[TnHilltopper]

[quote=momonkey;5813222]

Originally Posted by ocnymonty

Jimmy Carter was a failed president. That is a matter of history.

His poor judgment in allowing the Shaw to fall combined with his anemic response to the Islamic terrorist "students" invading our embassy in Tehran and taking Americans hostage on Nov. 4th 1979 all but guaranteed the Soviet Union would invade Afghanistan on Dec 24th of the same year, literally as fast as they could assemble troops on the border to mount the offensive.

Now lefties, How many lives were lost on both sides of the USSR-Afghanistan war and not to mention the Iran-Iraq war that soon followed because of the imbalance of power that occurred when the Shaw fell?

While I'll agree that Carter was a failed President, he was an admirable human being, as to the rest of your history, I'm not sure where you found it but lets examine a few things here shall we.

Did Carter allow the Shah of Iran to fall, I mean did he really have much control over that? When Ruhollah Khomeini or more commonly known as "Ayatollah Khomeini" returned to Iran, he did so due to the departure of the Shah. (as he was exiled)

It is fairly well known that at the time the revolution began, that many of the religious and secular revolutionaries were not even aware that the Ayatollah had plans for a Islamic based government.

When the US agreed to treat the Shah for cancer, there was an almost immediate rioting in which students then captured US citizens and held them hostage wanting in exchange the return of the Shah who died less than a year later. Much of this sentiment among the people of Iran stemmed from an earlier intervention by the US into the affairs of Iran in 1953.

In 2000, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright stated:

"In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs."

However, this had almost nothing to do with the invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union, that on the other hand was largely due to Carter's National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

During a recent interview, Brzezinski had this to say:

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Most importantly was this statement

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Now as to the war between Iran and Iraq, this didn't occur because there was an imbalance, it happened in spite of it. I'm sure you recall the Iran-Contra affair in which the United States illegally supplied Iran with arms? While at the same time supplying our then ally Iraq with arms and intelligence as well. This war was by design meant to be an outlet for US arms sales as well as a destabilizing action that gave a little pay back to Iran in a round about manner. Fund both sides, let them slaughter each other, or war by proxy. There is a certainly logic to it that seems to escape the more narrowly minded who would rather directly involve the US with arms and men.

But yes, Carter wasn't the best of Presidents, you did get that one right.