Democrats Follow Wright Into Retreat on Principle

Born by surprise and with great fanfare last week, the peace plan for Central America that was advanced by President Reagan and House Speaker Jim Wright was dead within 48 hours. The Central Americans killed it by adopting a peace agreement of their own--the plan sponsored by President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica.

The two peace plans, one dead and one still alive (at least for the time being), have upset conventional political calculations in both Washington and Central America.

The Reagan-Wright plan was drawn up in discussions between the Speaker and White House officials anxious to avoid losing this fall’s battle over contra aid on Capitol Hill. No one would have been surprised to see the Administration offer another peace plan just before the vote on contra aid; Reagan used the same ploy to good effect in both 1985 and 1986. The brilliant stroke was getting Wright to co-sponsor the plan, making it almost impossible for Democrats to denounce it as a fraud--which most of them thought it was. But Wright ignored the counsel of the rest of the Democratic leadership and signed on to the Reagan plan, thereby giving it credibility that it would never have had otherwise.

With the announcement of the Reagan-Wright plan, the White House seemed to have maneuvered into a no-lose situation. In the unlikely event that the Sandinistas accepted the plan, Reagan could declare victory for his Nicaragua policy. If they refused, their intransigence would become the Administration’s main polemical weapon in a new push for contra aid.

This game plan went astray because it did not take account of the Central Americans. Meeting in Guatemala, the region’s presidents performed a remarkable act of political jujitsu, taking the Administration’s rhetorical momentum for peace and turning it against the White House by signing a peace accord of their own. Wright quickly embraced the Arias pact, leaving the Reagan plan an orphan. The White House, having declared itself for peace, was suddenly faced with a signed agreement that it opposed. Reagan gave the Arias plan only a tepid blessing.

Now the White House faces a cruel dilemma. The Arias plan calls for an end to contra aid. So if Reagan pursues a new aid request in the fall, he will be accused of subverting the search for peace. The only way the Administration can persuade Congress to renew military support for the contras is if the Arias plan fails.

That could easily happen. The plan is not a complete blueprint; many details remain to be settled through negotiations still to come. The whole endeavor could yet collapse--just as the Contadora process did over the details of the final accord, despite agreement in 1983 on a document of objectives.

The Reagan Administration worked actively behind the scenes in 1984 and 1986 to block a final Contadora agreement. Has Reagan mellowed so much that he will now acquiesce in the continued existence of the Sandinista government, the withering away of the contras and the consequent demise of the Reagan Doctrine? If he has not, the Arias plan will encounter its biggest obstacle in Washington.

House Democrats emerged from the tumult of the past week looking very clever, albeit largely by luck. But what the Democrats gained in political positioning by their support of Reagan’s peace plan, they lost in principle. The vast majority of Democrats have always opposed contra aid on the simple ground that it is wrong and therefore the United States ought to stop it. The details of the argument have changed over the years, but that has always been the heart of the matter.

Perhaps without meaning to, the Democrats gave up that principle when they endorsed the Reagan-Wright plan. The essence of the plan was to halt contra aid in exchange for a series of concessions by Nicaragua. The implicit premise in such a deal is that contra aid is a legitimate policy instrument that should be given up only if something is received in return. Wright and the other Democrats vehemently denied that their endorsement involved a pledge to support contra aid if the plan failed.

But whether or not they want to admit it, they have retreated from the position that contra aid is just plain wrong. That is why Wright’s endorsement of the plan was such a political coup for the White House.

The advent of the Arias plan conceals but does not erase this Democratic concession. The Administration’s new position is already forming--Reagan will request humanitarian aid for the contras while the Arias plan is alive, and military aid to be released if the plan dies. He will argue that this incentive would make Sandinista compliance with the plan more likely.

In fact, its effect would be just the opposite. But after supporting the Reagan-Wright plan, it will be hard for liberal Democrats to persuade their moderate colleagues that this is an unreasonable proposal.