The administration's justification for the arms shipments was that they were part of an attempt to free seven U.S. hostages being held in Lebanon by Hezbollah, an Islamist paramilitary group with Iranian ties connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

[7] In March 1987, Reagan made a further nationally televised address, saying he was taking full responsibility for the affair and stating that "what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages.

[2] Additionally, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Walsh was appointed independent counsel in December 1986 to investigate possible criminal actions by officials involved in the scheme.

[13] This was made more difficult politically due to Ayatollah Khomeini's openly declared goal of exporting his Islamic revolution all over the Middle East and overthrowing the governments of Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the other states around the Persian Gulf, which led to the Americans perceiving Khomeini as a major threat to the U.S.[13] In the spring of 1983, the U.S. launched Operation Staunch, a wide-ranging diplomatic effort to persuade other nations all over the world not to sell arms or spare parts for weapons to Iran.

The Reagan administration's policy toward Nicaragua produced a major clash between the executive and legislative branches as Congress sought to limit, if not curb altogether, the ability of the White House to support the Contras.

[14] A major legal debate at the center of the Iran–Contra affair concerned the question of whether the NSC was one of the "any other agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities" covered by the Boland Amendment.

The Reagan administration argued that, because the constitution assigned the right to conduct foreign policy to the executive, its efforts to overthrow the government of Nicaragua were a presidential prerogative that Congress had no right to try to halt via the Boland Amendments.

[25] In 1986, a complex operation involving East Germany's Stasi and the Danish-registered ship Pia Vesta ultimately aimed to sell Soviet arms and military vehicles to South Africa's Armscor, using various intermediaries to distance themselves from the deal.

[28][25] As reported in The New York Times in 1991, "continuing allegations that Reagan campaign officials made a deal with the Iranian Government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the fall of 1980" led to "limited investigations".

Major General Avraham Tamir, a high-ranking Israeli Defense Ministry official in 1981, said there was an "oral agreement" to allow the sale of "spare parts" to Iran.

A former "high-level" Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official who saw reports of arms sales to Iran by Israel in the early 1980s estimated that the total was about $2 billion a year—but also said, "The degree to which it was sanctioned I don't know.

[30]Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was highly negative, writing on his copy of McFarlane's paper: "This is almost too absurd to comment on [...] like asking Qaddafi to Washington for a cozy chat.

[31] In early July 1985, the historian Michael Ledeen, a consultant of National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, requested assistance from Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres for help in the sale of arms to Iran.

[31] The Americans believed that there was a moderate faction in the Islamic Republic headed by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful speaker of the Majlis who was seen as a leading potential successor to Khomeini and who was alleged to want a rapprochement with the US.

[35] Rafsanjani, whose nickname is "the Shark", was described by the UK journalist Patrick Brogan as a man of great charm and formidable intelligence known for his subtlety and ruthlessness whose motives in the Iran–Contra affair remain completely mysterious.

[37] While the President was recovering in the hospital, McFarlane met with him and told him that representatives from Israel had contacted the National Security Agency to pass on confidential information from what Reagan later described as the "moderate" Iranian faction headed by Rafsanjani opposed to the Ayatollah's hardline anti-US policies.

[38] McFarlane met with the Israeli intermediaries;[39] Reagan claimed that he allowed this because he believed that establishing relations with a strategically located country, and preventing the Soviet Union from doing the same, was a beneficial move.

Following the Israeli–US meeting, Israel requested permission from the US to sell a small number of BGM-71 TOW antitank missiles to Iran, claiming that this would aid the "moderate" Iranian faction,[38] by demonstrating that the group actually had high-level connections to the US government.

[38] In his 1990 autobiography An American Life, Reagan claimed that he was deeply committed to securing the release of the hostages; it was this compassion that supposedly motivated his support for the arms initiatives.

[50] On the day of McFarlane's resignation, Oliver North, a military aide to the US National Security Council (NSC), proposed a new plan for selling arms to Iran, which included two major adjustments: instead of selling arms through Israel, the sale was to be direct at a markup; and a portion of the proceeds would go to the Contras, Nicaraguan paramilitary fighters waging guerrilla warfare against the Sandinista government, claiming power after an election full of irregularities.

Retired National Security Advisor McFarlane conducted another international voyage, this one to Tehran—bringing with him a gift of a Bible with a handwritten inscription by Ronald Reagan[60][61] and, according to George W. Cave, a cake baked in the shape of a key.

[66] Following this, William J. Casey, head of the CIA, requested that the US authorize sending a shipment of small missile parts to Iranian military forces as a way of expressing gratitude.

[66] North frequently met with Bahramani in the summer and autumn of 1986 in West Germany, discussing arms sales to Iran, the freeing of hostages held by Hezbollah and how best to overthrow President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and the establishment of "a non-hostile regime in Baghdad".

[71] According to Seymour Hersh, an unnamed former military officer told him that the leak may have been orchestrated by a covert team led by Arthur S. Moreau Jr., assistant to the chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, due to fears the scheme had grown out of control.

[80] Canham-Clyne argued that for the "national security state", the law was an obstacle to be surmounted rather than something to uphold and that the Iran–Contra affair was just "business as usual", something he asserted that the media missed by focusing on the NSC having "gone operational.

[83] On 25 November 1986, President Reagan announced the creation of a Special Review Board to look into the matter; the following day, he appointed former Senator John Tower, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft to serve as members.

Though Hashemi made a full video confession to numerous serious charges, some observers find the coincidence of his leak and the subsequent prosecution highly suspicious.

It is not a subject we can talk about..."[125][127] On 24 December 1992, after he had been defeated for reelection, President George H. W. Bush pardoned five administration officials who had been found guilty on charges relating to the affair.

[130] In response to these Bush pardons, Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, who headed the investigation of Reagan administration officials' criminal conduct in the Iran–Contra scandal, stated that "the Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed."

[120][10][11] The Iran–Contra affair and the ensuing deception to protect senior administration officials (including President Reagan) was cast as an example of post-truth politics by Malcolm Byrne of George Washington University.