Jimmy's View

An absolutely stunning interview on Hardball with Jimmy Carter. His "thinking", lack of historical knowledge and perspective point to the reasons his Presidency was the failure it was.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you the question about—this is going to cause some trouble with people—but as an historian now and studying the Revolutionary War as it was fought out in the South in those last years of the War, insurgency against a powerful British force, do you see any parallels between the fighting that we did on our side and the fighting that is going on in Iraq today?

CARTER: Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War, more than any other war up until recently, has been the most bloody war we‘ve fought. I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could have been avoided. It was an unnecessary war.

Aside form being completely wrong in terms of the human cost of the Revolutionary War, what does he mean by saying it was unnecessary? It seems for Carter all wars are unnecessary.

MATTHEWS: Do you think as an historian you would have foreseen, had you been president, the nationalistic fight of those people in Iraq once we got in there?

CARTER: Well, I think almost any reasonable person who knew history would say that you can‘t go into an alien environment and force by rule of arms by forcing the people to adopt a strange concept.

For Matthews to characterize the insurgency in Iraq as "nationalistic" is simply inane; many of those fighters are foreign, and they do not have a positive idea of creating an Iraqi nation. At the same time, Carter's answer is belied by the success of the elections in Afghanistan.

Later in the interview, Carter talks about the defining moment of his Presidency - the taking of hostages at the US Embassy in Tehran. Unbelievably, he still insists that the way he handled that crisis was the correct way. For Carter, using force in response to this over act of war didn't make sense. Most analysts view the capture of the Embassy and the US non-response as the beginning of the jihadist war against the US. Yet Carter continues to see his way of dealing with it as a triumph of diplomacy. The fact that this man was a featured speaker at the Democratic Convention, and is considered an "elder statesman" by many Democrats, should tell us all we need to know about the Democratic Party and its nominee.