ABSTRACT
In discussions with former officials of the Reagan and Bush administration's foreign policy, intelligence, and counterterrorism communities, a metaphor frequently arose intended to describe the relationship between American counterterrorism policy and foreign policy objectives more generally. To fully grasp the complexity arid contradictions found in United States counterterrorism policy, one must place it in the context of larger—or at least other—United States foreign policy objectives. For foreign policy officials such as Peter Rodman, doing what we could for Iraq in its war against Iran simply made good policy sense. When Iraq was dropped from the State Department's list of terror sponsoring nations, more than the mere opprobrium of association with international terrorism was lifted from Saddam Hussein's shoulders. Dropping Iraq from the State Department's list of terror sponsoring nations fits a pattern of playing politics with the fight against terrorism from the Middle East to Central America, from Southwest Asia to Africa.
