At the same time, the praise for Carter’s post-presidency is for many an indirect way of criticising his administration. Such criticism, though, badly underestimates Carter’s accomplishments, especially in the realm of foreign policy.
The Panama Canal Treaties in 1977 paved the way for a peaceful transfer of control of that vital waterway from the United States to Panama in 1999. Nationalist-inspired violence was averted, and the Canal stayed open and operated as it always had. What made it all the more impressive was that Carter pressed ahead with the transfer, brushing aside unwarranted but strong domestic criticism of what his opponents portrayed as a giveaway.
A year later, the Camp David Accords created peace between Egypt and Israel. The agreement set an important precedent, to be followed years later by Jordan and more recently by other Arab countries. The Camp David Accords didn’t bring peace to the Middle East – Syria never followed suit, and the Palestinian issue was allowed to fester – but it did eliminate the potential for a major attack on Israel from its neighbouring countries.
January 1979 brought the full normalisation of diplomatic relations between the US and the People’s Republic of China. Carter thus completed the process initiated by President Richard Nixon, and created the basis for a Sino-American relationship that hastened the end of the Cold War and led to China’s integration into the global economy.
The Carter administration also successfully completed negotiation of the second strategic arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union (SALT II), which was signed in June 1979. This pact stabilised the nuclear competition between the two superpowers, helping to ensure that the Cold War stayed cold until its end a decade later.
Carter was committed to peace but was no pacifist. He adjusted to the geopolitical shifts following the Islamic revolution in Iran, which ousted the Shah and brought an anti-American regime to power in early 1979, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later that year. Defence spending increased significantly. Sanctions were introduced. New military deployments were undertaken in Europe. The administration established what became the forerunner of Central Command, which coordinates US military forces in the Middle East, and articulated a doctrine in the president’s name that underscored US interests in the wider region.
Given this record, which also included espousal of support for human rights as a component of US foreign policy, why was Carter not held in higher esteem?
One reason is that he suffered from the fate of many one-term presidents, who by being defeated are judged to have been unsuccessful. Such assessments are common but misplaced: both Carter and George H W Bush accomplished more in four years than many presidents have in eight.
Carter also paid a significant price for his economic record, which included high inflation, double-digit interest rates, and gasoline shortages. The sour public mood was magnified by the November 1979 Iranian takeover of the US embassy in Tehran and the ensuing hostage crisis. The attempt to rescue the American hostages in April 1980 failed, the result of helicopter breakdowns, bad weather, and bad luck. Carter might well have been re-elected had the mission succeeded. But it wasn’t to be.
An engineer by training, Carter lacked the political skills to help Americans get through tough times. He was not a natural politician. On the contrary, his election was in many ways a reaction to Watergate and President Gerald Ford’s subsequent pardon of Nixon. Carter’s modesty, honesty, and outsider background helped him win the 1976 election. But these traits did not help him much once in office.
Carter the man was easier to respect than like. Full disclosure: I worked during his presidency in the Department of Defence, but was too junior to have much interaction with him. I came to know him later. In September 1993, we both found ourselves on the White House lawn to witness the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. I turned to him and said: “Mr President, you should feel more than a little satisfaction, as what you did at Camp David made today possible.” His reaction was not what I expected: “They should have done this years ago when I was president.”
Still, as time passes, it will be his record that will matter most, and it is more than likely that Carter’s stock with historians will rise. As it should. The country and the world were better off for his presidency. — Project Syndicate
- Richard Haass, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, is a senior counsellor at Centerview Partners and a Distinguished University Scholar at New York University.
