In January 1977 the nuns where we used to attend church in Lebanon gifted me the only dog I ever owned, a mutt they’d called Jimmy, after the newly elected American president. American politics was the world’s most accessible entertainment even then, so Jimmy Carter was big news in Lebanon. To those Antonine nuns Carter was something of a sex symbol. He wore his Christianity on his sleeve with a leer worthy of Mary Magdalene, allowing them to lust for him in their heart. In consequence they delivered me a Jimmy more frisky than pious.
Not being a registered Democrat I promptly renamed my new dog to something more presidential (King). Little did I know that I’d end up having more affection for Jimmy Carter than for any president before or since in my lifetime, which began a year to the day after JFK’s assassination. Maybe it’s because Carter was still president when I landed in the United States as a permanent resident in 1979. Inflation meant nothing to me. Gas lines were way shorter than they’d been in Lebanon. No one was shooting at me even in New York City, where we lived at what was to be the height of its post-Prohibition crime wave. It was a great time.
I’d come to admire Carter from another memory in 1978. This was the president who’d managed what no other president before or since has managed. He’d gotten Egypt and Israel to sign a peace treaty and Israel to give up the Sinai, the biggest and last real achievement in Middle East peacemaking since France and Britain turned that region into a hellhole on time-release after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
Egypt’s Anwar Sadat thought he was a latter-day pharaoh, but he’d started the impossible by going to Jerusalem and daring the Israelis to the peace table. Israel’s Menahem Begin was (and remained) a terrorist, his hatred for Arabs overmatching in weaponry and violence Arabs’ berserk hatred for Jews. Carter’s skill and smarts, and a self-righteousness almost as distressing as Woodrow Wilson’s, looked past all that in those famous 13 days at Camp David.
Opinion polls told Carter he was nuts. He looked past them. He ignored the imperious convention that presidents should not personally engage in negotiations. Mostly, he looked past the bigoted Kissinger doctrine–that Israel is always right, that nothing in Middle East initiatives ought to be done without Israel’s approval first. The approach had prevailed since Kennedy (Eisenhower, the last president to stand up to Israel, had no use for it) and would prevail again after Carter, as it does to Biden-bloodied day.
Camp David was the exception.
Of course neither Begin nor Sadat gave a shit about Palestinians. No Arabs and no Israelis ever have. They just wanted to remove their militaries from each other’s faces so Sadat could go back to repressing his people and Begin could go back to repressing Palestinians in the rest of the occupied territories. Peace with Egypt was to be the recalibration of repression in the West bank and Gaza. Carter, so often naive, looked past that, too, thinking Camp David was a start, not an end. (Clinton repeated the mistake with the deservedly doomed Oslo accords a decade and a half later.) He took at face value both men’s promises that they’d turn to the Palestinian problem some other time. Maybe Sadat meant it. It’s doubtful. It’s certain Begin, who called Palestinians “beasts walking on two legs” while Rafael Eitan, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, called them “drugged roaches in a bottle,” didn’t mean it.
Sadat was assassinated for signing the Camp David accords. Reagan was elected. The Middle East bored him once he vaguely learned it wasn’t to the right of the Midwest. He cleared the way for more unlawful Israeli colonization of the West Bank.
Begin took advantage, going on an orgy of “settlements”–a sanitizing euphemism that reduces land theft to something like summer camp and that the servile American press uses still. The orgy accelerated under Sharon and Netanyahu, with American money. Begin and Sharon in 1982 invaded Lebanon (with American weaponry) in the deadliest of all Israeli invasions until then, kicking off a 20-year occupation. Begin thought he was getting rid of the PLO. The invasion inseminated the more brutal and indigenous Hezbollah, provoking yet more wars–1996, 2006, 2024–with America turning a blind eye and thousands of Lebanese civilians paying the price, as always.
