Jimmy Carter’s Mixed Record in the Middle East

SSome presidents of the United States have the (dis)fortune of having their entire foreign policy defined by their management of a part of the world. For Jimmy Carter, who died on Sunday, December 29, 2024, at 100 years old, it was the Middle East.

Here, he reached his highest point as a peacemaker and his lowest point as a seemingly inept protector of Americans. His legacy in the region is complex, with stunning triumphs and bitter defeats – and setting dubious precedents.

In November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel to seek peace, creating an opening for an agreement between the previously bitter enemies. In July 1978, however, the talks had stalled. In an attempt to revive them, Carter boldly proposed that he, Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin meet at the presidential retreat at Camp David in September.

Afterwards 13 days of arduous negotiations and diplomacy, Carter brokered Camp David Accords. The agreement had two parts: a framework for peace between Egypt and Israel, and a framework for negotiating Palestinian autonomy. Although Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in March 1979, talks of Palestinian autonomy ended nowhere, largely due to Israeli intransigence.

This left a mixed legacy for the agreement.

On the one hand, it ended the threat of conflict between Israel and the strongest Arab state, thereby drastically reducing the chances of another large-scale Arab-Israeli war like those that occurred in 1967 and 1973. it not only prevented mass casualties and destruction, but also reduced the possibility of a nuclear war between the superpowers – something that seemed possible during the 1973 war when there was a nuclear clash between the United States and the Soviet Union.

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On the other hand, Egypt’s peace with Israel has upset the Palestinians, depriving them of their greatest source of pressure on Israel to negotiate fairly. In addition, the United States has repeatedly missed o game over the opportunity to involve the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the negotiations. When Carter’s ambassador to the United Nations, Andrew Young, secretly met with a representative of the PLO, Carter fired him. Carter later expressed regret for that decision, and he had understandable reasons because we don’t want to upset the Israelis – after all, without them, there could be no negotiations – or to suffer the potential domestic political costs of engaging the Palestinians. Still, the move marked Carter’s failure to engage seriously and directly with “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” or to sufficiently pressure Israel on Palestinian rights.

Carter also rejected Soviet attempts to engage in peace talks, which destroyed the possibility of securing a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, as historian Galen Jackson argues in his history. recent book. Without Soviet involvement, there was no way to bring other Arab nations to the table, making a broader agreement and regional peace impossible. But Cold War considerations won everything for Carter, and instead of working on a peace agreement, the Soviets united with the Arabs to oppose the Egyptian-Israeli peace.

While Carter was preoccupied with carrying out Egyptian-Israeli talks and negotiating a strategic nuclear arms deal with the Soviets, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, America’s closest partner in the Middle East, faced a revolution at home, starting in November 1978. When he pushed his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, to encourage the Shah to use force against the opposition, Carter refused, and the Shah abdicated in January. Ultimately, the radical Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took power and transformed Iran from a close American ally into a staunchly anti-Western force in the region, despite the Carter administration. efforts to develop positive relationships with the new government.

Iran’s collapse added to the anxiety of America’s other partners in the region, especially Saudi Arabia, who were not sure that the United States would support them if the revolution reached their doorstep. This fear was punctuated by a border conflict between the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and its southern Marxist neighbor, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) in February and March 1979, which threatened the security of Saudi Arabia . Hoping to reassure US allies, Carter ordered a Navy carrier to the Gulf of Aden and used a congressional waiver to expedite the shipment of weapons to the YAR. That conflict ended in a ceasefire in mid-March.

Although short-lived, this crisis, sometimes called the Second Yemeni War, was a turning point for Carter’s Middle East policy which signaled his increased openness to military intervention. This desire stemmed from the administration’s impression that the Persian Gulf was vital to American security, that the situation was quickly spins out of control and what is it could only be rectified through a a stronger pro-American security architecture in the region – what Brzezinski called “consultative security framework.” Accordingly, the administration also engaged a drastic increase in the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia as part of a recognition of its large role in American interests in the region, especially through its oil production.

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Carter’s strength would be tested again later that year when, on November 4, Iranian student protesters seized the American embassy in Tehran and took 60 US embassy staff and expatriates hostage, freeing only some of the African-American and female prisoners in a show. of solidarity. Despite tireless diplomatic efforts to free the hostages, 52 Americans languished in captivity in Iran for 444 days—a colossal embarrassment for the Carter administration (although recent report has renewed debate about whether the Reagan campaign could have quietly signaled to Iran not to release the hostages while Carter was in office).

To make matters worse, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in late December 1979, marking the end of the period of improved Soviet-American relations known as détente. The Soviets he had become cautious of American movements in the Middle East and feared that Afghanistan could become an American proxy on its border.

Western intelligence agencies were shocked by the invasion and American politicians worried that the Soviet Union could be caught to control the Persian Gulf and its oil, through Iran or Saudi Arabia. This possibility represents a significant threat to American interests, since it raised the specter of worsening the existing oil crisis caused by the Iranian Revolution, and prompted Carter to enact what has been known –much to his dismay– like the “Carter Doctrine”.

In his January 23, 1980 State of the Union AddressCarter clearly stated that “An attempt by any outside force to take control of the Persian Gulf region will be considered an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

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The Carter Doctrine set the stage for a more militant American policy toward the Middle East and created a political logic that allowed the disastrous April 1980. attempt to free the hostages in Iran (the first offensive US military action in the region since 1958), the even more catastrophic US intervention in Lebanon between 1982 and 1984, the 1991 Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Carter also helped create basic system and diplomatic relations necessary to project American power in the Middle East, a fact that was previously much more difficult due to the lack of American bases and forces in the region.

What, then, is Carter’s Middle Eastern legacy?

He was a peacemaker, but he could not end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – something he I urged his successors to recognize a Palestinian state.

He believed in moderation, but ended up looking weak to many Americans, which contributed significantly to his defeat in 1980.

He was a human rights advocate and a reluctant interventionist, but he paved the way for decades of American policy excesses in the Middle East, including unjust wars and torture.

This mixed record reflects not only the complexity of Carter, but also the difficulty of the region and the cross-pressures that face American policymakers as they determine a course in the Middle East.

Benjamin V. Allison is a PhD student in history at the University of Texas at Austin, where he specializes in US foreign and national security policy since 1945, particularly toward the Middle East and Russia. He also studies terrorism. Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here.