Editing Boland Amendment (section)

== Relationship to Iran-Contra Affair ==
Officials in the Reagan Administration argued that the Boland Amendment, or any act of Congress, could not interfere with the president's conduct of foreign policy. This represented the culmination of an ongoing struggle between Congress and the President over the power of foreign policy. Since the end of World War II, Congress had taken steps to curtail unilateral foreign policy moves by the President. Two clear examples of this are the [[War Powers Resolution|1973 War Powers Act]], which required Congressional approval of troop commitments lasting longer than thirty days, and the [[Hughes–Ryan Amendment|1974 Hughes-Ryan Amendment]], which required a Presidential report to Congress concerning the necessity of all covert operations. The Boland Amendment represented another attempt by Congress to restrict Presidential power. The resistance of the Reagan administration via its circumvention was the flip-side of this power struggle.<ref>{{Cite report |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep11953.7 |title=The Iran-Contra Affair |last=Douville |first=Alex |date=2012 |publisher=Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College |pages=87–148}}</ref> 

In this spirit, administration officials argued that the Boland Amendment, or any act of Congress, could not interfere with the president's conduct of foreign policy by restricting funds, as the president could seek funds from private entities or foreign governments.<ref name="fisher">{{cite journal |author=Louis Fisher |date=October 1989 |title=How Tightly Can Congress Draw the Purse Strings? |journal=American Journal of International Law |publisher=American Society of International Law |volume=83 |issue=4 |pages=758–766 |doi=10.2307/2203364 |jstor=2203364 |s2cid=147213452}}<!--|accessdate=2006-10-10--></ref> In this spirit, and despite the Boland Amendment, Vice Admiral [[John Poindexter|John M. Poindexter]], USN, and his deputy, Lieutenant Colonel [[Oliver North]], USMC, secretly diverted to the Nicaraguan contras millions of dollars in funds received from a secret deal that some alleged had explicit presidential approval{{spaced ndash}}the sales of [[anti-tank missile|anti-tank]] and [[Surface-to-air missile|anti-aircraft missile]]s to [[Iran]] in spite of Reagan's public pledge not to deal with terrorists.<ref>{{Cite report |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep11953.7 |title=The Iran-Contra Affair |last=Douville |first=Alex |date=2012 |publisher=Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College |pages=87–148}}</ref>
[[File:President Ronald Reagan meets with aides on Iran-Contra.jpg|thumb|President Ronald Reagan (Far Right), discusses his remarks on the Iran-Contra Affair while in the Oval Office.]]
On Monday, November 3rd 1986, a pro-[[Syria]]n newspaper in [[Lebanon]], [[Ash-Shiraa]], revealed the secret deal to the world<ref>{{cite book |author=Melissa Boyle Mahle |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uch7kgvdqX0C&pg=PA29 |title=Denial and Deception: An Insider's View of the CIA |publisher=Perseus Books Group |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-7867-3759-8 |page=29}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Ulrich von Schwerin |date=2015 |title=Mehdi Hashemi and the Iran-Contra-Affair |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2015.1028520 |journal=British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies |volume=42 |issue=4 |page=521 |doi=10.1080/13530194.2015.1028520 |s2cid=218602348}}</ref> and [[The New York Times]] picked it up a day later on Tuesday, US election day.<ref>{{cite news |last=Hijazi |first=Ihsan |date=November 4, 1986 |title=Hostage's Release Is Linked to Shift in Iranian Policy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/04/world/hostage-s-release-is-linked-to-shift-in-iranian-policy.html |work=The New York Times |quote=There was also a report today in a Beirut publication that is usually well informed on Iranian affairs that said the United States had sent spare parts and ammunition for American-built fighter planes and tanks that Iran bought from the United States before the fall of Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlevi in 1979. [...] The Lebanese weekly magazine Al Shiraa, in its edition which went on sale over the weekend, reported what it said was the delivery by the United States of spare parts and ammunition to Iran. The magazine said the delivery came after a secret visit to Teheran by Robert McFarlane, the former national security adviser to President Reagan.}}</ref> This came as [[United States Democratic Party|Democrats]] won back control of the Senate in the 1986 elections. In public hearings of a joint [[Joint committee (legislative)|House–Senate committee]] convened for purposes of investigating the affair, Democrats sought to prosecute North for his role. The final report published after the hearings blamed Reagan's passive style of leadership for allowing the conduct of foreign policy without involvement of any elected official.<ref>{{Cite report |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep11953.7 |title=The Iran-Contra Affair |last=Douville |first=Alex |date=2012 |publisher=Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College |pages=87–148}}</ref>