But not everybody applauds Carter. The most stinging criticism has come from the neoconservatives who are President Bush’s biggest backers as he prepares for war with Iraq. They wonder why five guys in Norway get to play God and decide who’s a peacemaker. They think the Bushes, father and son, are more deserving because of their willingness to confront evil through the barrel of a gun rather than talk it to death the way Carter does. They accuse Carter of coddling dictators and note that he’ll be right at home with fellow Nobel laureates Yasir Arafat, the discredited Palestinian leader, and North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, who shared the prize with Henry Kissinger.
The Nobel committee didn’t help matters by announcing that the award to Carter was meant to underscore European dissatisfaction with Bush’s bellicose foreign policy. That made it almost too easy for the hawks to discredit the award and to lob broadsides at Carter and the peace wing of the Democratic Party. The dilemma for Democrats is that members of Congress, senior senators, even an ex-president cannot thoughtfully oppose war with Iraq without being labeled a peacenik and a throwback to the Vietnam era. Bush has Democrats cornered on foreign policy. They’re afraid to take him on, so they back him. Or they oppose him, but aren’t too loud about it. This lack of conviction alienates the Democratic base, which yearns for leaders who will stand up to the president.
Bush, too, is cornered. He has talked of nothing but war for months now, and his dilemma is driven by the weather. The window for war shuts in mid-February, and Bush cannot sustain this level of frenzy for another year. Public support for a confrontation with Iraq is already waning, yet Bush can’t afford to look weak. What matters to Bush is the application of power. Diplomacy is for sissies.
Carter represents the antithesis of the Bush Doctrine. Yet Carter settled a hostage crisis peaceably even though its long duration cost him his presidency. A failed rescue mission to liberate American hostages held in Iran was Carter’s worst moment as president. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national-security adviser, had urged him to bomb Tehran so that if the risky rescue mission failed, it would be a sidebar to the larger story of the military strike. Carter rejected the advice, and he also wondered if the Special Forces leading the raid could use stun guns on the radical Iranian students holding the Americans hostage in the U.S. Embassy rather than kill the young men. The Islamic revolution that took hold in Iran during Carter’s presidency is just now, two decades later, loosening its grip, a cautionary tale to those who suppose democracy will trump theocracy in the Middle East.
When Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan in 1979, Carter couldn’t believe the Soviet foreign minister would sit across from him in the Oval Office and lie about his country’s intentions. Carter declined to intervene militarily while various news commentators ridiculed him for his naivete in trusting the Russians. He pulled American athletes out of the Olympic games scheduled the following year in Moscow, and he angered farmers by barring American grain sales to the Soviet Union. But he didn’t do anything that didn’t come under the broad heading of diplomacy. A decade later, the Soviets left Afghanistan, their army decimated and defeated, and the cold war ended without a missile being fired.
Carter believes in conflict resolution, which means that even dictators get to save face. It is not a foreign policy that Rush Limbaugh and the right-wing radio crowd can embrace. When Carter left office in January 1981, the United States had an image problem. Vietnam made political leaders in both parties fearful of foreign entanglements, and the rest of the world suspected America was a paper tiger, all growl and no bite. Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 on a platform of strength, and Republican presidents have campaigned and governed in his aura ever since. The Democratic Party is torn between the legacy of President Kennedy, who was not afraid to face down the Soviets or commit troops, and George McGovern, whose 1972 antiwar campaign proved an albatross for the Democrats they have yet to shake loose from. Even though McGovern was a World War II bomber pilot and was proved right about the folly of Vietnam, the stereotype of the far-left flower child stuck.
Politicians shouldn’t avoid war at all costs. But if they oppose war with Iraq for good and valid reasons, they shouldn’t be pegged as part of the loony left just because they’ve got a D after their name. Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran, spoke out against the war and then voted for Bush’s war resolution. He wasn’t accused of seeking political cover the way Democrats John Kerry and Tom Daschle were after making identical arguments and then supporting their president.
The dogs of war are straining at the leash. Bush’s only way out is if Saddam is overthrown or assassinated. The administration can pray that happens, but they can’t build policy on a prayer. The same neocons who denigrate Carter’s peace prize look upon the United Nations as an encumbrance to war. Just as they sneer at the Norwegian panel, they wonder why the likes of France and China should have veto power over the world’s only superpower. Carter sees the global picture.
