IRAN: Warming up to once-despised Jimmy Carter

The Iranian government has officially and regularly decried former President Jimmy Carter since the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. 

But it looks like some within official Iranian circles are willing to let bygones be bygones, especially now that Carter has defied the Bush administration by meeting with the Palestinian militant group and Iranian ally, Hamas.

Iran's animosity toward Carter stretches back decades. He was, after all, the U.S. commander in chief who toasted deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi months before a popular 1978 uprising against his rule, briefly offered the monarch sanctuary in America and dispatched an ill-fated rescue team to free American diplomats and embassy employees being held hostage in Iran.

But politics makes for strange bedfellows.

Last week, Carter met with Hamas officials in the West Bank and Egypt before sitting down with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in the Syrian capital.

Today, Carter told a news conference in Jerusalem that Hamas is willing to recognize Israel so long as a peace settlement is approved in a Palestinian referendum. Some Hamas officials later backed away, saying they might not accept a referendum, and Carter, a 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner has heaped scorn on Hamas for its continued rocketing of southern Israel.

Nevertheless, the man who was burned in effigy by Iranian demonstrators in Tehran three decades ago has become a respectable statesman in the eyes of the Iranian media.

"Former President Carter puts blames on the Zionist regime for refusing talks with Hamas," said a report on state-controlled Iranian television.

A report published by the official Islamic Republic News Agency under the headline "Carter criticizes US for excluding Hamas from peace talks" notes that the man from Plains, Ga., "criticized the US for lobbying to exclude Hamas from the Middle East peace talks."

The hard-right English-language daily Tehran Times published excerpts of an opinion piece by Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar originally published in the Washington Post:

Now, finally, we have the welcome tonic of Carter saying what any independent, uncorrupted thinker should conclude: that no 'peace plan,' 'road map' or 'legacy' can succeed unless we are sitting at the negotiating table and without any preconditions.

— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut and Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran

Photo: The Shah of Iran, from left, U.S. President Jimmy Carter, the Empress of Iran, and the president's wife, Rosalynn Carter, during a state dinner at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 15, 1977. Credit: National Archives website

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Comments

[Matt]

He;s not an official US representative. He's going as a private citizen and representative of the Carter Foundation (Or something like that). The Bush administration has made clear it wants nothing to do with him.

Regardless, I agree with him that not talking to people is almost never productive. Talking to people isn't guaranteed to produce result, but it's much more likely to than excluding them.

[sean K]

Hanny:

And you're the 'ginius' who listens to Rush Limbaugh when he tells you that Jimmy Carter has anything to do with Vietnam. The War was over when he got elected, 'ginius'. You're IQ is clearly about as low as the 'flore'.

[hanny mcfarlan]

Like robert M said"Ronald Reagan isn't around anymore to ball him out"
like Carter listened the last time Mr Reagan balled him out for being a warramogger and to weak to push the russians out of the olympics in 1977.

[Sean K]

Bill Conner and Robert McIntyer:

1. Bush has no authority to curtail the activities of former presidents. To even suggest he does shows a stunning ignorance of politics thats precludes any legitimate contribution to the discussion from you.

2. Ronald Reagan was a criminal who allowed drugs to be smuggled into our country while hypocritically incarcerating our population for possession of substances he conspired to illegally bring here. He was the second worst president in modern history (yes, worse than NIxon)... I'm sure you know who the first is. I can't imagine what you are talking about when you say he 'bailed out' jimmy carter.

[Gorgon '08]

If given the choice of welcoming a despised, well-meaning incompetent like Carter, versus embarrassing George Bush... Iran and/or Hamas will leap at the opportunity to stick it to Bush.

Carter is desperate erase his legacy of ineffectual leadership, especially as it relates to Iran... one of his biggest failures.

Iran would love to discredit the Republicans in an election year that could help hand them Iraq after all these years.

It's a marriage made in Islamic and Christian heaven.

[Matt]

Hey Hanny, learn to spell, type, read and think. Not necessarily in that order.

You have to assume that neither the US nor Isreal is serious about peace since apparently no one has asked Hamas about conditions for recognizing Isreal. Now, interesting that since Carter's original comments were published Hamas is backing off...

[Maurice K.Schlaberg]

I have never agreed on anything he ever did or said with the exception of his stance on solar panels.In my opinion,he should stay home,keep his mouth shut,and stay out of sight.M.S.

[hanny mcfarlan]

Yeah, he's the ginius who got america mired down in the war in vietnam, and without cause.
I;m glad that Reegan wiped the flore with him.
Gerald Ford wanted out of vietnam, but Carter said yes,yes to all the bobing, for 7 more years.
what a joke.
Rush limbaugh and all the other conservaties rock.
they know the real score, that;s where I get all of my FACTS.

[Bill Conner]

Why is Jimmy Carter going anywhere in the world as an ambassador or negoiator for hte US? Who authorizes and pays for his trips and what exactly is his mission supposed to be? The US government has appointed officials to take care of foreign affairs. The US does not need some left-over who meddles while trying to stay in the lime light. President Bush should sharply curtail Carter's activities, make it clar that Carter is not an ambassador, and keep him at home before Carter makes some crackpot deal that the US will have to back up!

[Robert McIntyre]

Jimmy Carter better be careful. Sadly, Ronald Regan isn't around to bail him out anymore.