The 1994 peace between Israel and Jordan gave Israel still freer rein in the West Bank, once the brief hopes of the Oslo accords–which were supposed to lead to an autonomous Palestinian state–were discarded with Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination by an Israeli terrorist a year later–a Jewish ultra-nationalist, but really the twin of Sadat’s assassins. The so-called two-state solution to which every American president paid lip service and Israel never took seriously died about then, reinforcing what Carter called, with unfortunate restraint, Israeli apartheid.
At home, Carter’s presidency is remembered as a failure. Carter biographer Kai Bird has discredited the myth, documenting too many accomplishments to count. Not that this amnesiac country is interested in fact. The two crises that overwhelmed Carter’s legacy were the oil shock of 1979 and its subsequent inflation, and the Iranian hostage crisis, when 53 Americans were held hostage for 444 days in Tehran after the fall of the Shah. The oil shock was not Carter’s doing. The hostage crisis was.
The Shah was one of the most vain and mass-murdering leaders of the 20th century, a sort of dandy Idi Amin. He was the mutant child of an abominable union between Winston Churchill and the CIA in 1953. He’d been flattered, financed and fellated by every American president since Eisenhower on the cynical calculation that tyrannizing over 40 million Iranians in exchange for blocking Soviet control of the Persian Gulf was ok with them. We finally paid the price. The Shah was ousted by the identically reprehensible but also vengeful Khomeini.
Carter despised the Shah and initially resisted for most of a year letting him into the United States. The Shah was now himself battling what he’d been to his country: cancer. Carter’s aides and Henry Kissinger (as always) kept up the pressure. Kissinger threatened to undermine Carter’s arms control treaty with the Soviets by condemning SALT II before the Senate.
Just as Carter was building what seemed like constructive relations with the new Iranian regime, he gave in and let the Shah check into New York Hospital, despite warnings from the American embassy in Tehran that it would endanger the staff there. It was the single worst decision of Carter’s presidency. Nine days after the Shah entered the United States, Iranian militants took the Americans hostage.
But for one more error–again giving in to hawks with an attempted rescue that ended in disaster in the Iranian desert, with the death of eight Americans–Carter handled the crisis with admirable diplomacy, refusing escalations to safeguard the life of the hostages even at the cost of his plummeting poll numbers.
He might have won their release but for the Reagan campaign repeating the Nixon campaign’s treachery against Johnson in 1968. Nixon go-betweens carried out secret negotiations with the enemy for electoral gain. So did Reagan’s with Iran. It was a preview of Oliver North’s secret negotiations and illegal arms deals with the regime a few years later as Reagan secretly siphoned millions of dollars and weapons to Nicaraguan terrorists he called “freedom fighters.”
As Kai Bird wrote, “now we have good evidence that Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager Bill Casey made a secret trip to Madrid in the summer of 1980, where he may have met with a representative of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and thus prolonged the hostage crisis. If this is true, such interference in the hostage negotiations sought to deny the Carter administration an October surprise, a release of the hostages late in the campaign, and it was dirty politics and a raw deal for the American hostages.”
Of course it’s true: Khomeini released the hostages minutes after Reagan was inaugurated, the day the most scandal-free administration of the 20th century gave way to the most scandal-ridden. It was Fantasyland again in (white) America.
Americans like their country to be run as a theme park. Annoyances like reality, responsibility and malaise have no place. Neither did Carter. The fantasists have been taking their revenge on him ever since, even as Carter’s legend grew in the 43 years since his presidency. He became the busiest ex-president in history, if still the least celebrated and the most shunned. The great conciliator out-hustled some of his predecessors’ actual presidencies (notably the senescent Reagan, Trump and all those zeros between Wilson and FDR), and of course out-living two of those who followed him. I thought he had a good chance of outliving Biden and Trump II. He’s decided otherwise. His one hundred years of solitude are over.
As for King, my dog, I’m glad I renamed him. A year after I left Lebanon he, too, was assassinated. I wouldn’t have wanted to have Jimmy’s death on my conscience. My poor dog was running after a neighbor’s chickens. The neighbor, Khalil, shot him dead. The same neighbor who not long afterward shot his own son, Munir–who had been one of my closest friends–dead. Khalil was finally imprisoned.
