Posted on 09/22/2009 9:27:55 AM PDT by nickcarraway
SNIP
If Carter hadn't let the Shah be overthrown in 1979, "there wouldn't be this problem in Afghanistan, nor would there have been the Iran-Iraq war," Pahlavi tells Avenue magazine. "Iraq would never have dared to even send a plane over our country. The Gulf War wouldn't have happened, nor would any of the problems of the past 30 years, including the exporting of religious fanaticism."
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
There are a lot of people who have no recollection of Carter throwing the Shah under the bus in 1979 (Anybody under 50). Every problem we currently have in the Middle East from Afghanistan to Iraq, to the IUsrael/Palestinian problem, to Hezbollah and Hamas can all be placed right at the feet of Carter who by the way was voted the most popular living ex-president. Those of us who are old enough to remember his disaterous foreign policy to double digit inflation, interest rates and unemployment are thankful he was voted out, but he probably should have been indicted for treason.
I agree. Jimmah was a one man national disaster and Barrack is not far behind. It will take a 100 years or more to undo the mischief these two arrogant narcissists caused.
It’s not like the widow of the Shah doesn’t have a vested interest in portraying the paradise that the Shah would have guaranteed - or that she isn’t engaging in wishful thinking. However, 30 years on, this is rather like arguing about the halcyon empire that would have existed if the Romulans and the Vulcans had never split. It’s more a matter of competing myths and faith than any testable hypothesis.
The Shah was much preferable to the islamic nutcases running (and ruining) Iran today, but he was not a benign figure by any stretch.
This is the single most obscene thing that has happened in my lifetime.
It teaches us to understand what happens when you put an appeaser in the white house.
Sarah Palin may be inexperienced, and McCain and the Huckabees buffoons, but they would NOT have abandoned the Shah or any ally the way Carter did.
And what did Carter get in return? His embassy is taken hostage.
We know now too, that Carter was cozy with the communists.
The worst president ever. EVER. Obama is not far behind.
Carter is still the title holder of the worst idiot of a president ever because of that, but Obama is really trying hard to snatch the title away, and just might succeed, depending on how he handles Afghanistan, Paki-Stan, Iraq and Iran.
He may just create a very large, multi-nation Muhammadan alliance of radical, nuclear armed Jihadists with the capability of delivering and nuking us at will, and bring about Armageddon.
That will definitely be the title clincher.
I can’t speak for the all the Presidents who preceded my lifetime, but in that brief span, nobody even comes close to Carter as the worst ever, although the jury will have a lot more time to evaluate the current occupant.
I would like to thank Carter for one thing, though. It was because of him that I proudly cast my first vote for Ronald Reagan and helped send Jimmuh packing.
The old peanut farmer was a train wreck for the United States and the world, I have come to realize it more with each passing year. That was a very good article which I agree with completely.
Good point.
Another thing we tend to forget is that Ayatollah Khomeini had a pretty large base of public support back in '79: the Shah was not a very nice a fellow, after all, and his secret police were brutal. The Shah was going to be overthrown. By the time Carter got involved, it was a question of whether or not to keep propping up the Shah, or trying to work with whoever overthrew him.
We can certainly note that the replacements for the Shah were far worse than who they replaced; and they absolutely took Carter to the cleaners, much to everybody's detriment. But let's also be honest.
As for the claims that "there would never have been" these various difficulties with Islamofascism, that's just not realistic. The Ayatollahs were/are products of a wider Islamofascist movement which was going to spring up in much the same way it actually has -- perhaps they would have appeared in Iraq, rather than Iran; or perhaps they would have overthrown Saudi Arabia. They're a culture at war with modernity; their exact location doesn't matter all that much.
“can all be placed right at the feet of Carter”
That mission in the desert. Eagle Claw.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/25/newsid_2503000/2503899.stm
I’m under 50 and was in high school at the time, I remember.
Otherwise, your statement is dead on right!!!
Me too!!! My first ever vote was for Ronald Reagan.
BY WHO???????
The brutality of the Shah’s regime is as much soviet communist propaganda as it is reality. Let’s also remember that it was directed at communists and religious extremists. You know, the ones we are fighting today.
I also do not know that it is a foregone conclusion that the Shah’s overthrow was inevitable. It was certainly inevitable in light of Carter’s mushy fecklessness and betrayals, much like the democratic betrayal of Vietnam.
However the only thing that was truly inevitable is that the Dems are untrustworthy fellow travelers of socialists and fascists everywhere and that they cannot be trusted with protecting American interests or security.
Former POTUS Carter was the worst leader of the 20th Century! This article addresses the root cause of all the problems of the middle east.
Just as Carter disavowed the Shah to buy friends with his replacement(Ayatollah); Dont underestimate Obamas ability to withdraw
from Afghanistan as a peace overture.
In November the saying was, “There are two kinds of voters: those who remember the Carter Administration and those who are going to find out what it was like.”
“Those of us who are old enough to remember his disaterous foreign policy”
And how easily it is forgotten that the KGB destabilized BOTH Afghanistan, and Iran, in their quest for a Blue-water port in the 70’s....
Jimmy Carter is Lincoln when compared to Obama. Obama bowing to the King of 911 says it all.
Agreed. It was a nightmare on all counts.
Yes, he threw the Shah under the bus. But I think it needs to be recognized that the history and problems related to the Shah in Iran go back a lot further than Jimmah's time on the scene. The situation in Iran at that time was much more complex than simply whether or not Carter supported him. It had been approaching powder keg status for years. The Shah brought a lot of it on himself, also.
Over ambitious westernization pushed by the Shah, brutal secret police who tortured and murdered, western meddling in Iran for decades which was resented by the population. Carter poured gas on the fire and then made it worse as fast as he could. But he was not responsible for the root causes of the population's discontent. He made it much worse, but whomever was in office was going lose on it, the question being, how badly. Obviously, it would have been very difficult to do a worse job than he did.
Separately, his handling of the hostage situation was criminal and disgusting. Every morning I got up wishing we had never heard of Jimmy Carter.
I went back and read some postings today, and some quick quips from the administration.
Here’s what we have... what do you think?
1. McCrystal perposely leaks his report to Woodward.
2. McCrystal then leaks that he will resign if troops not sent.
3. White House leaks that Obama is reassessing the mission.
4. Growing need for support for his healthcare bill and stimulus package.
5. Obama’s base is crumbling, pulling troops would be popular with this base.
Picture what will happen from a Wall Street Basis if he did this. I think it will immediately result in reduced confidence in this nation by those wishing to invest here and our allies.
Rush annoyed me a bit the other day by qualifying his statement. He said Carter was the worst President in the last 100 years.
0bama is turning out to be a skilled, competitive contender for that title. He may yet win it, but until then:
RUSH - CARTER IS THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER. EVER. Turn up the volume on that cochlear implant so you can hear me.
I know we kept the 4 “KIDD” class destroyers that Iran paid for. They were good ships and we used them like they were ours.
Also, the worst ex-president ever.
Another Carter factoid. KGB records showed that indeed the Soviet Union was ready to invade Poland in 1980 UNTIL it became clear that Reagan was going to win the election. Then they basically told the Polish Communists that even if they asked them, they would not send in troops. Had Carter won re-election, the Soviets may very well have invaded Poland.
We had also recently sold them some F-14s (with AIM-9s) before the Shah’s ouster but it is said that the American Grummen mechanics removed the advanced avionics before leaving the country.
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