From Norman Podhoretz’s magnificent new book, World War IV, pp. 191-192:

I repeatedly blasted [Reagan] for one betrayal after another: for reacting tepidly to the suppression (yes, by the evil empire) of the anti-Communist Solidarity movement in Poland; for permitting his ambassadors behind the Iron Curtain to distance themselves from the genuinely democratic dissidents in those countries while cultivating the “reformist” proponents of “Communism with a human face”..; for cutting and running when Hezbollah…blew up a barracks in Lebanon, killing 241 American servicemen; for trading arms for hostages with Iran; for entering into arms control agreements with the Soviet Union…. Rereading those pieces, I was amazed to discover that they were right in almost every detail even though they were dead wrong about the ultimate effect. For what these acts of Reagan’s turned out to be was a series of prudential tactics within an overall strategy that in the end succeeded in attaining its great objective.