No Compromise

For once we agree with President Reagan on Nicaragua. There can be no compromise on his request for $100 million in aid for anti-government rebels in Nicaragua, the so-called contras. Congress must say no, as emphatically as possible, to Reagan’s request and his whole aggressive strategy against Nicaragua. Then Latin American diplomats will have a chance to settle Central America’s crisis peacefully.

The latest ploy in the Administration’s frantic fight to save its Nicaragua policy is to suggest a compromise with Congress on the contra aid package. Fearing that Reagan’s request will be voted down next week by the House of Representatives, some White House aides are looking favorably at plans hatched on Capitol Hill to put the $100 million into an escrow account, to be spent only after a final White House effort to negotiate with the Sandinistas.

Some such compromise might make some wavering members of Congress, who are dubious about Reagan’s strategy in Nicaragua but cowed by his red-baiting on the issue, feel better about voting for contra aid. But putting the money into escrow won’t work, for a very fundamental reason: Neither Washington nor Managua intends to negotiate with the other.

The Sandinistas are not going to talk with the contras now, if indeed they ever were. The Nicaraguan government has always considered the rebels a mercenary army, created by the United States. With the contras bogged down and government troops better-equipped and more experienced than ever, Managua is not about to let up on the rebels. The Sandinista government will keep calling the contras a threat, but only to use their presence as a scapegoat for Nicaragua’s many internal problems. The contras cannot capitalize on the discontent inside Nicaragua, because their leadership is controlled by supporters of the hated former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza.

The Reagan Administration is not going to negotiate with the Sandinistas, either. Reagan and his most rigidly ideological aides will not be satisfied until the Nicaraguan government is overthrown. Anything less would allow the Sandinistas to consolidate a revolution that Reagan, in his own words, considers communist, godless, tyrannical and a threat to U.S. security. Reagan has said that he wants the Sandinistas to “say uncle.” He won’t get that through negotiations.

So why are Reagan aides hinting that he might accept a compromise on contra aid? For the same reason that Reagan sent Phillip C. Habib, a respected negotiator, as his new special envoy to Central America--to wring a few more favorable contra votes out of Congress with a show that he is trying to talk peace. Once that vote is cast, Reagan will interpret it as giving him a free hand to deal with Nicaragua. Anyone who doubts this admittedly cynical assessment should recall that Reagan and his aides made similar promises to negotiate with the Sandinistas when Congress approved $27 million in “humanitarian” aid to the contras last year. Those promises were never kept, and that explains why Reagan’s latest contra aid request is in trouble on Capitol Hill now.

If negotiating with the Sandinistas is not feasible, what course is left to Reagan for dealing with a Nicaraguan government that is increasingly repressive and anti-American? There are only two options--one clearly unacceptable, and the other untried but promising:

Option One-- Reagan can act on his image of a communist threat to America and send Marines into Nicaragua. The human, economic and political costs would be incredibly high. Nicaragua would not be another Vietnam--but it would be no Grenada, either. U.S. military action in Central America would anger our allies in Europe and alienate us from our friends in Latin America for a generation. It could destabilize friendly governments in Mexico and Colombia, and possibly elsewhere in the hemisphere. It would leave Nicaragua in the hands of a weak puppet government that would need substantial U.S. support well into the next century. It would be a human and diplomatic disaster.

Option Two-- Reagan should give up, or be forced by Congress to give up, the imperious notion that he can force Nicaragua to do his bidding through military pressure. That would give Nicaragua’s Latin American neighbors a chance to deal with the Sandinistas without the specter of U.S. interference. A vehicle for this strategy already exists in the Contadora Group--the diplomatic structure created by Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama to negotiate a peace agreement between Nicaragua and its four Central American neighbors.

Contadora has the support of every major democracy and U.S. ally in Latin America. The leaders of Mexico, Brazil and other friendly nations want the same thing that the United States does in Nicaragua: less Soviet Bloc influence, an agreement that the Sandinistas will not interfere in their neighbors’ affairs, and more democracy. But that will not come about as long as the United States looms over Nicaragua as a threat, leading the Sandinistas to seek help wherever they can get it. Once their revolution is secure, the Sandinistas will have to stop accumulating arms and trying to create a police state, and turn to rebuilding Nicaragua’s shattered economy. The Soviets cannot help them there. But Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and even the United States can, at the same time turning up the economic and moral pressure that could persuade the Sandinistas to moderate their revolution.

If the Contadora Group’s strategy succeeds, the Latin Americans will have gotten everything that Reagan claims he wants except the Sandinistas saying “uncle.” They could do it with less bloodshed and recrimination than Reagan’s current strategy demands. The key is giving Contadora time to work. Reagan has not done that, and shows no willingness to do so. So Congress must force Reagan to stand back by firmly rejecting the contra aid request.