There are times when it feels like every bit of news coming out of the Middle East/Arab World seems to be bad news.
These last few months and weeks in particular, have proven to be among these kinds of moments. The attacks on the embassies, and the subsequent murder of four officials to show how angry they were about the recent release of a movie in which Mohammad was portrayed in a less than fortunate light.
The protests that have followed, and the extremity and violence of the response of the assembled masses, which have become relatively familiar terrain.
Yet, this was different, somehow. By the end of this protest, we were reminded instead of the original Islamic Revolution, as it occurred in Iran some decades ago.
So, too, perhaps, is this idea of entering into American embassies, and taking people out. Only this time, they did not take American hostages, but rather took American lives.
Of course, there is the matter of foreign policy and such to deal with, and we certainly understand that the utmost delicacy is to be practiced. The Obama Administration has to tread very carefully here, because this could prove to be a very volatile situation. After all, the Mideast, or perhaps the Muslim world in general, seems to be the new powderkeg.
The arguments have been bounced around since then. How shall we proceed? Republican Presidential Candidate made some headlines in expressing his viewpoint almost instantaneously. Quite a few people seem to think that he spoke far too soon, before all of the facts were even out, and that this was mere political opportunism.
But Romney is trying to show that, as President, he would be less interested in approaching such a situation with caution. He would assert American power and dominance far earlier, and apparently far more completely, than the current President would.
So, in turn, the President feels more pressure to act and appear strong, assertive and in control, than he otherwise might. The questions then arise: How far is the President willing to go on this issue? What will the wider ramifications be? Will the nations directly affected - Libya, Yemen, and Egypt, still be considered (relative) allies, or has that chance flown already?
For their part, the Presidents of Libya and Yemen both apologized to the United States, and even asked for some military support to remove any lingering terrorists cells.
Now, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is a different story altogether. He has not apologized yet, at least not so clearly. He has remained a mysterious and rather enigmatic figure since first taking office. Hell, since first winning the election. There are questions about Egypt as a whole, in fact. Before, it was more of questions raised with questioning voice. But now, increasingly, it is raised with some considerable anger, political or otherwise. Americans feel a bit victimized, yet again.
Thus, here we are again. It is not out of the question to think war in one of the regions most torn apart by war, although it should be noted that Egypt would be a bit different, since it is the largest country in the Mideast region. Also, it used to be an ally, and recently, to boot.
That is yet another thing that Republicans have blasted President Obama of, similar to criticism some decades ago that President Jimmy Carter had abandoned "our friend", the Shah of Iran.
And that seems to be about all that we are left with. Comparisons with the past, political accusations and finger pointing, especially pronounced because this is not only an election year, but a Presidential election year, to boot. More troubling headlines in the Middle East.
Many Americans are sick and tired of hearing all of this. We've seen this all before, right? Anything else new? Anything else on tv?
The thing is, perhaps we can go back to the Jimmy Carter days now, since so much has been made of this. Republicans have been absolutely insistent on making comparisons, fair or not, between President Carter and President Obama. Romney, during the recent Republican National Convention, spoke about it at length, claiming that "What this President cannot say", is that you are better off now than you were four years ago, when Obama first took power. He tried to pound that particular point home, too boot, by claiming, also, that the only other recent President for which this was true was under President Carter.
You see, Carter had low approval ratings throughout his latter Presidency - very low. He lost his bid for reelection, and by some margin, to boot. He only managed to win four states, and Reagan dominated the election and won the other forty six, then set America on course for a neoconservative policy making agenda that has, more or less, continued ever since. As far as oil was concerned, that meant, in particular, being willing to go to war against any power that, in effect, stood in our way. Maybe that meant Quaddafi back then, or Saddam Hussein in the nineties, or the Taliban and Saddam Hussein again in the 2000's, or perhaps Egypt & Co. presently. Many Americans seem to want further war, despite not wanting the budget that such a war might bring. But Americans are skeptical of countries like Iran, and Syria, and Pakistan, and now, apparently, of Egypt, of Yemen, and Libya.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?
But here's the thing: let's take a closer look at those "failed" Carter years, shall we?
