The Liberty Daily 
James Earl Carter, Jr. passed away Sunday, December 29th, 2024 at the age of 100, making him the longest-lived former President in U.S. history. He leaves behind a legacy of work with Habitat for Humanity for which he should be commended. But until the presidencies of Obama and Biden, Carter’s presidency was remembered as one if not the worst in our nation’s history. Carter left office with double-digit inflation and a crippled economy, American hostages in Iran, an American military he’d stripped to the bone, Soviets in Afghanistan, and a single dollar gained from the sale of one of America’s greatest achievements, the Panama Canal, to Panama. He also left a mess in Central America.
Some will point to Carter’s Camp David Accord as a crowning achievement in Middle East politics, but here’s the full story. Carter became aware of Sadat and Begin’s agreement, worked out over several years, and quickly invited the men to the White House separately. When the men arrived, each was shuttled into the Oval Office and then both, to their surprise, were pushed out into the Rose Garden where Carter had press waiting and a table with an “agreement” on it to sign. It was all for show. Both men were furious that Carter was taking credit for the work they had done independently to arrive at peace. And perhaps the largest tell that this peace between Israel and Egypt did not involve U.S. meddling is the fact that peace has remained intact for so long. Yet the press covered for Carter, as they likely will in the days to come, claiming he is a foreign policy genius. But there remains a nagging Middle East issue that suggests otherwise: Iraq and Iran.
Carter’s weakness sowed the seeds for the Iran-Iraq war. Additionally, the Shah of Iran, a U.S. ally, was overthrown on his watch, paving the way for the return of Ruhollah Kohmeini from exile. Kohmeini became Supreme Leader of Iran and ushered in Sharia. That took the very modern society of Iran back to the 7th century religiously and culturally. Iran viewed American as the locus of evil and a target for jihad. Ayatollah Kohmeini called for militant uprising of Islamic forces worldwide against non-Muslims, specifically the U.S. The Iran-Iraq War began in late 1980, and would rage for 8 years, costing the lives of an estimated half million Iraqis and Iranians. The peace basically returned everything to a pre-war status quo. It also left Saddam Hussein with ambitions to dominate the region in the near future. Ultimately, that became Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait that dragged the world into the Gulf War.
In South America, we see an almost immediate Communist influence in central America following Carter’s 1977 sale of the Panama canal. On Carter’s watch, El Salvador splintered into a civil war in which Soviet-backed Marxists overthrew the government. Similarly, the Marxist Sandinistas overthrew Nicaragua. Much of the poverty of this region is due to these wars and Communist control that was made far easier by loss of control of the canal. That facilitated Soviet supply to the region. The U.S. is feeling the latent effects of Communism in that region as illegal immigrants from this region flood across our Southern border into our cities.
On a positive note, Carter’s deregulation of home brewing, largely provoked to keep his home-brewing brother Billy out of hot water with the Feds, led to an expansion of smaller breweries such as Samuel Adams in Boston. That may prove the one shining accomplishment of his presidency. Just don’t be taken in by claims there is much more to admire of Carter’s time in office. We’ve been paying a large price as a nation for his four years. Perhaps we can correct his Panama Canal decision in the months to come. So long, Jimmy.
