Just a friendly reminder that Jimmy Carter supported Hamas, minimized their great atrocities and fundamentally misunderstood their basic strategy and vision. It isn’t enough for a president to mean well. If you want to be judged solely by your intentions, be a clergyman. Presidents have to actually understand what’s happening in the world around them. If they fail that test, then whether Democrat or Republican, progressive or conservative, you will inevitably be judged a disaster. Carter didn’t initiate Egyptian-Israeli peace. Egypt did. He actually had to be dragged along by the Egyptians and the Israelis at various moments. He was skeptical. Where Carter did take the initiative, as in this laundering of Hamas, it usually turned out to be a terrible mistake. (There are exceptions to this rule, as in his tough anti-Soviet stance over Afghanistan, but these exceptions are few and far between.) Many Americans have an understandable desire to judge their presidents based on their personal morality. I’m not opposed. It’s better if they don’t lie or cheat. But in the list of preconditions that deliver good policies that advance the safety of the world, it’s a distant second to a clear-eyed understanding of how the world actually works. Carter was by all accounts a good and decent man. And a failure as policymaker and president. https://bird.makeup/@chalavyishmael/1874173130484441098
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