Who is Jimmy Carter to lecture any president about bringing "international disgrace" upon America? Hostages in Iran, Russians on the march in Afghanistan, the Panama Canal give away, and aiding the Sandanistas in Nicaragua were just a few of the unfortunate foreign policy occurences during the disastrous presidency of Jimmy Carter. America sunk to its weakest point in the postwar era when the Man from Plains came to Washington. Is that why he is so popular outside of the United States and so unpopular in it?

"More Mush from the Wimp."

Its hard to see where George W. Bush has done much better than Jimmy Carter to date. A poorly executed Iraq policy has convinced America's enemies and those who would contemplate becoming America's enemies that he and the country are fundamentally unserious.

When a country chooses to take military action, they should focus on the basics first. The only legitimate use of military force is to "subdue" something, to "destroy" something, or to "defend" something. The force structure used to invade Iraq was fundamentally inadequate to destroy Iraq's fighting capability, subdue the country, or to defend the country's citizens from terror attacks by insurgents or militias. To have done Iraq properly would have required at least 500,000 troops and probably more plus a commitment of several decades. Given this botched execution, it seems it would have been better to have done nothing at all!!

We can still insert the additional troops, if we wanted to. Unfortunately we are past the time where such a massive troop commitment would aerve American national security interests. This extra troop commitment to Iraq would hamper our ability to deal with countries such as Russia, China, and Venezuela that have grown stronger since March 2003. This is a bitter fruit of a poorly executed Iraq invasion. Mortal enemies of Russia and China are stronger and a we have a new very powerful enemy in Venezuela!!

The choices we face with Iraq are to make a massive commitment of resources or to withdraw. We are not going to commit the resources and the military cannot sustain "stay the course" for much longer. The choice that will be made will be to withdraw. This will happen regardless of who wins the elections this November. By June 2007 there will be no American forces stationed in either Sunni or Shia areas. There will likely be a small force in Kurdish areas consisting primarily of special ops backec up by air support. These forces will be prepared to intervene in the Iraq civil war, as necessary, to prevent the formation of terrorist camps. This may work as a strategy or it may not. In any event, it is the one that will be chosen.

Hopefully when our troops are withdrawn from Iraq this will help our battered international image. Whether this will help or not is unknown. What is known is American troops will be withdrawing in masse from Iraq very soon.

The basic theme of the post is correct. The failed President of Jimmy Carter has no business lecturing George W. Bush. The Bush presidency is not over yet. He may yet find a good legacy for himself, however, we will not be bringing liberal democracy to Iraq. It may not have been doable, however, we will never know. It never got the resources necessary to achieve the goal and the resources are not going to be committed.

I wish the Iraqis success in running their country and I hope they can one day achieve western type democracy, however, should they achieve it America will have had nothing to do with it.

Ok one fool doth not exculpate another. Jimmy Carter may have been a very bad president, but George W. Bush no one to brag about.

The one thing Jimmy Cater DID know is that you do not:

1.Engage in a war with no clear end strategy.
2. Engage in a war without the backing of the world community, lest you look like just another hegemon.
3. Engage in a war that is not necessary, and which is perceived as such by most nations.

