Posted on 12/07/2002 9:57:41 AM PST by GeneD
With the prospect of war looming in Iraq, an Emory student asked former President Jimmy Carter the other day whether he might mediate any current conflicts in the Middle East.
After all, Carter is to receive the Nobel Peace Prize next week for brokering peace between Egypt and Israel in 1978 and for tackling vexing disputes in places such as Haiti, North Korea and Sudan.
Carter dodged the question by assuring the class he was happy in Plains, and his aides doubt he will play a role in Iraq. It is not a situation, they said, that meets his criteria for injecting himself in as a negotiator or mediator.
Carter typically involves himself in disputes only when he is invited. He also tends to seek the blessing of the U.S. president before negotiating, and few believe the Bush administration would support an initiative by Carter on Iraq.
Yet when Carter does mediate, he brings a unique style and set of skills, said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian and Carter expert.
Aides who have witnessed negotiations involving Carter describe a persistent man who masters detail and stays calm in tense circumstances. They talk about his "therapeutic ability" to listen and understand other points of view. He also can suspend judgment of unsavory characters to focus only on topics that will generate results.
His critics dismiss him as a well-intentioned but naive meddler who cozies up to dictators. They say he puts too much faith in negotiated agreements without realizing that tyrants often break their word. His diplomatic forays as an ex-president have included several trips that accomplished little, they say.
Brinkley said the combination of Carter's personal skills and tenure as U.S. president position him well. While president, Carter received widespread praise, especially in developing countries, for his emphasis on human rights and for brokering peace between Egypt and Israel.
Carter began those meetings with the view that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin would reach an agreement, a position that seemed naive to advisers such as William Quandt, a Middle East expert on Carter's National Security Council and author of a book on Camp David.
Many aides thought the U.S. should draft a proposal as a starting point, but Carter let Sadat and Begin write their own proposals. He insisted Sadat and Begin meet in person. Those sessions quickly went nowhere, and Carter shifted gears.
The United States wrote a draft proposal, after all, and Sadat and Begin went to separate cabins. Carter shuttled between them, personally writing and revising proposals and counterproposals. Once, Sadat told his negotiators to pack because agreement seemed unlikely. Carter persuaded him to stay. Another time, Begin got up to go home. Carter blocked him from leaving the room.
Carter gained credibility because he had mastered even the most minor details -- names of villages and bridges and hills.
"He knows the Holy Land and Middle East better than any politician in the United States," Brinkley said.
The former president capitalized on his success at Camp David after he left the White House.
In 1987, at a time when Syrian President Hafez Assad would not meet with U.S. diplomats in that country, Carter went to Syria and told Assad that "was no way to treat the greatest nation on Earth," said Kenneth Stein, a professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Emory University. Three weeks later, Assad met with the U.S. representative, Stein said.
Carter also was instrumental in assuring a peaceful transfer of power in Nicaragua. Experts doubted in 1989 that Nicaragua would hold free and fair elections the following year, but Carter gained the trust of both sides in meetings over a period of six months.
In Haiti in 1994, as U.S. paratroopers were en route to invade, Carter persuaded the ruling military junta to step aside. He also received recognition for averting a possible war on the Korean peninsula that year.
Carter went to North Korea amid rising concern that the Communist regime was trying to develop a nuclear weapon. He set aside his opinion of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung because calling attention to his human rights record would have lessened chances for agreement, said Marion Creekmore, a former U.S. diplomat.
One afternoon, a few hours after he struck a deal with Kim, known in North Korea as the "Great Leader," Carter listened as top North Korean military experts and diplomats tried to "wiggle back" from the agreement.
"Carter was calm and focused," Creekmore said. "He said, 'Am I to take it that you're making the decisions in this country and not your Great Leader?' " They backed down, and Carter announced an agreement: North Korea pledged to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for U.S. help getting oil and less-dangerous nuclear reactors. It averted a war, but critics assailed Carter a few months ago when North Korea announced it had developed nuclear weapons after all.
He reprised his Camp David role in 1999, when he shuttled between presidents to secure a peace deal between Sudan and Uganda. He secured a cease-fire in Sudan's civil war in 1995 so health workers could fight disease, but his attempts to find lasting peace proved elusive in Sudan, Bosnia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
"He fails constantly," Brinkley said. "But by talking peace and setting himself up for failure, he shows unbelievable courage. The effort shames other politicians."
Very nice. Anymore, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is the kiss of death. With the scumbags that are getting the award these days, I would refuse to accept it.
Hey, Jimmy, how's your buddy Mugabe in Zimbabwe doing?
He's not that benign.
THIS critic of cartbilly prefers to characterize him as an evil, disingenuous waste of skin.
Yes, and we all know how peaceful those places are today as a result.
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