In his devastating critique of ex-President Jimmy Carter, Our Worse Ex-President, Joshua Muravchik wrote:
Carter’s interest in the conflict is in one sense natural: the agreement he mediated between Israel and Egypt at Camp David in 1978 stands as one of the few solid achievements of his presidency. Yet the intensity of his rhetoric suggests that his absorption with this issue derives from something deeper than the pleasure of returning to the scene of past triumphs.
Generally, the Camp David treaty is considered the major accomplishment of Carter’s term in office. Yet, as Jason Maoz recounts, the impetus for Sadat going to the Jerusalem was a miscalculation by Carter.
Standing out among Carter’s flubs was his decision to issue a joint statement on the Middle East with the Soviet Union. This totally unexpected document, released on October 1, 1977, marked the first time the U.S. officially employed the phrase “legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”
The communiqué also recommended the conveying of an Arab-Israel peace conference in Geneva, with the participation of Palestinian representatives and with the Americans and the Soviets acting as joint guarantors of any agreement that might be reached.
Reaction in the U.S. was immediate – and furious. “[A] political firestorm erupted,” wrote Middle East expert Steven Spiegel. “After American officials had worked successfully for years to reduce Russian influence over the Mideast peace process and in the area as whole, critics could not understand why the administration had suddenly invited Moscow to return.”
If there was anyone more incensed at Carter than the Israelis and most American lawmakers, it was Anwar Sadat. It had been just five years since the Egyptian leader stunned the world by unceremoniously expelling thousands of Soviet military advisers and their families from Egypt, his most concrete signal to date of his desire to align his country with the West.
Yet Carter ignored Sadat’s break with Moscow. A number of other factors came into play and …
Eventually, of course, the U.S. would broker what became known as the Camp David accords and oversee the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. But Carter had been blindsided by Sadat, with the compliance of Begin, in response to the American president’s inexplicable decision to involve the Soviets in the peace process.
Well once again, as Barry Rubin writes, the Russians are getting involved in the Middle East.
Russia’s bid for renewed power in the Middle East as a rival to U.S. goals and interests is one more thing that U.S. policy is simply not prepared to cope with, or even recognize. Will Russia align itself to a large extent with Iran and Syria to counter U.S. influence in the region and give itself special access to key trading partners? For if Moscow teams up with the radical Islamist alliance, especially after Tehran has nuclear weapons, this is going to worsen considerably an already gloomy strategic picture for the West.
But on top of all that, Russian Foreign Minister Serge Lavrov made an incredible statement that should send shock waves through U.S. policymaking circles. In calling on the United States not to take “any unilateral step against Iran,” Lavrov is trying to restrict American pressures to what Moscow is willing to accept. In other words, he is acting as Iran’s lawyer to tie America’s hands.
This isn’t the same as inviting the Russians in, however the Obama adminstration hasn’t complained as the Russians have been expanding their influence in the Middle East and allying itself with those who are fighting American interests.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that a comparable situation exists to the one that existed in 1977, when a poorly conceived American effort convinced Egypt to make peace with Israel. Maybe the new Russian alliance will serve to move the Iraqis closer to the United States, but I don’t see how it will advance th cause of stability in the Middle East.
So in the Middle East, right now President Obama looks like Jimmy Carter, but without the stroke of good fortune.
Crossposted on Yourish.
Obama and his administration are at least as dim-witted as Carter and his. I think the current bunch is rather more malevolent than the former, against Israel, agianst other American allies, and against the people of the USA itself. Obama and his people hold us in contempt; we have that straight from Obama’s own mouth, when he made his “bitter clingers” speech to what he must have figured was a safe audience who shared his sentiments, and who would not blab them to the great, unwashed masses of the contemptible people of flyover country. That last was a mistake. He did not count on one of his admirers being so enthralled by the wonderfulness of Obama and his speech that she blabed it all to the world.
As for their stupidity, they were confronted with a debt crisis. Their first, and so far only, response has been to increase the unsustainable debt, to add more government programs that canot be paid for, and to maintain or even increase the policies that led to the debt problem in the first place, like expamding lending by Fannie and Freddie. So this is the wisdom of the highly educated elites who benefit from the expensive education at places like Harvard? Give me Sarah Palin and plain common sense instead. I’ve never before been much of a populist, but the elites have turned out to be so incompetent and out of touch with reality that now I’d rather have somebody from a cow college as President than any number of Ivy Leaguers. At least Sarah can balance a checkbook. We have no real evidence tha Obama and his pals can do so. Obama himself has yet to equal her in length of executive branch experience in government, although I do admit that he is catching up to Sarah in length of time, although not, it appears, in competence at governing.
The stupidity of the Obama Administration in international affairs is becoming evident to a greater extent every day. American prestige and power in the world shrinks evry time one of the administration’s bigshots opens his or her mouth. Through it all they sail onward, serenely unconcerned. That decline is what they want. That is the only conclusion we can draw from their actions. The incompetence and complacency of the Obama Administration will bring on a bloodbath, perhaps several bloodbaths, and they will have not the slightest clue why.
Regretfully, Mike, I disagree with you that the Obama administration is “dimwitted” on this issue. That would imply that they are just not very good at carrying out their policy. To the contrary, I think they pretty much know what they’re doing, and that’s the problem.
By the way, I want to protest the claim that Carter is our worst ex-president and as it happened, Commentary published my letter on that very issue. John Tyler was a member of the provisional Confederate congress and was elected to its first session although he died before he could take office. I would think that participating in organized high treason makes Tyler uniquely our worst ex-president.
If anyone wants to claim that Carter is our second worst ex-president, no argument from me.
Alex,
I would agree with you that Carter is not our worst ex-president. I give that palm to James Buchanan, because he sat around sucking his thumb while the Civil War brewed. Then he went South and did serve in the Confederate Congress.
As for the Obami, I think I’ll stand by dim-witted. Their behavior does not seem to me well calculated to achieve their goal, which I take to be placing Israel in a hopeless defensive position by the end of Obama’s term. Among some of them, I think, the goal is Israel’s outright destruction. I think most of them don’t want that, but rather believe the leftist claptrap that the lack of peace is all Israel’s fault. Just some more of Obama’s rubes, like those Jews who voted for him thinking he was a friend to Israel. If the Obami were not dim-witted they would be going about their sabotage in a less overt and obvious manner. As it stands they have all the subtlety of Jim Baker.