Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
The news that former U.S. President Jimmy
Carter, now 90 years old, is ailing brings to mind an earlier era in American
political life – one before we had the internet, twitter, and 24/7 all-news cable TV.
Carter won the presidency in 1976 when
money – the necessity to raise tens of millions of dollars – was not yet the be-all and end-all of
running for office.
His presidency brought down the curtain on
a period when presidents were not yet larger-than-life figures, semi-emperors
catered to, both in office and later, by their subjects.
Carter had more in common with predecessors
like Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon Johnson, than like his
successors. After those men retired, they lived quiet lives and didn’t try to
become wealthy.
Like them, Carter didn’t take advantage of
his office after he left the White House. He didn’t use his status like an ATM
machine, becoming rich from giving speeches and setting up dodgy foundations in
order to make millions of dollars.
He also didn’t try to create a political
dynasty, the way the Bushes and Clintons have.
He was a modest man -- though, as Winston
Churchill said about his successor, Clement Attlee, he had much to be modest
about -- and on the whole, his presidency has been judged a failure.
He was the first incumbent to lose an
election since Herbert Hoover in 1932, who was defeated by Franklin Roosevelt
at the height of the Great Depression.
Carter could be a scold -- he certainly
didn’t have Ronald Reagan’s sunny disposition. Maybe that’s part of the reason
he lost to the Gipper. Carter’s famous “malaise speech” of July 15, 1979,
during the second oil crisis of the 1970s, was all gloom and doom.
“The
solution of our energy crisis can also help us to conquer the crisis of the
spirit in our country,” the president said, asking Americans to join him in
adapting to a new age of limits.
It didn’t go over well, but perhaps he will
have turned out to be right.
We shouldn’t forget that Carter had one major
foreign policy success – the Camp David agreement that resulted in the peace
treaty between Egypt and Israel signed on March 26, 1979 between Anwar el-Sadat
of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel.
Despite all the violence and mayhem in the
Middle East since then, it has, somewhat amazingly, held up.
Carter won the Nobel Peace prize in 2002
for his commitment to finding peaceful solutions to international conflicts and
his work with human rights and democracy initiatives.
In the end, it was Iran that brought Carter
down. The coming to power of a bizarre theocracy under Ayatollah Ruyollah
Khomeini in February 1979, and the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and
abduction of the 52 American hostages that November, made him look weak and
indecisive.
Carter’s failed attempt to rescue the
hostages in April 1980 also went awry. During the operation, three of eight
helicopters failed, crippling the crucial airborne plans.
During the withdrawal one of the retreating
helicopters collided with one of six C-130 transport planes, killing eight
soldiers and injuring five.
The hostages were not released for another
270 days. All told, they were held for 444 days.
In hindsight, we can see that relations
with Iran have been a problem no president since then – be it Reagan, George
H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama – has managed to
handle effectively.
And I don’t think Carter would have signed
a deal that paves the way for a nuclear-armed Iran some 15 years hence, if not sooner.
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