Carter: Obama has given up on Middle East peace
Former President Jimmy Carter is not at all impressed with Barack Obama’s efforts toward Middle East peace. Speaking Tuesday at the LBJ library’s annual Harry Middleton Lectureship series, Carter said that in terms of the peace process in the Middle East, "nothing is going on."
Answering a question about Egypt, the former president praised President Obama’s handling of the situation there saying he’s "done quite well" and that Obama has handled it "about the same way I’d have handled it if I’d been in office."
However, on the broader question of the Middle East peace process, Carter was much less complimentary saying, "President Obama has basically given up on peace in the Middle East."
Pointing out that Obama had started out well, Carter blasted Obama by claiming that he’d now become "more accommodating to Netanyahu and Israel than George W. Bush was." Trying to dampen his critique of the Obama administration, Carter said he really wasn’t there to criticize, but he’d been asked a question and that was the answer. "I don’t have any feeling of success for what President Obama had done in the Middle East", Carter concluded.
The session was an hour long question and answer period on a wide range of topics including Carter’s run for the presidency, his term in office and his work after he left office. In it Carter’s most pointed remarks came during the discussion of the Middle East peace process.
Often cited as someone who cozies up to dictators, Carter admitted to having "lunch or dinner" each time he went to Egypt with Omar Suleiman, the intelligence chief, because he knew "more about the Middle East than anyone", and he described Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad as a "young, fairly progressive president" who had "inherited" the presidency from his father.
But it seems that even the likes of Jimmy Carter knows an empty suit when he see’s one and a person from whom you would expect to see fairly significant support can’t find it in himself to say anything positive about the Obama Middle East peace initiative – or lack thereof.
~McQ
Carter hearts Yassir (That’s My Baby) Arafat. Matter of fact…like Obama…he seems really fond of dictators and terrorists.
Jimmy isn’t giving Obama credit for green lighting and legitimizing the Muslim Brotherhood. I’m sure we’ll achieve the Liberal’s Middle East Peace Plan (aka the destruction of Israel) much sooner thanks to Obama.
This makes me hopeful since Jimbo has never been correct about a single thing in his horrible twisted life.
Actually…and only to give the devil his due…he DID begin to deregulate the Nixonian fascist wage and price controls.
I add
1. Nominating Alfred Kahn for the final push (started during the Nixon admin) to kill airline regulation
2. Capital gains tax cut which unleashed the venture industry
3. Nominating Paul Volker as Chairman of the Fed
He is still in the running for the worst person to ever be entitled to sit behind the desk of the Oval Office although he may have to settle for second worst.
I almost dropped to me knees laughing at your second paragraph, Bruce. Just hilarious. What a punchline, and he actually said it himself.
And when I saw the title, that Carter thought that Obama had given up on Middle East “peace,” I thought, oh, that’s code for “he’s not screwing Israel.” Then it turns out it wasn’t code because he makes it explicit.
He’s not screwing Israel TOTALLY…and not from lack of trying. Damned, uncooperative, obstinate people INSIST on surviving. Just ask Helen Thomas…
Jimmy Carter is a despicable excuse for a human being. If he’s criticizing Obama…..well, I’ll score that as a point in Baracks’ favor in this case.
I personally had thought for many years that Carter had become one of the best “ex-Presidents” but in the last 10 years, he has abdicated that position. The man seems destined to be an embarrassment.
His involvement in Habitat for Humanity was admirable,
But when Clinton was in office he started sending him to “negotiate” with North Korea and the like. Though was lauded as some great elder statesman, he always came away with a worse deal for the US.
For awhile, I just wrote him off as a doddering old fool who couldn’t rise above his incompetence. When he invited Michael Moore to his booth at the DNC in 2004, I realized that his pathetic performances were by design, not by mistake. Now, I can’t stand to listen to his paper-thin passive aggressive partisan attacks in interviews.
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Obama stabbed Israel in the back on settlements that were not even in dispute. How is that not screwing Israel?
With the outstanding leadership of the Cairo “events,” the Middle East is now like a political bowl of Jello. It will take 18 months or more before anybody can begin to figure out just what is going on.
Simply, it’s now a giant mess.