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Editor’s note: WND asked Nicholas Butterfield to interview bests-selling author Mike Evans about his latest book, “Jimmy Carter: The Liberal Left and World Chaos.”
Question: Did the emergence of Barack Obama and the probability of a 2008 Democratic victory prompt you to write “Jimmy Carter: The Liberal Left and World Chaos”?
Answer: In January 2007, I was invited to northern Iraq on a state visit by Prime Minister Massoud Barzani. While there, I was able to visit some of the areas so devastated by Saddam Hussein’s chemical attacks, and talk with some of the victims. Saddam Hussein’s WMDs decimated their villages and destroyed every living thing touched by the murderous chemicals. The women, today still clad head-to-toe in black, continue to mourn the loss of husbands, children, fathers, mothers, sons and brothers. Their only link to their loved ones may be an old photograph. Many survivors are not even able to visit a gravesite; the bodies of their loves ones were incinerated, thus preventing the widows from remarrying according to Muslim law.
Those left behind recounted how Iraqi planes dropped gas-filled canisters over the Kurdish city of Halabja, which at the time was held by Iranian troops. Accustomed to taking shelter underground from Iranian warplanes, the families in Halabja took refuge in basements across the city. What they could not know was that the gas would seek the lowest places in the city. The basements literally became death chambers for those seeking asylum. It is estimated that more than 5,000 residents of Halabja perished as the gas spread over the city, and from the complications of inhaling the foul concoction. One heartbreaking scenario after another was revealed to me by these precious people with shy smiles and haunted eyes, many of whom had lost everything. This encounter fueled my determination to research the presidency of Jimmy Carter to determine how his one term in office opened the door for the terrorism which we battle today.
As the research and writing progressed, it became more apparent that America was about to elect another Jimmy Carter as president. Barack Obama had a senate track record as the most liberal member of that august body. Obama’s worldview is one of globalism. Addressing the crowd in Berlin and uplinked to news media around the world, Obama declared his candidacy as the globalist president, the candidate of the New World Order: “People of Berlin – people of the world – this is our moment. This is our time.” Obama’s followers prefer to believe that, as president, he will be able to resolve all of the world’s problems with a swish of the pen. Unfortunately for Mr. Obama, these problems have plagued the planet since time immemorial: wars, hunger, fear, greed, paucity, and disease. His speech in Berlin and his egomania simply opened the door for a myriad of questions regarding his presidency. Only time will reveal whether President Obama’s policies will be as disastrous for the American people as were Jimmy Carter’s.
Q: In reading your book, I found it impossible to miss the parallels between the Carter administration and current Obama administration. For instance, in chapter three you talk about Carter’s “foot-dragging” in taking over a month to get the White House in order. Well, here we are, over a month into the Obama administration, and the president’s Cabinet is still incomplete. Are we heading for Jimmy Carter-type crisis of leadership?
A: While the media was enthralled with Jimmy Carter before his election, the love affair soon turned sour. Carter degenerated from media darling to laughing-stock. The liberal media today is much more entrenched, much more pro-active in promoting their Liberal Left candidate of choice. It is highly likely that Barack Obama will be given a much longer rope and therefore more time to reach a crisis point in his administration. Yes, I believe we are headed for a Jimmy Carter-type crisis of leadership; but I also believe that the American people will be dumbed-down by the liberal media to the point that it may not be realized for months.
Q: You outline Jimmy Carter’s lack of a basic clarity and cohesiveness in his foreign policy leadership. In regards to Iran, the U.S. operated through four conflicting voices – the White House, the State Department, the National Security Council, and the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. What advice would you have President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, in helping them avoid a repeat of the Carter-Vance-Sullivan foreign policy incoherency?
A: My first inclination would be to say that the president needs to stay in the White House long enough to actually get some work done and stop jetting around the country on his new toy, Air Force One. That said, I think there must be cohesive cooperation among the various departments. This is not the time for department heads to play one-upmanship with the future of America and the world. There must also be accountability among these leaders. Sullivan seemed to be playing his own game in Iran; Carter was clearly out of his element in international politics and was more concerned with his own agenda than with what the future may hold for American interests abroad; Vance apparently went along with whomever held the most sway at the moment.
Q: Is the jury really still out on Jimmy Carter, or was he the worst president in modern American history?
A: In my opinion, Jimmy Carter was the worst president in modern American history, contrary to what the polls currently say. Under Jimmy Carter’s watch, the most loyal U.S. ally in the Middle East was deposed; Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviets; Iran was invaded by Iraq (the consequences of which are documented in an earlier chapter); an Islamic revolution seized Iran and sent it crashing backward, unleashing a societal collapse which still grips the country.
In Iraq, Saddam Hussein, fearing no U.S. involvement or intervention, targeted the northern Kurdish people in a horrific experiment to determine the effectiveness of his chemical weapons program. Carter signed the Algiers Accords assuring Iran that the U.S. would not intervene politically or militarily in its affairs. This provided an open door for Iran’s leaders to thumb their collective noses at its detractors and pursue paths that continue to endanger the rest of the world. It allowed Iran the freedom to fund terror activities that threaten the West.
