Iran-Contra Affair

The Iran-Contra affair was a covert arrangement in which the United States secretly sold arms to Iran — then under an arms embargo and engaged in the Iran-Iraq War — in exchange for Iran's assistance in securing the release of American hostages held by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Profits from the sales were illegally diverted to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua. On the Iranian side, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, then Speaker of the Majlis, was the principal interlocutor whom U.S. officials believed led a 'moderate' faction open to rapprochement. Manucher Ghorbanifar, an expatriate Iranian arms dealer, served as the initial intermediary, while Hassan Karoubi met with Ghorbanifar and U.S. officials in Geneva in October 1985 to propose the missile-for-hostage exchange. Mohsen Kangarloo, security adviser to Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, negotiated arms transfers in Germany in February 1986. Between August 1985 and October 1986, Iran received over 2,000 TOW anti-tank missiles and Hawk anti-aircraft missile parts through Israeli and then direct U.S. channels. In May 1986, former U.S. National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane led a secret delegation to Tehran but failed to reach agreement with Iranian officials. From August 1986, Ali Hashemi Bahramani, Rafsanjani's nephew and an IRGC officer, replaced Ghorbanifar as the primary Iranian contact — the 'second channel.' The affair was exposed on 3 November 1986 when the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa published details leaked by Mehdi Hashemi, an IRGC official aligned with Hossein-Ali Montazeri who opposed the secret dealings. Hashemi was arrested and executed in September 1987. The scandal damaged both the Reagan administration and the credibility of Iranian 'moderates,' and contributed to Montazeri's eventual removal as Khomeini's designated successor.