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Jimmy Carter | |
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| Born | 1 October 1924 Plains, Georgia, United States |
| Died | 29 December 2024 (aged 100) Plains, Georgia, United States |
| Political orientation | Liberalism |
| Political party | Democratic |
James Earl Carter (1 October 1924 – 29 December 2024) was a Statesian politician who served as the 39th President of the USA from 1977 to 1981 before losing the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan. Previously he served in the Georgia State Senate from 1963 to 1967 and as Governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. He was most well-known for signing the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), which was never ratified. Staunch anti-communist Zbigniew Brzeziński served as Carter's National Security Advisor and under his influence the Carter regime continued imperialist action undisturbed.
Presidency
Domestic policy
Carter played a key role in dismantling New Deal legislation with the deregulation of major industries including airlines, banking, trucking, telecommunications, natural gas and railways. He appointed Paul Volcker to the Federal Reserve, who drove up interest rates in order to combat inflation pushing the U.S. into the worst depression since the Great Depression. Carter's economic policies paved the groundwork for neoliberalism and started the characteristic brutal austerity cuts.[1]
Foreign policy
In 1977, Carter airlifted Moroccan troops to Zaire (now the DR Congo) to crush a rebellion against the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.[2] He provided support for Indonesia whilst it was invading East Timor, and support for Apartheid South Africa and the counterrevolutionary group UNITA in Angola. He also supported dictatorships in El Salvador, South Korea, and the Philippines as well as the genocidal Khmer Rouge. He instructed the CIA to bring down the Sandinista government of Nicaragua in 1979, which would later lead to the Contras, and spent $3 billion USD arming the Mujahideen against socialist Afghanistan, killing 1.5 million Afghans and leading to the creation of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.[1]
Carter continued the U.S. policy of backing the repressive monarchical regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in Iran and travelled to Iran in late 1977 to make a speech in support of the Shah, ignoring the rising unrest in the country and lauded it as "an island of stability in a turbulent region". The speech only served to intensify the unrest which ultimately led to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The U.S. continued plotting to influence Iran, going so far as to provide sanctuary for the deposed Shah, but before any plans could be made the U.S. embassy was stormed and Iran learned of U.S. plans from intelligence documents in the building. In response Carter froze Iranian assets in the U.S. and only paid compensation after Iran successfully sued the U.S. in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Carter regime made several more attempts at interfering in Iran, unsuccessfully launching Operation Eagle Claw to rescue embassy hostages, the failed Nojeh coup in 1980, and most notably incited Iraq under Saddam Hussein to invade Iran, although Carter himself denied knowledge of the latter.[3]
In 1979 Carter sold out Palestine by negotiating a deal between Israel and Egypt known as the Camp David Accords which excluded the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from the agreement. Israel supposedly promised to permit Palestinian self governance and end settlements but neither of these things happened leading Carter to declare that Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin had lied to him, yet Carter made no move to impose sanctions on Israel, abandoning Palestine to its fate.[1]
Post-presidency
Out of office Carter moved over time towards opposing the U.S. in many areas and dedicated himself to becoming a champion of human rights, which some see as him paying penance for his crimes as President. In 2006 he wrote Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid calling out Israel for their oppression of Palestine, whilst also calling for a two-state solution. He described the U.S. political system as an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery but called the Venezuelan electoral system the best in the world and defended the 2006 election of Hugo Chavez.[1]
Carter died on December 29, 2024 at his home in Plains, Georgia, having lived to the age of 100 making him the longest-lived U.S. president.[3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Chris Hedges (2024-12-31). "Don’t Deify Jimmy Carter" Popular Resistance. Archived from the original on 2025-01-04.
- ↑ William Blum (2002). Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower: 'A Concise History of United States Global Interventions, 1945 to the Present' (pp. 117–118). [PDF] Zed Books Ltd. ISBN 9781842772201 [LG]
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ivan Kesic (2024-12-31). "Jimmy Carter and his tainted legacy of hostility toward Islamic Republic of Iran" Press TV. Archived from the original on 2025-01-03.