Q: The liberal left seems to be in agreement that negotiating with – or at least cooperating with – terrorists/rogue world leaders is effective. But Jimmy Carter tried to do it (secretly) with the Ayatollah and failed miserably. Can Obama do better with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
A: It is impossible to reason with the unreasonable, and that describes Ahmadinejad. He is an unreasonable man with an agenda which he has stated repeatedly: wipe Israel off the map and bring America to her knees in obeisance to Islam. He is a disciple of the ayatollah and determined not be give an inch to demands from the West. Ahmadinejad has thumbed his nose at any and all attempts to persuade him to halt his rush toward nuclear arms. I believe Obama will meet the same end as did Carter with Khomeini, and who knows what it will cost America.
Q: Is the Obama administration forced to negotiate with the current extremist Iranian government, now that the country presents a definitive nuclear threat?
A: Obama must be prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect America from the likes of extremists such as the Iranian government. My fear is that he will capitulate as did Carter when faced with having to make a decision of whether or not to stand up to Iran. Carter was determined to be a passive, anti-war president whatever the cost. And the cost was great.
Q: I find Iraq’s Prime Minister al-Maliki in an eerily similar position to the one you describe for the Iranian Shah in the mid 1970s, who then boldly declared that “The Americans will never abandon me.” As you show in your book, Jimmy Carter decided to abandon the Shah, and the Iranian government fell apart. Obama has indicated that he plans to begin withdrawing American military support from Iraq. Is the Iraqi government stronger than the 1970s Iranian government, or will history repeat itself in Iraq?
A: I believe when America withdraws its last troops from Iraq, Iran will respond much as Saddam Hussein did in 1980, with a frontal assault in order to expand its Islamic revolution. History has proven that these fundamentalists are willing to wait for however long it takes, and use any means available to achieve an end. The first World Trade Center attack was in 1994. When it failed, bin Laden and his minions were content to wait seven years before launching another, and infinitely more successful, attack against America. The Iranians, I fear, are biding their time until there is no longer a fear of immediate American retaliation should Iran overrun Iraq. I have long said that the bloodshed would be unimaginable were that to happen. The Sunni and Iraqi Christian population would be targeted, as would every Iraqi who in any way supported the Americans in Iraq. The Kurds would likely be targeted by both Turkey and Iran. The Iraqi may be reaching the point where they could keep order within the confines of Iraq, but would be quickly routed should an attack come from the outside.
Q:America was exposed to the world as impotent during the Iran hostage crisis. You show convincingly in your book that the real reason for American impotency was President Jimmy Carter. Is Carter’s disastrous leadership to blame for emergence of fanatical Islam, or was it inevitable?
A: The emergence of fanatical Islam was likely inevitable because it hard to keep a lid tightly closed on a boiling cauldron. It is conceiveable, however, that under a less liberal president, the spread of terrorism might have been checked before it reached the proportions it has today. Not only did Jimmy Carter succeed in making America a laughingstock in the Middle East under his administration, he has continued to play the buffoon by dealing directly with America’s enemies. He blatantly ignores calls from the State Department to cease his self-subscribed role as mediator. It is time for Mr. Carter to retire from public view and allow those charged with the job of mediation do their jobs.
Q: You describe how Jimmy Carter campaigned on the “human rights” platform. However, his foreign policy leadership seemed to only hurt the “human rights” cause. He plunged Iran into a new dark age, and allowed Afghanistan to be infiltrated by the USSR. Did he really do anything during his presidency to help “human rights”?
A: Mr. Carter’s term in office did, in my opinion, absolutely nothing to advance the cause of human rights. Perhaps the most telling quote in my book came from former Empress Farah Pahlavi: “What happened to those who cared so much for human rights? How come when the shah left, the Iranian people didn’t have any rights anymore? What happened to the women? … Flogging, stoning, amputations, insults, all the killing of not only women, children, workers, intellectuals, and whoever even comes outside to demonstrate peacefully for their salaries. … the head of the bus drivers, they took him and they cut his palms. … They took his family to jail, his wife and his children of three or four in the jail. There is oppression, which exists in the name of religion in Iran. What happened to those who cared?” What, indeed? Mr. Carter’s human rights policies left a bloody trail of innocent victims … from Iran to Nicaragua to Afghanistan, and beyond.
Q: President Obama also campaigned on “human rights,” and shut down Guantanamo Bay as his first order of business as president. Was this action a victory for human rights, or is the U.S. reverting back to the foreign policy weakness of the Jimmy Carter days?
A: It is, I believe, a reversion to the foreign policy weaknesses of the Jimmy Carter days. With nations around the world rightfully leery about taking terrorists into their penal system, and with what John McCain called the “NIMBY” (not in my back yard) syndrome in the U.S. there seems to be little option for the foreseeable future other than to keep Guantanamo open. Even the home countries of those prisoners who have been cleared for repatriation are wary of allowing them to return. The question has become: What do we do with these men who are too dangerous to turn loose on the world? The closing of Guantanamo may well be a victory for “prisoner rights,” but could be disastrous for the “human rights” of the world at large.
Get Mike Evan’s latest – “Jimmy Carter: The Liberal Left and World Chaos”
