber committing mass murder to gain instant entry to Paradise was so foreign to our own values and consciousness that it did not create in us the concern for the marines�?? safety that it should have. Perhaps we should have anticipated that members of the Lebanese military whom we were trying to assist would simply lay down their arms and refuse to fight their own countrymen. In any case, the sending of the marines to Beirut was the source of my greatest regret and my greatest sorrow as president. Every day since the death of those boys, I have prayed for them and their loved ones.
In the months and the years that followed, our experience in Lebanon led to the adoption by the administration of a set of principles to guide America in the application of military force abroad, and I would recommend it to future presidents. The policy we adopted included these principles:
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The United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest.
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If the decision is made to commit our forces to combat abroad, it must be done with the clear intent and support needed to win. It should not be a halfway or tentative commitment, and there must be clearly defined and realistic objectives.
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Before we commit our troops to combat, there must be reasonable assurance that the cause we are fighting for and the actions we take will have the support of the American people and Congress. (We all felt that the Vietnam War had turned into such a tragedy because military action had been undertaken without sufficient assurances that the American people were behind it.)
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Even after all these other tests are met, our troops should be committed to combat abroad only as a last resort, when no other choice is available.
After the marines left Beirut, we continued a search for peace and a diplomatic solution to the problems in the Middle East. But the war in Lebanon grew even more violent, the Arab-Israeli conflict became more bitter, and the Middle East continued to be a source of problems for me and our country.