Nicaragua: No, No, No

This is the week Congress can and must say No to President Reagan’s war against Nicaragua.

The war violates international law. It violates the moral principles of the United States. It badly damages the interests of the United States in Central and South America. It is a reckless and muddled scheme, undertaken without clear purpose and without regard to the consequences.

The President is seeking by hook or crook to get Congress to keep the U.S.-supported rebels afloat. Aid to them under any name is still aid. Congress must say No to $14 million or $5 million or $1 million, whether is is called military aid or “non-lethal” aid or “humanitarian” aid.

The Administration has admitted that the $14 million it wants now is not nearly enough to enable the rebels, the contras, to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

So if it gets the $14 million, it will ask for double that next year, and maybe yet more.

The President says he does not intend to send American troops against Nicaragua, but the White House has told Congress in a secret document that “the direct application of U.S. military force . . . must realistically be recognized as an eventual option, given our stakes in the region, if other policy alternatives fail.”

There is a reasonable policy alternative the Administration has not paid enough attention to. It is negotiation, talks with the regional governments through the Contadora process. Under pressure, to be sure, the Sandinistas have already agreed to a mutual reduction of foreign advisers, to end support for insurrections in other countries and for a regional reduction of arms. Those goals were once the stated goals of the United States; they are still sufficient for the United States. But Washington then raised another condition, the overthrow of the Sandinista government, to which the Sandinistas naturally cannot agree.

That is the heart of the matter. The United States can either make a deal that leaves the Sandinistas in place or it can keep on trying to remove them. Removing them would require U.S. military force.

That is the choice before Congress this week. It can say No, and push the President toward negotiation. If it says Yes, or if it equivocates, it will push the United States toward a wider war in Central America.