[Question_Assumptions]

What the press really ignores, however, is how much of Carter's foreign policy ineptitude is directly related to our current problems in the Middle East. Carter didn't stop Lebanon from descending into a perpetual war zone. Carter lost Iran to Muslim extremists. Carter's response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was to boycott the Moscow Olympics. Carter did nothing to deter the Iran-Iraq war. Carter's great accomplishment, his treaty between Israel and Egypt, set the tone of "land for peace" that has not only made a mess of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but Sadat was assassinated, in part, over it and Egypt hasn't been as moderate since. Yeah. Great president. I don't think the US could have survived a second term. We'd all be pledging alegence to a hammer and sickle.

[Paradox]

Carter's response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was to boycott the Moscow Olympics.

I read somewhere that the reason the Soviets went into afghanistan in the first place was that they KNEW Carter would do nothing about it... thus the Mujahedeen, which we, at the time, had to support, thus the Taliban, thus Al-Qaida, thus 9-11..