We feel for President Jimmy Carter a man who died at a ripe old age of 100 today. But the reality is different. A one-term president whose popularity rose after the corrupt demise of Richard Nixon and the invisibility of Gerald Ford who replaced Nixon as caretaker.

But a president who delivered America its greatest shame with the rise of Islamist Extremism in the overthrow of Iran by Ayatollah Khomeini and the taking of 53 US hostages after the storming of the US embassy in Tehran—followed by a botched rescue mission that ended in utter disgrace.

Carter did not bring peace between Israel and Egypt. Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel created that dream between them—and at peace these two nations remain today.

Glaringly for Carter, despite his bias, he never brought peace between Israel and Palestine—and here we are in another miserable war where Israel is criticised for trying to bring hundreds of its own hostages home from Hamas.

Carter’s greatest legacy in fact is the proliferation of Islamist Extremism via Iran throughout the world. Ironically, the pending doom of the Islamic Republic of Iran is now in motion promising a breath of fresh air for all who crave freedom of religion and equality for women. Yet, much pain will come before it is realised in 2025.

Carter’s ultimate disaster came with America voting him out and giving itself two terms of Ronald Reagan as president. A doddering fool of a superpower’s leader but one who heralded an economic golden era for the West in the 80s and the end of the Cold War in the 90s.

Like much history, however, revisionism today tries to paint Reagan as a saviour and Carter as a statesman. Further could be true for both.

© 2024 Adam Parker.

Picture credit: “October 13 1981 President Reagan meeting President Jimmy Carter in oval office”. White House Photographic Collection, public domain.