Jimmy Carter

It was in the midst of the troubled final months of the Jimmy Carter era that Ronald Reagan won the presidency in the 1980 election. Carter's term was drenched in the murky, dirty waters of crisis and misery. Before, during, and after he took the oath of office in 1977, the economy was trapped in a net of amplifying inflation and worsening unemployment numbers. 1979 saw the introduction of two new issues: Iran, which had been modernizing into a semi-egalitarian secular state, erased all that progress and became a totalitarian Muslim theocracy. That would be bad enough, but anti-American college students would go on to ambush the US embassy in Tehran and keep all its residents hostage. Soon after, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, producing immense public pressure on Carter to take immediate, effective action. Carter still decided to run for reelection amidst this vast web of devastating problems, securing the Democratic nomination after a brief competition with Ted Kennedy. Reagan obtained the Republican nominee and went on to trounce Carter, winning nearly every state in the Union.

Soon after Reagan entered office, world conditions improved. The clouds began to disperse, with a sun of optimism and renewed hope shining down on America. Prices declined as employment rates soared. Anti-invasion forces in Afghanistan finally had some success in repelling the Soviet invaders. The Algiers Accords were signed, ensuring the emancipation of Americans held captive by Iranian rioters. For these reasons, Reagan was one of the most popular presidents in all of US history, easily winning reelection in 1984 and watching his hand-picked successor - George HW Bush - do the same against Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988. Ironically, however, many of the cheers and hoorahs enjoyed during the Reagan years had awful consequences down the line. Reagan siphoned the working class' money into the hands of a wealthy elite; some of the resistance forces in Afghanistan ended up forming the Taliban, exchanging Soviet evil for theocratic evil; Iranian-American relations remained and remain cold and hateful even after the Algiers Accords.

As the world deals with the corrosive legacy of Ronald Reagan, it would be interesting to look at his immediate predecessor: The oft-demonized Jimmy Carter. Carter has been lambasted as one of the worst presidents in the post-WW2 era, being derided for ineffectiveness, economic incompetence, and a soft weakness unable to confront real challenges. I disagree with this assessment. I believe that Carter was an above-average president who did many great things for the United States. For example, when Carter entered the presidency on January 20, 1977, the country was still reeling from the effects of the Vietnam War. Carter, realizing the problems that lay ahead, knew the country had to move on from the melancholic legacy of America's mistaken adventurism across North and South Vietnam. For this reason, on January 21, 1977, Carter formally pardoned everyone who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War.

Carter had other achievements regarding domestic policy. This rings especially true when considering his approach to civil rights. During the Great Depression, government agencies established to help banks and housing companies recover from the economic turmoil began a practice known as redlining: Communities largely populated with racial minorities (particularly black people) would be surrounded with literal red lines on maps used by mortgage lenders. The red line would symbolize that the community in question had a low average credit score, which would then be used as an excuse to deny mortgage applications made by people in that area. The practice was still very common and harmful by the time of Carter's inauguration. So, Carter signed the Community Reinvestment Act, a solution to the issue of redlining that required banks to help meet the financial needs of the region they operate in. By ordering banks to do this, Carter barred them from denying mortgages - a financial need - to minorities with decent credit scores. Carter also signed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, which repealed all remaining restrictions on indigenous faiths.

More than almost any other president, Carter pursued the protection of America's natural ecosystems. He promoted renewable energy over fossil fuels and other emitters of greenhouse gases, encouraging Americans to use nuclear and solar power instead of crude oil. He even installed solar panels on the White House. Overall, though, he was not successful in these endeavors. Incidents like the meltdown at Three Mile Island left politicians and the populace as a whole scared even to touch Carter's suggestions. In other areas, however, Carter's environmentalist message was heeded. Carter added tens of millions of acres to conservation and established the Department of Energy, a cabinet-level organization that, among other things, has worked to guide America to a more sustainable future. Additionally, Carter signed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, which requires open surface mines (mines that dig an enormous hole in the ground to search for minerals rather than implying digging tunnels underneath) to restore the areas they clear out once they finish mining.