Lebanon, like the rest of the Middle East, could have used a few dozen Carter Centers: “Waging peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope.” So could the United States, a nation proudly and vindictively becoming more Begin than Sadat, more Khalil than Carter, by the day.
Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive. Reach him by email here.
President Carter taught all of us what it means to live a life of grace, dignity, justice, and service. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to the Carter family, and everyone who loved and learned from this remarkable man. https://t.co/dZHL0Nu0Tj
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 29, 2024
Andy Montgomery says
Excellent article on Jimmy. Rosalynn as well deserves recognition as one of the great leaders advocating for the mentally ill.
Carter center in Atlanta is a wonderful tribute to their legacy.
True followers of the way are typically shunned by a self sufficient nation whose focus is on self not others.
Kinda the anthesis of the teaching of the Bible.
Oh well, won’t be crowded in heaven like it is on hwy 100 in front of BJs.
🥸
Pierre Tristam says
I should have mentioned Rosalynn. Thank you Andy.
John R says
Thank you Pierre for the article. Well written. Squeezed in as much information as you could staying brief to keep reading. I have been to his library in Atlanta. I had not realized all the good he had done. I was in high school when he was president. Thank you again.
Michael J Cocchiola says
About the cruelest thing Republicans have ever done is to demonize a very good man and an honorable president. It has infuriated me for years and pretty much ensures that I will never reconcile with the Republican Party if there is any longer such a thing in nature.
Good on Former President Jimmy Carter and Former First Lady Rosalynn. Two noble American citizens.
The dude says
The man did more good for humanity in the last year of his life alone than all of MAGA over the entirety of human history…
Yet the orange turd is worshipped, while President Carter is looked upon as a quaint anomaly.
TR says
Need to separate his political career and his personal one. Totally different people.
Bobby says
RIP President Carter and thank you for all you gave to our country and its people. You never bad mouthed the less fortunate, you worked as a true humanitarian for all. You didn’t discriminate against anyone but opened your heart to all.
What is so deeply sad is the incoming President and his Cabinet will not follow in your footsteps nor will have such a great legacy as yours.
RobdaSlob says
Pierre I appreciate your perspective, thank you for taking the time to share it. Interesting read from a lense which I have not viewed, thank you for opening my mind.
I was in high school when Carter was President. I am not a fan of his Presidency – I consider him towards the bottom (albeit we have new contenders every four years). Inflation was horrible driving retirees to eat cat food. He may not have caused it but he was too comfortable with it. Biden made the same mistake. The lines for fuel were unacceptable to a country who previously understood it being readily available – again he may not have been the cause but he was too comfortable with it. And my recollection on the international front was he projected too soft of an imagine leading to such disasters as the Iranian hostage crisis and the failed attempt to rescue them. While he is often credited for the ultimate release of the hostages, my view is they were released because a young naive Iranian government was intimidated by incoming Reagan. Carter made a lot of US citizens feel embarrassed for being an American. Reagan took advantage of that opportunity.
To be a President one has to understand how all the demons work and still successfully get things done. While being an outsider worked in Georgia being a DC outsider made him vulnerable to the machine – both Democrat and Republican – ate him alive. Trump 1.0 made the same mistake.
All that being said his life post President is beyond reproach. We should all strive to give so much to humanity.
Sherry says
This says so much about the differences between the Democrats and Republicans regarding our planet’s environment, which is currently in great crisis. . . and, the differences between Presidents Carter and Reagan:
CARTER: In response to the 1973 energy crisis, Carter created the Department of Energy in 1977. He implemented tax credits for homeowners who installed solar panels, and he passed the National Energy Act into law in 1978, moving to reduce oil imports and promote energy conservation.
As part of his efforts, President Carter installed 32 solar panels on the roof of the West Wing in 1979.
