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Let's be clear before Jimmy Carter does any harm to the sole democracy in the Middle East, Israel. Israel's Arabs all have full citizenship in the country and full rights to vote and, if a plurality of their fellow citizens deems it appropriate, any Arab of appropriate age can become the Prime Minister of Israel. In the midst of attack from six neighboring countries in 1948, Israel reached out from Day 1 to her Arab minority in her Declaration of Independence which should be a model of enlightenment by anyone interested in democracy in the Middle East. In the same year, Jimmy Carter rode around in Plains, Georgia where black Americans could not eat in the same restaurant with him, sleep in the same hotel next to him, and most certainly could not vote with him. And today while the Hamas government is on its own in Gaza after being elected with the hall monitor, "my name is Jimmy Carter", saluting the victory.

Southern Provincialism Meets the Middle East

Southern Segregation was bad. Real bad. And the guilt of it has driven Jimmy Carter's political outlook ever since. Reaching out with love to black Americans, descendants of slaves who wanted nothing more than to be part of the USA was long overdue. And I'm sure your family line has much to feel guilty of.

But every issue in the world is not defined in the same terms. Or in South African terms. And in fact, Jimmy Carter's provincialism is what made his the worst presidency of our lives, and with a nuclear Iran on the horizon and emboldened terrorists who, let's not block it from our memories, took down the World Trade Center towers and would easily have done more if they could. Jimmy Carter's weakness emboldened the Islamic leaders who led the Iran Revolution and Jimmy's pie in the sky, "religious man to religious man" notes to the Ayatollah only made Iran realize the true weakness of America. It wasn't long before American hostages were taken from the embassy.

Today, Israel has 7 million citizens, 1.35 million of them Arab, all with equal rights. And another 1.4 million in the West Bank, that has claimed that it wanted independence and impunity to attack Israel. That 16% of the population in Israel and the West Bank and when you, Jimmy Carter, want to recommend that Israel annex it, then come talk to us how a democratic can bring in another 16% to solve a crisis Jimmy Carter created in the world. You heard me. And it is of no concern to Jimmy Carter that Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and most certainly not the Palestinian Authority have anything resembling a democracy. No Jimmy Carter has a fixation against Israel. In America, it's almost impossible to for any American not educated in the Middle East to display behavior to earn the title of anti-Semite. The USA has been so welcoming to the Jews in a mutual love affair since Jews began to entertain America and form a unique cultural bond with the heartland, but gosh you sure make a good case for it, President Carter. It amazes me that Israelis, known to for a bit of brusqueness, don't laugh at you when you show up to do harm, and they still run around treating you like a US President.

The Camp David Accords

Let's go back. As Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski and Cy Vance plotted an international Conference to drag concessions from Israel, Anwar Sadat of Egypt was alarmed at the naivite of Jimmy Carter who would bring the Soviet Union back into a strong positioning the Middle East. Anwar Sadat made the bold move (although it was a bold move Israel was always willing to make) and went to the Knesset. He received in return, the enormous Sinai Peninsula which was three times the size of Israel, he received oil wells producing a billion dollars of output a year, and for a deal Sadat had already decided to make, Jimmy Carter added $2 Billion a year in US Aid that was unnecessary. And with all of his USA pressure forced Israel out of each grain of Sinai sand, established a horrible precedent for future agreements when the USA had worked so hard to get UN Resolutions 242 and 338 passed which called for Israeli withdrawal from territory, not the territories. And by passing Israel $3 Billion a year, which I'm sorry to say, given the debts of the '73 War, and an Israeli economy of $30 billion a year and a budget around $20 Billion a year, it was the price by which Israel sold the Sinai Peninsula, for a bailout. (no one ever discusses the economics, but they are overwhelming) And Jimmy Carter added complication to the formula set by the UN. The resolutions did not call for establishment of another state. After all, Jordan sat on ¾ of the Palestine Mandate awarded by the League of Nations for a Jewish National home, and with the UN accepting all previous decision of the League has never changed the status of the original decision. It was the Arab who rejected the split statehood offer, and Jordan and Egypt grabbed the land for themselves that was meant for an Arab State. I'll give you a quarter if you can ever find Jimmy Carter becoming upset at these countries from challenging a Palestinian nationalism that simply didn't exits. Jimmy Carter resurrected it. So rather than focusing discussions with Jordan or Egypt, the nations from which Israel had captured the territory, Jimmy Carter pressured Israel to set up Palestinian Autonomy Zones in addition to her other mass concessions to Egypt. Jimmy Carter used the power of the USA to set in motion event for eventual creation of the Palestinian Authority, yet another freedom loving regime emphasizing Jimmy Carter's long love affair with dictators, excused of moral judgment.

