Obama Channeling Jimmy Carter

From the article "Avoiding the Burden...":

"Even by late 1978 few people in the Carter administration, including the American embassy staff in Teheran, seemed to know much about the leaders or directions of the revolution. Khomeini’s violent ideas and extraordinarily anti-American, anti-Zionist views apparently had not yet registered. U.S. policy appears to have straddled both sides. For example:

—Shortly after the Shah declared martial law, President Carter called him to voice support.

—Yet in October, after weeks of daily reports sent back to Washington on events in Iran, Ambassador William H. Sullivan "could detect neither high-level concern nor any comprehensive attitude toward the events that were in progress."

—On 4 November 1978, as rioters spread fires across Teheran, destroying banks, theatres, and the British embassy, security advisor Brzezinski called the Shah from the Iranian embassy in Washington to express his assurance that the United States would "back him to the hilt."

—Concurrently, certain high-level State Department officials evidently had concluded that the Shah was the major problem in Iran and that he had to go regardless of who replaced him.

—Energy Secretary James Schlesinger (a previous Defense Secretary in the Ford administration) argued that the Shah had to be saved, and proposed a U.S. show of force in the Indian Ocean.

—Late in December President Carter seems to have agreed, dispatching the aircraft carrier Constellation to the Indian Ocean. Then, possibly out of concern over risk to the carrier, the President countermanded his own order.21

Thus, as time ran out for the Shah and for Washington, the Carter administration split between supporting the monarch, dumping him, or riding out the storm. Events, not policy, now determined American responses in Southwest Asia."

Palmetto Patriot wrote:

My recollection is that Carter and his administration backed the Shah pretty much absolutely and unconditionally all the way to the end.

Here is a discussion of the "Carter Doctrine":

Avoiding the Burden, the Carter Doctrine in perspective

As it relates to the Shah, it would suggest that Carter vacillated between advising the Shah to tough it out, and dumping him outright.

That's an interesting page. I guess I was much more aware of the public backing of the Shah. I had forgotten about the military exercises "show of force" that were canceled.

Perhaps there are more parallels between Egypt today and Iran in 1978-1979 than I had thought at first.

Still, today's administration seems to be less supportive of Mubarak than Carter was of the Shah. Honestly, I can't say that is a bad thing, especially considering out how that worked out in Iran. I don't know whether Carter should have been stronger supporting the Shah (which could have just fanned the anti-US flames) or dumped him sooner.

Those who are criticizing the current administration seem to be in favor of total, unconditional support for Mubarak. I'm not sure I would favor that.

There are situations where no positive outcome is possible. This could be one of those. In that case, avoiding the worst possible outcome is the best strategy you can hope for.

All of this points to why we (the United States as a nation, as well as us individually) should be more self sufficient (energy, food, consumer goods, everything) so that we aren't presented with these conflicts potentially doing such grave harm to our interests.

I found this quote from the conclusion of the piece instructive:

“Once a revolution reaches a critical point, temporizing in support for a beleaguered government—or oscillating between supporting the government and dumping it—is probably a fatal practice. Trying to force a Third World government to reform when it is being gutted from within by a revolutionary totalitarian movement is a recipe for disaster. This, in essence, and after much uncertainty, is what the Carter administration’s approach toward Iran finally came down to. The lesson is applicable to a variety of Third World countries where the United States has critical interests.

To cite a current example, opposition members of the United States Congress have pressed the Reagan administration to cut off aid to the government of El Salvador because of its human rights violations. These lawmakers evidently ignore or derogate the fact that the Salvador government is combating a Marxist revolutionary force directly supported by the Communist world. Thus the Carter experience with the Southwest Asia crisis suggests that American policy cannot have it both ways: we cannot press friendly Third World governments undergoing revolutionary attack to liberalize without destabilizing their power and possibly contributing to their collapse. The time for reform, if reform is relevant, is before the revolution reaches its crisis point. And that, of course, requires both advance warning and a genuine interest in the problem before it becomes a crisis—something few American administrations demonstrate a capacity to understand.”

It may be too late for Egypt.

Palmetto Patriot wrote:

It may be too late for Egypt.

That's been my feeling from the first news reports last week. When there are hundreds of thousands people in the streets, it's over.

And, if it's over, there's no point in supporting Mubarak at this time. All it will do is turn the next government (and their backers) more anti-American. It's also not helping our image over there that the tear gas canisters being fired into the crowds say "Made in the USA" on them.

Of course, the Party Propaganda ministry will give us an analysis after the smoke clears that will clearly show it's about 3 years too late. The official story will be that this is George W. Bush's fault before it's over.

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