Two other accomplishments in Carter's general domestic policy stick out: First, Carter established the Department of Education. As Reagan prepared to be sworn in as president, Carter also signed the Paperwork Reduction Act. The law sought to reduce the amount of busy work required of government employees. That sounds minor, but the method through which Carter's law pursued this end makes it so beneficial. The Paperwork Reduction Act said that no government agency or organ could collect data on the American people unless they had a clear reason to gather such information and a clear purpose of what they'd do with the knowledge. Even then, these intentions had to be presented to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs - chartered by the Paperwork Reduction Act - before going through with the acquisition of that data. The OIRA would only permit the data collection if it dubbed the intentions noble or important. The Paperwork Reduction Act (and by extension, Carter) greatly expanded the privacy of ordinary Americans.

Foreign policy also housed many of Carter's successes. On September 7, 1977, Carter met with Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos to sign a duo of treaties regarding the Panama Canal. In essence, the two treaties explained that come January 1, 2000, the Panama Canal would be restored to local control. The Torrijos-Carter Treaties not only reduced US imperialism and America's stranglehold on other countries but also improved the international reputation of the United States. Carter only signed the treaties to show that the US wasn't a power-hungry imperialist state incapable of warmth or compassion, a task he certainly succeeded in.

About a year later, on September 17, 1978, Carter, alongside Egyptian leader Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, signed the Camp David Accords. The Camp David Accords required Israel to withdraw all its forces from the Sinai Peninsula and required that Cairo and Jerusalem extend diplomatic recognition to each other. It also set up autonomous local Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Mostly brokered by Carter, the Camp David Accords has proven to be one of the most important and beneficial treaties in the modern history of the Middle East. By requiring the termination of Israeli military presence in traditionally Egyptian land and by ensuring both Egypt and Israel recognized one another, Carter dramatically reduced tensions in the Middle East. The last time Egypt and Israel ever even went to war (which used to be a common occurrence) was the Yom Kippur War in 1973, which the Camp David Accords was produced in response to! Palestine also enjoys some self-determination as well.

In 1979, Carter signed an important arms reduction treaty with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev called SALT (or Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) II. That same year, on January 1, 1979, Carter shifted America's foreign policy regarding East Asia. Soon after Mao Zedong took control of China in 1949, the remaining opposition forces under the right-wing Kuomintang fled for Taiwan (then a Japanese colony) and continued managing the Republic of China there. As that took place, Mao set up the People's Republic of China. Both names were deceptive, as Taiwan and China were brutally ruled by dictators Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-Shek respectively. However, after Chiang's death in 1975, Taiwan began to liberalize, while China remained a totalitarian state. Despite this, Carter decided to switch America's diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, a move I am deeply critical of. Carter did work to maintain de facto relations between the United States and Taiwan though, which I appreciate. But it was still wrong to support Beijing.

When I started writing this article, I mentioned the 3 main events Carter dealt with as president: The stagflation crisis, the Iran Hostage Crisis, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I believe that Carter responded reasonably well to all of these issues, though each reaction carried with it significant flaws. In the next few paragraphs, I will discuss these three crises one at a time. I'll start with the stagflation crisis: The US had been dealing with on-and-off inflation since 1969. In 1971, Richard Nixon instituted a 3-pronged response to the inflation. One of the policies he enacted with a suspension of the gold standard. If the US continued to follow the gold standard, Nixon's advisors warned, then countries using the US dollar could exchange American currency for American gold. That would reduce the amount of gold in the United States, a tragic loss due to gold's economic importance.