The Carter Years

During the Carter years, something struck me as wrong.  As a high school student, I listened to one of his speeches.  One in which he identified that the period of US leadership was one of historical passing, perhaps an anomaly after the devastation of World Two upon other nations.  As time moved on, President Carter explained, the US would have to accept its more natural role as a significant nation, but one that would share power with other nations or blocs of nations (a European bloc, a Soviet bloc, a stronger China, or a 3rd world bloc). 

And Carter's weakness led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The formerly peaceful nation entered into a blood revolt to try and throw off the Soviets. They were called Mujahadeen then, the pre cursor to Al Qaeda. And getting back to the Iranian Revolution, as the Shah of Iran, a US ally, an ally of Israel, and a counterweight to the Arabs, flew from capital to capital in search of support and then finally into exile. While the towel head living in Paris was welcomed in by Jimmy Carter, the weakling who made a regional revolution into a world attack. It wasn't long before the gas lines started, the misery index exploded, and Jimmy Carter was employing a Rose Garden strategy to manage the crises he created form command central.

Latin America provides a Clue

I was in Panama in December 2004. And everywhere you look you see homage to Omar Torrijos, the Panamanian strongman Jimmy Carter decided to give the canal to. And in the national museum, there he is in all his glory smiling "my name is Jimmy Carter" with beaming eyes of a lunatic shaking hugging a dictator and fulfilling the USA's greatest dream, to give strategic assets to bad guys. Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a Democrat at the time, caught Ronald Reagan with this clear thinking in a peace she wrote, "Dictators and Double Standards" in 1979, "When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies," Mrs. Kirkpatrick said of her party, which had just had its national convention in San Francisco. "They blame United States policies of 100 years ago. But then they always blame America first." She could not have pinned anything more accurate about Jimmy Cater.

Thank G-d for Ronald Regan. And thank G-d, for Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a clear voice against your administration which sadly left us yesterday. With simple honesty, they called the Soviet Union by it's true name, the "Evil Empire", and stared it down and outspent it with threats of Star Wars defense, and the empire was gone before a decade passed.

Lowering Golf Scores or World War III

Ex-Presidents usually gain a modicum of respect. The nation forgave Richard Nixon as he seemed contrite and perhaps a bit embarrassed about the excess, and respected him for his wisdom and his legacies, opening the door to China among them. (Kids, there was a Cold War). Or, others had the grace to go play golf and understand that their term was up. And Americans are a polite lot. We would have been happy to let you go back and be a peanut farmer (no insult against what I'm sure is a noble profession, although they probably wouldn't say it qualified them to be US President) or to build houses for Habitat for Humanity, or watch you still the love the ever non-profound Roslyn. (It's not good to bring up family, but I took the cue of disrespect when you dissed Menachem Begin after he was gone.

But Jimmy Carter, you sir, are responsible for the madness in the world: The Islamo-Fascists that plot our destruction and the Iran going nuclear not with a few bombs, mind you, but a program to produce hundred of bombs and the missile to deliver them, and an insane religious focused government that think G-d will be pleased if they use their weapons. And, no, perhaps in time the Camp David Accords will be seen as modernizing the Egyptian army which never supported us in Iraq, and is bought and paid for by your stupid plan. It's almost axiomatic to describe your great success and it, too, will probably end up a disaster.

And with a record like that sir, you would be best not to lecture anyone on anything. You've screwed up the world, always backed the evil guys, and have no authority, moral or otherwise, to judge anyone. I doubt you can even hit a nail in straight, your wrist action is all wrong.

Your time is through.

About the author

Bennett Zimmerman is a former strategy consultant with Bain & Company and currently is managing partner of the U.S.-based Israel Emerging Growth Fund.