REAGAN: Reagan moved to fulfill his campaign promise to abolish the Department of Energy in 1981, but he walked back his effort in 1985 due to insufficient support in Congress. He allowed Carter’s solar-panel tax credits to expire in 1985, instead championing nuclear-power initiatives.
He also believed in allowing free-market capitalism to dictate the production and use of fossil fuels rather than government regulations, a policy that became known as “Reganomics.”
In 1986, Reagan quietly had the solar panels removed during repairs to the roof of the White House.
Skibum says
You are right, Sherry. Good or bad, I think presidents get blamed for a lot of things they do not control, and Carter did the best for America under the circumstances he was dealt, but ALWAYS having the interest of the American people uppermost in his mind, not the prurient self-interest that seems to pervade so many of today’s politicians who somehow think Carter’s presidency was a failure.
Laurel says
For certain, President Jimmy Carter spent his life walking the walk. Something I have not seen from the most of our Presidents and politicians.
Sherry says
You are so right Laurel! A very moral, highly principled, man who actually “lived” his beliefs. What a concept!
Happy New Year Laurel! Keep the faith and continue to speak the factual truth to the power of money and corruption.
Endless dark money says
Presidents used to have some class, now they are just convicts trying to avoid accountability and fatten their wallets. Brace for trumpflation the billionaires need another yacht.
Skibum says
I was dismayed but not surprised by all of the ridiculously negative comments on the fauxinfotainment nuze article about Jimmy Carter’s passing yesterday. The maga mush brains were blasting him as one of the worst presidents ever. They have obviously either overlooked, forgotten about, or forgiven Richard Nixon, who famously quipped “I am not a crook” after becoming one while in the WH when he ordered the Watergate break-in and the huge coverup that followed before he was brought down by his own secret taping system in the oval office. They clearly don’t believe a convicted felon, a court adjudicated sexual abuser of women, a man who has publicly denigrated American military war heroes and gold star families was a bad president, which says volumes about their own ethical and moral lapses. Yes, most Republicans seem to either have horrible memories or they are being intellectually dishonest. If the maga mob cannot even recognize and admit that President Carter was a better president than Nixon, who resigned in disgrace and had to be pardoned by Ford for the crimes he committed in office, or Trump, the first and only convicted felon ex-president who bragged about grabbing women by their genitals and was adjudicated civilly liable for the sexual assault, and was found guilty of fraud in a separate court case relating to his business practices, then one really has to wonder what values, if any, do those in the maga mob hold dear in the first place? Carter was not perfect, but he was honest to a fault, was dedicated to the service of others his entire adult life, was a deeply religious and righteous man, and as president he made decisions based on what he thought was best for the country, not himself. Carter is the epitome of someone who walked the walk, not merely talked the talk, as he spent all of his remaining years after leaving the WH continuing to serve others in various volunteer responsibilities like building thousands of houses for Habitat of Humanity. Too many people in today’s society downplay or ridicule one’s public commitment to helping others, and inflate the importance of things done only for self-benefit, and that is a serious societal deficiency, and it is certainly apparent in the horrible way that many Republicans have been bashing one of our most honorable and selfless presidents of the 20th century. Jimmy Carter deserves much better than the horrible comments the news of his death has garnered, but regardless, his historical ranking by presidential historians will undoubtably be much higher in the long run than the likes of Nixon and Trump!
Sherry says
Thank you Skibum . . as usual, an excellent thought process. Happy New Year!
JC says
“Israel’s Menahem Begin was (and remained) a terrorist, his hatred for Arabs overmatching in weaponry and violence Arabs’ berserk hatred for Jews.”
Considering what the Arabs did to the Jews during 1948, I can’t blame him. That generation will always have a negative outlook against the Arabs.
Only thing I like what Carter did during his president term was the cold peace with Egypt and Israel. Of course from my perspective this opinion piece did left out a few things:
* PLO got kicked out of Jordan after Black September, which they went into Lebanon and of course that partly started the Civil War.
