June 16, 2006

A Tale of Two Presidents

President Bush, according to recent public opinion surveys, is emerging as America’s worst President in the six decades since World War II. In contrast, President Jimmy Carter’s image is steadily improving.
To celebrate Islam’s 1400 years in November 1979, Carter proposed a resolution to the US Congress to salute Islam’s achievements and its contributions to world civilization. This resolution was passed by the US Senate on October 16, 1979. In this connection, President Carter had also formed a Committee to celebrate Islam’s 14th Centennial.
27 years later, President Bush stood at the US Military Academy at West Point, to warn the newly commissioned officers that Islamic radicalism is now the enemy. He compared it to the threat of Communism against which America had to enter into a “long struggle” that “would require the determination of generations of Americans.”
Some useful comparisons need to be made between the results of the policies of President Carter (America’s 39th President) and President George W. Bush (43rd US President).
Under President Carter’s watch, no American was killed (aside from fatalities suffered in the failed hostage rescue operation of April 1980 in Iran), in the 444-day hostage crisis from November 1979 through January 1981 in Tehran. Under Bush’s watch, over 2500 US troops have been killed in Iraq, and at least 18,000 US soldiers have been injured. While Carter was identified with human rights, Bush has been identified with the unwise use of US military power. While Carter’s legacy is respected today, both internationally and in the US, the Bush Administration has substantially lost even the respect of influential elements within the US Establishment.
Carter believed in conciliation while Bush seems bent on confrontation. Carter believed that the root cause of the Middle East conflict was the injustice done to the Palestinian people. Bush, on the other hand, has rejected the outcome of the Palestinian elections, which Carter has certified as “honest, fair, strongly contested, without violence and with the results accepted by winners and losers.”
Carter’s Middle East policies were substantially made in America, but Bush’s Middle East policies appear to be made in Israel. Carter engaged the Muslim world, while Bush has antagonized the Muslim world. Bush is constantly praised by the pro-Israeli Lobby, while President Carter and his late brother, Billy Carter (who was a close friend of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi), were constantly criticized.
It may be pertinent to mention that it was during President Carter’s time that President Sadat undertook his risky journey to Israel in November 1977. And it was during Carter’s time that the Camp David Accords were signed – which, though far from satisfactory, did lead to Israel’s complete withdrawal from Egypt. The policies of President Bush are causing a backlash against Israel and a hardening of attitudes. Despite concessions made to Israel from the upper elites of the Muslim world, key religious leaders from many Muslim countries met during May 2006 at Doha, Qatar, and issued a joint statement declaring that no part of Palestine could be ceded or negotiated away and that “Palestine is a religious issue, and not just a political one, and affects all Muslims.”
It demonstrates that the policy of using force to subjugate legitimate resistance in the Muslim world may never work.
Bush’s brand of Christianity has created an environment of fear and suspicion against Muslims, while Carter’s Christian beliefs were based on humanity and amity for the Muslim world. Bush has tolerated the Russian occupation and atrocities in Chechnya (declaring that “the Chechen issue is Russia’s internal affair”) while Carter took a stand after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and led the boycott of the Moscow Olympics of 1980.
More recently, Carter has condemned the US-Indo nuclear deal, which Bush has endorsed and supports.
In assessing both Presidents, the question has to be asked who made Americans feel more insecure, Bush or Carter? Under whose watch was the world a safer and more stable place? Whose Presidency is a darker chapter of American history?
Despite what may differentiate them, there is one significant similarity between Carter and Bush. The tenures of both as President were dominated by events in the Persian Gulf. Carter’s Presidency was ruined by Iran.While Iraq may be President Bush’s own Waterloo.