Historians looking back at our time will note the consistent restraint and peaceful intentions of the West. They will note that it was the democracies who refused to use the threat of their nuclear monopoly in the forties and early fifties for territorial or imperial gain. Had that nuclear monopoly been in the hands of the Communist world, the map of Europe—indeed, the world— would look very different today. And certainly they will note it was not the democracies that invaded Afghanistan [in 1979] or suppressed Polish Solidarity or used chemical and toxin warfare in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia—President Ronald Reagan, speech to the British House of Commons, June 8, 1982 Which attitude about Cold War rivalries is expressed by President Ronald Reagan in this speech?

The idea expressed by President Ronald Reagan in this excerpt is that it was communist nations that threatened world peace and not western democracy.

Explanation:

The given excerpt is taken from President Ronald Reagan's speech delivered on June 8, 1982, delivered to members of the British Parliament at the Palace of Westminster, London. The speech is famously known as "the Evil Empire."

In this speech, President Ronald Reagan addressed to ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. He asserted that the war was not of a nuclear weapon but good and evil.

In this excerpt, he is expressing the notion that when people will look back to history, they will know that it was communist nations that threatened world peace and not western democracy. He remarked that if power would have been in the hands of the Soviet, communist nation, then the world would have been a different place.

it would have to be gasioline