The suspension of the gold standard worsened inflation in economies using the US dollar. Since many of these economies were in the Middle East, this fact created tensions between the US and the Arab world. The final straw came when Nixon supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War, triggering an OPEC ban on the shipment of oil to America and many of its allies. Although the embargo was lifted on March 18, 1974, it still caused a massive reduction in the amount of oil in the US, reviving the inflation issue. Things got even worse when the Soviet Union bought huge reserves of American wheat. Nixon and Gerald Ford failed to address stagflation, as many have accused Carter of doing as well. However, many of Carter's policies helped address stagflation in the end.

On October 14, 1978, Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act, prohibiting the government from telling commercial jets when and where they could fly. 10 days later, he legalized the homebrewing of alcohol. He went on to sign the Motor Carrier Act - which did for truckers what the Airline Deregulation Act did for airplanes - and the Regulatory Flexibility Act, which requires all regulatory agencies to review new laws they sought to create or enforce and make sure that they don't disproportionately harm small businesses. These laws made production more efficient and so allows more goods to be made, reducing prices and resolving inflation. Carter also taxed fossil fuels and similar products, encouraging the creation of new, more renewable energy sources. The new influx of energy helped bring down prices as well.

As Carter began working to address inflation, a far-right theocratic government took control of Iran in April 1979. The new ruling class was extremely anti-American, emphasizing the pro-Western views of the shah, an unpopular leader who was overthrown by the same fundamentalists now oppressing the Iranian people. The shah's tyranny had been traded in for Ruhollah Khomeini's tyranny. In the autumn of 1979, Carter allowed the shah to visit New York City so he could receive cancer treatment there. The Iranian people were outraged. In retaliation, several Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held those inside captive, touching off the Iran Hostage Crisis. Already, I'm critical of Carter's actions immediately leading up to the Iran Hostage Crisis. He should have known how inflammatory and dangerous it was to accommodate the shah. However, the rest of his response was quite admirable.

Even as demands for war with Iran mounted, Carter wisely resisted the pressure. In April 1980, he initiated Operation Eagle Claw, in which the Carter White House dispatched helicopters driven by some of America's greatest military pilots and had them go to Tehran to rescue the embassy's hostages. Carter is often condemned for the failure of Operation Eagle Claw, but this isn't fair. Operation Eagle Claw collapsed because of bad weather (particularly sandstorms), not any incompetence on Carter's part. On his last full day in office, Carter's government signed the Algiers Accords on January 19, 1981. The Algiers Accords not only secured the release of the hostages and the payment of Iranian debts to the US but also improved the lives of average Iranians by terminating American sanctions against their country and prohibiting US interference in Iran's internal affairs.

In order to oust Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin, Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. The Soviet-Afghan War should have ended with Amin's assassination on December 27, 1979, but continued because various Muslim fundamentalist groups had merged to establish a militia called the Mujahideen in retaliation against the invasion. Carter, though by no means obliged to fight against Soviet imperialism in Afghanistan, still had a positive response: He angrily condemned the invasion and worked with the UN to supply Afghanistan's neighbors with the supplies they needed to deter future instances of Soviet aggression. He also banned Soviet fishing in American waters and boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, convincing Canada, West Germany, and Japan to do the same. I am, however, critical of Carter's decision to ban the shipment of grain and IT to the Soviet Union, as it hurt individual Soviets not culpable for the war. He did the same to Latin American dictatorships, making the already-hard lives of these countries' residents even worse.

Ultimately, I consider Carter to be a good president. While he lent unacceptable support and acknowledgment to the dictatorship of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, he also reduced tensions in the Middle East with the Camp David Accords, reduced US imperialism in Panama, crusaded for the environment, established the Departments of Education and Energy, halted redlining, gave Native Americans full religious freedom, and expanded all Americans' personal liberty by letting them create their own alcohol. Contrary to popular belief, he also helped resolve the many crises faced by the United States during his tenure. However, he also didn't take any major actions against inflation until 1978 and took far too long to liberate those held prisoners during the Iran Hostage Crisis. A good way of describing this facet of the Carter Administration would be, "Just enough, too late," in opposition to "too little, too late". In the end, he did what was necessary, just not early enough.