Diplomacy, Carter-Style

[Phx_Dem]

Amateur historians like to say that Jimmy Carter is much better as an ex-president than he was as president. That gets his presidency about right; he’s usually ranked near the bottom, slightly ahead of Millard Fillmore but trailing Herbert Hoover.

The assessment, however, is too kind to the Carter ex-presidency. During nearly three decades as a freelance apostle of peace, the man from Plains has built a record marked by grand gestures, modest accomplishments and a few big goofs that somehow fail to pierce his halo. In office and out, his actions have been driven by a desperate desire to do good and a misplaced confidence that his radiant good intentions could bring out the hidden good in others.

Seen in that light, Carter’s misguided visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories this month begins to make sense. It’s not an anomalous misstep, but the latest in a decades-long series of foreign-policy bungles punctuated by a handful of very big successes. When Carter this month visited Yasser Arafat’s grave, embraced leaders of Hamas and all but forced the Israeli government to snub him and embarrass itself, he wasn’t guided mainly by malice or bigotry (though his record leaves room for question). It was, rather, a clumsiness that’s plagued him persistently where the Middle East was concerned.

More at:
http://www.forward.com/articles/13179/

[Warpy]

1. Consider the source

and consider also that Carter has negotiated the only Middle East peace that has lasted 30 years.

This is a bunch of hand wringing and sour grapes spewing by people who really should know better by now.

Shame on them.

[gratuitous]

2. Well, clearly, peace will be achieved . . .

Well, clearly, peace will be achieved if and only if we cut the Palestinians and their democratically-elected leaders out of the process. Unrestrained violence has only had 40 years or so to work, so the idea of diplomacy and bringing all sides to the table is a reckless course that can only be described as clumsy, if not outright malice or bigotry.

What twaddle.

[Rabrrrrrr]

13. LOL! That's right! "Give unrestrained violence a chance, you bastards!"

It's only had 40 years to work its magic so far!

:rofl:

Yes, really, after a mere 40 years of unrestrained violence is not the time to go leaping heedlessly into thoughts of peace. I mean, you can't bake an apple pie in two minutes, right?

[CBGLuthier]

3. I guess amatuer historians

Never heard of George fucking Bush.

Why do you post tripe like this here?

[Phx_Dem]

4. I think it's a good analysis

Carter let Hamas play him for a fool. It's a shame more Liberals/Progressives can't see that.

[gratuitous]

5. So what's the alternative?

It seems that 40 years of war and bloodshed haven't achieved very much, but at least the Jewish Daily Forward grudgingly admits that Carter has had some "modest accomplishments." What have the last 40 years of guns, bombs, and missiles brought to the Middle East?

[Phx_Dem]

6. Very little can be accomplished until the elections

in the US and Israel are completed. Then peace talks can continue under the rubric of the Oslo Accords and past signed agreements. If Hamas wants to participate I imagine they can, or they can designate a proxy like Fatah.

[theboss]

10. An Israeli state still in existence

Israel would rather exist with perpetual war than cease to exist under "peace."

[gratuitous]

11. Ah

And this is "existence" in what sense? Perpetual war, living in complete alienation to every neighbor, imposing who knows what warping on the country's mentality (certainly there is a very large segment in Israeli society that appears to regard large portions of mankind as less than human, fit only for extermination), and you seem to know for a fact that without perpetual war, Israel would case to exist.

A horror and a pity, then.

[theboss]

14. Israel was attacked by its neighbors on the very day it came into existence

And all its managed to do is become a thriving democracy in the middle of political hell holes.

[wuushew]

7. Carter understood energy issues

cancelled the expensive B-1A program and correctly negotiated the return of the Panama canal.

Where does this false stigma of failure come from?


Also was Paul Volcker appointed by Carter? Volcker was successful in killing the ruinious inflation crippling the nation.

[Phx_Dem]

8. Carter-Hamas meeting achieved nothing: Palestinians

Last week's meeting between former US president Jimmy Carter and the exiled leader of Hamas militants did not produce any results, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said here Wednesday.

"President Carter came to the region thinking he could achieve something. Unfortunately president Carter left without anything concrete," he told a conference in the Spanish capital.

"The only thing he achieved was permission on the part of Khaled Meshaal of Hamas to deliver a letter from a detained Israeli soldier to his family. Nothing else," he said.

"Hamas offered nothing to president Carter. They reiterated the same positions. There was no change on the part of Hamas," Malki added.

Carter's meetings with top Hamas leader Meshaal and his deputy in Syria angered Israel and the United States, which consider the movement a terror group despite its victory in 2006 elections.

He was unable to secure a ceasefire or a prisoner exchange for an Israeli soldier seized by Gaza militants in 2006, but on Monday Carter said Hamas told him it would recognise Israel's right to exist such a deal was approved by a Palestinian vote.

Just hours later Meshaal told a press conference in Damascus that Hamas would not recognise the Jewish state and would insist on the right of return for 4.5 million Palestinian refugees.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080423112836.vw3o9562&show_article=1

[Behind the Aegis]

9. Interesting perspective. n/t

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Wow - whoever wrote that is one of the fucking dumbassest of all fucking dumbasses.