Posted on 06/24/2025 1:03:26 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
He gave us the Ayatollah. We’re still trying to clean up his mess.
On January 20, 1977, President Jimmy Carter was inaugurated. He was handed a gift, cultivated by the hard work of previous presidents and their administrations. That gift was two pillars of stability for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East: Israel and Iran.
Yes, you read that right. Israel and Iran. The two countries that are currently at war. It will shock younger people to learn that Israel and Iran were once our two top allies in the Middle East, but thus they were. Ask Middle East scholars and they’ll tell you. Israel and Iran were our two top allies in the region, period. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.
When Jimmy Carter left the presidency merely four years later, Iran was no longer our ally. It had become our worst enemy in the Middle East. The country that in January 1977 had viewed America as its best friend and benefactor now burned U.S. flags in the streets and denounced us as “the Great Satan.” (RELATED: The Weekend Spectator Ep. 43: How Jimmy Carter Gave Us Iran)
The difference could not have been more dramatic and starker.
How did this happen? The answer is Jimmy Carter. Carter and his administration let the Shah of Iran fall, to be replaced by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the rest was history. It’s a history that has America at war with Iran today in June 2025.
What Carter Did
Laying out all the details of this Carter failure would require a book, but here, in a nutshell, is how things unfolded.
When Jimmy Carter became president, he inherited a superb U.S. relationship with Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, i.e., the Shah of Iran. There was a saying in the Nixon administration: “Whatever the Shah wants,...”
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Peanut Boy
He’s moved up the ladder in history though. Now he’s the second worst “President” we’ve ever had.
An incredible incompetent. The one positive we got out of his four years was the deregulation of the airlines. Other than that Carter was a complete disaster. God bless Reagan for many things, at the top was getting rid of this clown.
If you want respect for human rights in the Muslim world you need a secular strongman prepared to do what it takes to keep the barbarians at bay. Iran was relatively enlightened, free, westward-looking, prosperous, and our ally. It was not a dictatorship.
Carter threw it all away. He didn’t just fail to help the shah, he actively supported the ayatollah and pulled the legs from under the shah.
A little misleading. Most of the people hated us because we propped up the Shah in the first place. This makes it sound like Carter caused Iran to hate the USA. The seeds of that hatred were all planted by the CIA coup in the 50’s (operation Ajax), that ended up installing our preferred leaders in the first place to protect UK oil interests.
Carter had a weak response, but he didn’t cause it.
I read somewhere that Carter was trying to get the Shah to donate to his campaign. The Shah said no and that is when Carter and his cronies started to stir the pot in Iran.
It was his human rights campaign aimed at the Soviets. Didn’t do anything but led to Afghanistan. It’s our allies that paid the price. Remember he wanted to withdraw from Korea too early? Ahead of his time? Human rights are important. So is helping Korea becoming an Asian Tiger. Time to move out? You tell me.
I still put him at #1 with all the damage he did after he left the white house.
But alas, or at last, however one chooses, he’s dead but his disastrous foreign and domestic policies still haunt us.
Ah!!! Peanuts and Billy Beer during those times!
On the world stage Jimmy Carter was the village idiot…Jimmy Carter wanted to be liked. He was like a puppy dog who wanted to be told what a wonderful person he was.
bkmk
His farm economy helped destroy many family farms, the grain embargo against Russia, added to high inflation and interest rates, was devastating. Reagan couldn’t turn it around overnight. It wasn’t until his second term that the farm economy was looking up.
There were farmers that committed suicide because they lost everything, some lost the farm that their ancestors had handed down through several generations.
But worst of all was Carter’s fake Christianity: for example, a coward to call abortion murder and a sin.
Not just Carter, but Clintooon, Bath House Barry, and Slo Joe Biden.
So who gets a pass from you? Obama or Biden?
I'm pretty sure that Nixon & Ford's CIA was already helping the Shah's secret service make people disappear when Carter was elected. Whatever it took to keep the USSR from getting oil that we were getting.
Building Habitat for Humanity Homes caused damage?
The US was LOSIBG the Cold War EVERYWHERE in 1980. Reagan came in and ended it without a shot. Hmm, seems familiar. Jacksonian Presidents are THE BEST!
Could be it’s a tie with Obama, this isn’t hockey.
Too bad Carter did not see Iran nuclear bomb making ability blown up.
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