1. All militay strategists know that you don't go to war without a contingency strategy that assumes all possible (or at least likely) outcomes. As early as 1991 James Baker was saying that a war to topple Saddam would have a high likelihood of destabilizing the country, with the result being civil war. Cheney stating that the Iraqi people would welcome the US with "open arms" is exceedingly naive. So is George W. Bush thinking "mission accomplished".
2. Wars that are engaged in unilatterally have the bad reputation as being the product of hegemonic greed. The Iraq War is no coalitional war. If you consider Britain and Australia to be "the world community" then you have to be living in a cave somewhere. The real issue here is not how many partners of "the willing" the US can round up, but rather, "Do our major allies agree to side with us for a legitimate reason?" You may argue that Russia and France have an anti-US bias, but how many nations would have voted for a war in Iraq had the UN vote been allowed? If you recall, the Administration pulled out of the UN a proposed resolution that would have given the war legitimacy. "1441" as a war resolution is now a latter-day myth: 1441 was never intended to endorse war. Bush even stated that 1441 was intended to encourage Saddam to comply. Only after the early 2003 resolution was pulled out did he start claiming it was retroactively the authority he needed.
3. Perception in international relations is a key factor to success or failure. Even if the US felt it was doing the right thing, the perception by most nations was that the US basically unilaterally decided on a fool's venture, using side-payments and bribes to induce minor powers to chain gang to it. Whatever the truth of this may be, it is what is perceived around the world. Bush has claimed that the Iraq War was a pre-emptive war. A pe-emptive war is a war that pre-empts an immediate military threat. This war in no way can be interpreted as such, because Saddam was never an immediate threat. Preventive wars, which this is, are considered unjustifiable because of the long time horizons and the inherent innacuracy of predicting a future threat (and extended far enough into the future, aren't all states potential threats? Do we go to war with all of them?). The problem here is that other nations, such as Iran, may borrow from the Bush Doctrine and claim that they have as much a right to "pre-empt" the US. Furthermore, by increasing Iran's security fears (security dilemma) we have increased our own.

As Ali G might say, "Check yourself before you wreck yourself."

Alex

Good post. I think you nailed it that in international politics perception is everything. The way the Iraq war has been carried out to date we commited just enough resources to it to appear to be a hegomon and to many resources to avoid the responsibilities of running a country but we have not commited enough resources to the operation to actual be a hegomon or to have any chance of possibly running the country effectively. To effectively run the country will require a commitment of at least 500,000 troops. In any event, we will be withdrawing in masse from Iraq very soon. Hopefully this will help our world wide image.

In the future, if we wish to remove an enemy government but do not want the responisbility of actually running the country after the government is removed, we probably should rely on a combination of air support and special ops while allowing local forces to do most of the fighting on the ground.

Jimmy Carter relishes playing the role of a 98lb.weakling getting sand kicked in his face by every leftist dictator,but why should that matter to him? He is very popular with his idols, the European and international socialist community,to Carter,that is the equivilent of passing through the pearly gates.
This wimp has given hope to every Muslim fanatic worldwide. As a matter of fact, Carter,Dean,Kerry,Pelosi,Kennedy,Durbin are nothing more than PR hacks for Al Queda. Don't Believe me? Al-Zawahiri just released a new video and he used the same phrases,( Bush is a liar, Iraq war is creating new terrorists ) worldwide,etc.) sound like talking points from the American left.
Gimme a freakin break! The ONLY thing the left cares about are political polls (including those in Europe) and regaining power. So what if they cause the USA to lose a war? They have done it before and showed no remorse for the 3 million people their communist commrades slaughtered.
The left doesn't believe their actions have ANY NEGATIVE consequences, they believe any policy they propose will only solve problems. So what, if we make a hasty withdrawal from Iraq and embolden Islamic barbarians worldwide? So what, if terrorists gain a new unfettered base on which to operate? They gain short term popularity and regain power. It isn't about doing what is best for the country,it is always what is best for THEM, which means regaining power.

Jimmy Carter is what we refer to,down south,as LCWT (low class white trash).

I think we're in worse shape now than we were then.

But you're right. His FP wasn't the best.

The UNSC disagrees. They seem to be under the impression that the Jihadi cause has been crippled in Iraq.

"UN Report Says U.S. Breaking Al-Qaeda – James Gordon Meek (New York Daily News)

A survey for the UN Security Council made public Wednesday concluded that al-Qaeda “may see more losses than gains” in Iraq.

The flow of foreign fighters into Iraq has slowed to a trickle, and the slaying of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may have confused the uprising.

Jihadists have reportedly been angered at being turned away from the fight against U.S. forces by Iraqis, who often offer only suicide bombing missions, the UN report said. "

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/456354p-384073c.html