Most Americans viewed, and perhaps still view, those Carter years as failed leadership (a theme that they keep hammering away at, as they accuse Obama relentlessly of this same thing). And while it may be true that Carter is a very good, even exceptionally good, man, he perhaps was not a very good President. But I would also posit that he is, perhaps, a very underrated President, as well. He was very forward thinking, even though many do not wish to see that. He actually was rather accurate with predictions given at those times, back in the late 1970's, about what crises were looming ahead for us, if we did not heed the warnings, and do something to alleviate them.
President Carter was best known for two speeches, in particular. He gave the so-called "Malaise speech", a term that he himself did not come up with, but which was tacked on and kind of stuck. During that, he said that a moral crisis now faced America, and that this, more than anything else, posed a greater threat to America than any outside enemy possibly could. In short, he claimed that Americans were getting greedier and greedier, that there was less of a sense of spirit of community and a willingness to share for the common good. That, in effect, this "malaise", if you will, posed the most serious threat to the country. He wanted Americans to be more willing to compromise a little bit, for the future of the country, to secure a better and more promising future.
When Ronald Reagan swept into office, a new spirit indeed did take hold, and it was popular. But it was accused of being a very greedy time. The age of the fictional Gordon Gekko, and the real life Donald Trump. the age of economic scandals to come, from the S&L scandal in the eighties, to the Enron Scandal in the early 2000's, and the whole Halliburton and Blackwater and no bod contracts thing that we had later on in the Bush Jr. Presidency. All of that was the brainchild of deregulation, which still seems to be something that Republicans look upon with loving eyes, and which Democrats, when talking, back away from and criticize, but which, when in office since those fateful days of the 1980's, they themselves have been guilty of continuing, and sometimes, of enhancing.
Fine. All of that is well and dandy, but does that really specifically prove Jimmy Carter was right?
Well, he not only made some good points, but seemed to be pretty much on target, didn't he? Yet, this speech was one of the major reasons often cited for his eventual loss in the election.
But there was another speech that he was known for, as well. This one was even more specific, and the projections that he made for decades into the future have proven entirely too accurate.
This would be the energy speech, in which Jimmy Carter tried to lay out a plan to make America more energy independent. Specifically, it was designed to wean America off of what future President George W. Bush (an oil man himself, by the way) would call America's "oil addiction".
Carter proposed investing in alternative energy to break America's dependence on oil. You see, up to and through the 1960's, America was still the largest producer of oil, and so was independent, not needing to worry so much about what happened overseas. But that changed by the early seventies, and there was an oil crisis - two of them, in fact! That's because, in the 1970's, America was more susceptible to the whims of OPEC. We started not fully controlling our own destiny anymore. Carter saw this, and made projections about energy, and how America was heading down a path to further energy dependence. he saw the possibility that the energy crisis that the United States had been surprised by during the 1970's could get far worse, and that we could find ourselves engaging in wars that were, frankly, unnecessary.
So, he proposed some ideas, and these were scorned. He was lambasted, ridiculed. Eventually, he was thrown out of office. He is still paying the price, still labeled as a failure, still the point of reference for Republicans whenever they accuse a Democrat of "failed leadership" and an ineffective Presidency.
Yet, to me, he seems not only to have made some very strong arguments and points, but in fact, seemed like a visionary. Someone who could not only see the country's future beyond the next election cycle, but who was willing to do something about it, too boot - even if it was not politically profitable. For that, we became a joke, and was roundly rejected and defeated on election day in 1980.
But you have to wonder if we might truly be better off now had we taken him seriously at the time, and done as he suggested. It's hard to imagine how much further ahead on the road towards energy independence we could have been. Instead, we have been passed on many levels by other nations, including Iceland. Iceland, by the way, has about the same population as Newark, New Jersey. In much of the rest of the world, the energy dependence that this country has is itself a source of ridicule and scorn, and even disgust - particularly when it comes to the wars that we engage in to protect our energy interests.
It seems quite clear that we have done something wrong, took a wrong turn somewhere. I think I can point to one such bend in the road that made everyone happy at the time, but which just might prove to have been a looming disaster in waiting, just like Carter predicted.
If only we had listened to Carter than, while we actually had the time to do something about it, before it all hit the fan....
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