Posted on 10/22/2002 6:20:32 AM PDT by FlaFreedom
Jimmy Carter got what he deserved
John Robson The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, October 18, 2002
On reflection I've decided it was appropriate to give Jimmy Carter the Nobel Peace Prize. But I don't mean that in a good way. Both epitomize the tendency Teddy Roosevelt so deplored in diplomacy of combining "the unready hand with the unbridled tongue." That weak, conceited approach brings war, not peace.
To praise Mr. Carter for bringing peace to the Middle East is absurd given the current situation. Moreover, as David Frum noted very nicely in the National Post, even the Camp David accord between Egypt and Israel was the result not of foresight or decency but arrogant stupidity. Mr. Carter kicked off his presidency by abusing the Soviets over human rights while simultaneously disregarding diplomatic protocol in his eagerness to hug them with one hand while poking them in the eye with the other. To his astonishment, they reacted by humiliating him so badly it became a political problem, then suckered him into endorsing the maximalist Soviet position on the Middle East. It was panic at the magnitude of Mr. Carter's blunder, not awe at his love of peace, that brought Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem and, within four years, assassination. (For more detail see Adam Ulam's Dangerous Relations.)
Throughout his presidency, Carter was so arrogant he not only demanded that everyone do what he said all the time, he never bothered preparing for the possibility they might resent it and react badly. I particularly applaud Frum for stressing that "in Carter's character, patriotism has always taken a very distant back seat to vanity and malice." He is sanctimonious, always lamentable as a personal quality but lethal in a major foreign policy maker. Such people do not bring peace but war to an imperfect world.
Indeed, a news story on Mr. Carter's prize praised as a "stunning bit of crisis resolution" his trip to North Korea in June 1994 in which he "got a rare audience with the reclusive President Kim Il-sung and won Mr. Kim's agreement to freeze a nuclear development program that had his nation at sword's points with the West." I think "stunned" would have been a more suitable adjective. What sane person would think half a century of evil malice from Pyongyang would be dispelled by a quick dose of their saintly presence? And Wednesday we learned that this member of the axis of evil was lying then, is close to having nuclear weapons now and has the rockets to fire them at Japan. Ooops.
Speaking of vanity and malice, I liked the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee calling Mr. Carter's prize "a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as the United States." That's a curiously belligerent thing for the peace prize folks to want to administer, but also revealingly ineffectual. George W. Bush isn't planning to kick Saddam Hussein in the shin.
Carter is. Despite the tradition that former presidents don't undercut the diplomacy of sitting ones, he told CNN if he were a senator (not a mere congressman, of course) he would have voted not to authorize war against Iraq. He does want to "force" Saddam Hussein "to comply completely with inspections of an unlimited nature and to make sure that we destroy all his weapons of mass destruction and his ability to produce nuclear weapons in the future. But I think it should all be done through the United Nations and not unilaterally by the United States." So he orders Saddam Hussein to do what he wants.
Or else what, I want to ask? What if he won't, and the UN won't make him? But that's a real-world question, and Mr. Carter always preferred to imagine a world worthy of himself than to accommodate to the actual one he was obliged to endure. News reports tend to concur; the Globe and Mail ascribed to "sheer bad luck geopolitically" both "the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which froze his attempts at nuclear disarmament" and the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. In fact both were the predictable consequence of Mr. Carter's belligerent weakness and the arrogance behind it. His UN ambassador said Americans, once they got over their own shabby prejudices, would find the Ayatollah Khomeini "something of a saint"; did any war-mongering, cigar-chewing Republican ever show such frivolous disregard for the well-being of millions of non-Americans?
Giving him the Nobel Peace Prize is obviously an endorsement of his approach. But while I do not mind people wishing we lived in a world where generosity resolved international problems, I strongly object to their pretending we do. The result is to demand that others reform according to our standards while rejecting any preparations for their far more probable hostile reaction. That way lies madness and war, not enlightenment and peace.
Thus Teddy Roosevelt called those who combine the unready hand with the unbridled tongue "prize jackasses." Exactly.
John Robson is Senior Editorial Writer and Columnist.
© Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen
Bwahahaha. But this guy does understand what an arrogant boob Carter is. Good job, Mr. Robson. fsf
The other keeper quote from this excellent piece.
If Carter cared one bit about America and the institution of the Presidency, he would have told the Nobel committee to shove the award (ala Rudy to Saudi prince). By accepting the blood money, Carter has revealed everything about his true character. Billy was the better sibling.
It's the truth. fsf
"I think the man takes his initials too seriously"
Carter did (does), I think, have some kind of messiah complex
This is probably the only thing Gore Vidal ever said that I agree with
Billboard has the CD at #3 with a bullet.
Ooops! Can't say "bullet" around Carter.
Let's call it a low-velocity projectile.
The world doesn't respect rat presidents because the world knows rats are weak. Republican Presidents however, scare the crap out of the rest of the world because the world knows that the pubbies will nuke anyone if that is what's required.
In world politics it's better to be feared than to be loved.
God Save America (Please)
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