* PLO and Palestinians are super trouble makers in their history, why no nations want to take them in? The area remembers what they did to Jordan and Lebanon and don’t want any of that drama in their borders. This is why Egypt doesn’t want to take in anyone from Gaza.
* PLO with Hezbollah started launching rockets into Israel, which started the ill-versed entering into Lebanon for way too long.
* Didn’t help that the Arab League at the time thought that Yasser Arafat was the real leader of the Palestinians and not the Jordanian Kingdom, so they accepted Arafat (a real terrorist) as their leader. Also didn’t help that the Jordanian Kingdom (remembering Black September I think) made the folks in the West Bank stateless (by revoking their Jordanian citizenship), hoping that Arafat can do a real state solution with Israel.
* The Shah was not perfect, but is Iran is doing better know before the revolution? I would say no.
* Regarding Begin, he became PM of Israel doing the “Revolution.” This was first time Israel elected a Right-Wing government after decades of Left-Wing rule by the Socialist Elites in the country. A sign of things to come as Israel becomes a true Ring-Wing country.
Danny Mac says
You should show your intellectual side more often. Very compelling writing. Bravo.
David Schaefer says
The orange MAGA man is more interested in how his golf score and the stock market is doing than helping the American people. He wouldn’t know how to drive a nail if his life depended on it.
celia pugliese says
May the Almighty welcome your deserved arrival to His Kingdom. You are already missed Jimmy!. Never mind those that lash at you and your administration like Jesus said ““Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). I will always remember in 1977 when called to the American Consulate In Buenos Aires Argentina, to be notified our USA immigration was approved, after 0ver 5 years wait and we walked into the USA Consulate to a wide smile and shinny blue eyes on a large picture of then Jimmy Carter President welcoming us to his “home” now our beloved USA. I will always cherish that moment so vivid in my heart! Thank you President Jimmy Carter may the Lord be with you and Rosalyn…
Skibum says
Very well stated!
Jake From State Farm says
Very good article Pierre. I love it when you give your perspective of the middle east. I would love to hear more from you about it.
Your comment “Of course neither Begin nor Sadat gave a shit about Palestinians. No Arabs and no Israelis ever have.”, You could be more specific and add in Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran or anyone else in the middle east. The Palestinians and Jordanians for that matter are used as fodder for news headlines when they get slaughtered. That is not going to change until those who fund the terrorists are taken care of.
As far as Carter…. a very good man, great intentions,….. terrible president when it came to taking care of the country.
Happy New Year Pierre to you and your family.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Sorry once again to shit on your parade, your memory of life under Carter is poor at best! Exactly how long did IRAN keep our people hostage????? I was laid off from GM for 3 years, thanks to his STUPITITY with the gas supply. You don’t remember waiting in line for hours to get gas? I do! Before his death, many deemed Carter as the worse president of modern times, that is until Joe Biden was installed.The fact is thier very simular. Both men killed the economy, both had many failed policies, both were 1 term presidents, beaten handaly by Republican candidates! Both of these men were terrible leaders, both spoke with forked tonges! It’s hard to say which one,s the worse, they both sucked. Yeah they each had a moment or two, but Americans saw through the fog of these failed presidents…. Reagan was a star, he got America rolling again, I was called back to work, never to be layed off again! Biden inherited a great economy, and destroyed it. He lied constantly to the American people,as his dementia got worse, they covered up for him, then stabbed him in the back after TRUMP destroyed him on the 1st debate. They thought Kamala would carry them to victory, they were very wrong. Now TRUMPS back, To clean up the mess the demorats turned this country into. RIP Jimmy, Thanks to JOE BIDEN your not the worse president!
BillC says
“STUPITITY”… MAGA in full bloom. “What a fool believes he sees”.
Jake from state farm says
And you have been seeing “A Weekend at Bernie’s ” for the last for year and believed Biden was running the country, and you believed it. You saw Harris run for President and thought she going to be in charge. Yep… what a fool believes he sees.