Military Blockade of Libya Urged by Pat Robertson

Evangelist Pat Robertson, who is considering running for the Republican presidential nomination, called Monday for a military quarantine of Libya and open American support for the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government.

Robertson made the first extensive statement of his foreign policy views in “Dictatorships and Single Standards,” an article in the current issue of Policy Review, the journal of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

He said that Col. Moammar Kadafi is “among the world’s foremost terror strategists” and called for a military quarantine of Libya rather than the use of air strikes, such as were used by President Reagan.

“A quarantine would close Libyan ports that export and import the tools of terrorism and would cut off Libya’s mainstay terrorism funding source, oil exports,” Robertson said.

He did not deal directly with a number of key foreign policy issues, including relations with the Soviet Union. Although not mentioning Reagan directly, he criticized the Administration for secretly selling arms to Iran in exchange for hostages held in Lebanon and the subsequent diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan contras.

“If we had a policy of not negotiating with terrorism, the covert arms shipment to Iran tends to render such a policy meaningless, if not hypocritical,” Robertson said.

“If we felt that supporting the Nicaraguan contras’ war against the Sandinista dictatorship was a just cause, the secret diversion of funds from Iran to Nicaragua implies that here is a cause that cannot win public and congressional support through debate and the normal channels of the democratic process.”