During his four-year tenure as President, and with National Security Advisor Zbignew Brizinski at his side, Jimmie Carter carried out some of the most destructive foreign-policy initiatives in our nation’s history; policies which every president since has had to deal with.
Carter resisted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by arming and supplying the very Isalmic radicals who would later morph into the Taliban. As a tragi-comic sideshow, he barred American athletes from participating in the Moscow Olympics in protest of the Russian incursion. Net result: The Cold War deepened and Afghanistan slid into a new Dark Age.
When a militant Islamic uprising spread across Iran, Carter turned his back on the Shah, our most ardent ally in the Middle East. The Shah was deposed and Carter, as a show of good will, arranged a flight for the exiled Ayatollah Khomeni to return from Paris in triumph to Tehran and establish the Reign of the Mullahs.
Not long after, Islamist revolutionaries, in apparent gratitude, swarmed the United States Embassy, and in violation of International Law, held the US Embassy staff in captivity for over four hundred days. In an effort to save some face, Carter reluctantly agreed to a rescue mission after putting impossible restrictions on the service men who were to carry it out. It failed and our soldiers died. [The election of Ronald Regan brought this embarrassment to a swift conclusion.]
Carter arranged an ill-fated peace conference between Egypt and Israel which had three results: Israel was seriously weakened, the PLO was strengthened and Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt, was assassinated by his own military. Shortly thereafter, Menachem Begin’s government fell in Israel.
Not satisfied with all this, Carter, with the continuing advice of Brizinski, meddled in the internal affairs of Pakistan, approving covert operations in support of the opposition and leading to a destablized government there, while raising deep suspicions in the government of India.
Almost as an afterthought, Jimmie Carter used his power and influence through the Saudi royal family to encourage Saddam Hussein to attack the Iranians.
In short, Jimmie Carter, during four short years, created a volatile, explosive mess of unparalleled proportions throughout the Middle East; one which the United States is still paying for today.