Jimmy Carter Emerging As Leading Voice Against Bush War Plans

by Jim Lobe

It will also serve to propel the former president, who over the past year has publicly assailed Bush policies on Iraq, the Middle East, Cuba and aid to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, back into the limelight within just hours of Bush receiving congressional authority to wage war against Iraq.

While the announcement itself cited Carter's "vital contribution" to the Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt -- one of the stellar achievements of his four-year tenure (1977-1981) -- as well as his subsequent peace-making and human rights activities, the implied criticism of Bush foreign policy was made unexpectedly explicit by the chairman of the Nobel Committee himself, Gunnar Berge.

He told reporters after the announcement in Oslo that the award, which will be formally presented in Oslo on Dec. 10, "should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the current administration has taken. It's a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as the United States," Berge said.

The actual wording of the award, spoken by Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, also implied criticism of the current administration's ambitions.

"In a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power, Carter has stood by the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international cooperation based on international law, respect for human rights, and economic development," the five-person Nobel Committee wrote.

In his first public comments, Carter declined to be drawn into challenging Bush explicitly.

"People everywhere share the same dream of a caring international community that prevents war and oppression," he said, stressing his 20-year record of working to promote human rights. Those rights, he said, "should be expanded to include the rights to adequate health care, shelter, food and economic opportunity."

"I hope this award reflects a universal acceptance and even embrace of this broad-based concept of human rights," Carter added.

But few here doubt the former president will soon be using his renewed celebrity to press his criticisms of Bush and the hawks who dominate current foreign policy.

A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Carter served as an officer for seven years before returning to his family's peanut farm in Georgia where he launched his political career as a state legislator in 1962, and was elected governor in 1970.

A progressive on civil rights and the environment, he became a symbol of the "New South" and launched his campaign for the presidency in December 1974 with the advantage of not being identified with either the anti- or pro-war factions of the national Democratic Party.

With his running-mate, Walter Mondale of Minnesota, Carter defeated by a close margin incumbent president Gerald Ford in November 1976 in critical part by carrying most of the southern states, where his "born-again" Christianity and civil rights record produced a winning coalition of black and white voters.

Battered by the "stagflationary" conditions of the U.S. economy that he inherited, Carter's most significant accomplishments came overseas, with the Camp David agreement of 1978, the ratification of the Panama Canal Treaty, the establishment of full diplomatic relations with China, and a major nuclear arms agreement with the Soviet Union.

But he is perhaps best remembered for championing human rights, especially in Latin America, as well as his denunciation of Washington's "inordinate fear of communism.."

A combination of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iranian Revolution -- especially the seizure and prolonged detention of more than 50 U.S. citizens working at the embassy in Teheran -- and renewed inflation spurred by the 1979 oil crisis contributed to his re-election defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

In retirement, Carter threw himself into international diplomacy and humanitarian work, mostly organized through the Carter Center, which he and his wife Rosalynn founded in 1982.

They travelled throughout the Third World in particular, helping to mediate conflicts (most recently in Venezuela), observe elections, provide development and health assistance, and more recently, promote greater international attention to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

In some cases, his mediation efforts were supported by the U.S. government, as when he and current Secretary of State Colin Powell helped arrange the peaceful intervention of U.S. troops into Haiti to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1994.

In other cases, such as his dramatic trip that same year to Pyongyang to defuse a major crisis between the United States and North Korea over nuclear inspections, government officials saw him as meddlesome, even as they later built on the progress and trust he had achieved.

As the Bush administration has became increasingly unilateralist and aggressive, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Carter has spoken out ever more forcefully against administration policies. At the same time, he has publicly supported Powell in his fights against the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney, especially on issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Last April, for example, as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sent troops into West Bank towns in retaliation for suicide bombings, Carter publicly urged Bush to suspend military and economic aid to Israel to force a withdrawal.

And last month, Carter published a strong attack in the Washington Post against Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whom he accused of leading a "core group of conservatives who are trying to realize pent-up ambitions under the cover of the proclaimed war against terrorism." In that article, he stated that "a unilateral war with Iraq" -- which Cheney then appeared to embrace, "is not the answer."

He then went on to a more detailed indictment of the administration's record. "Peremptory rejections of nuclear arms agreements, the biological weapons convention, environmental protection, anti-torture proposals, and punishment of war criminals have sometimes been combined with economic threats against those who might disagree with us."

"Belligerent and divisive voices now seem to be dominant in Washington," Carter wrote. "It is crucial that the historical and well-founded American commitments prevail: to peace, justice, human rights, the environment and international cooperation."

"I think the world will generally accept this award as being a very positive sign from the rest of the world about how we would like to see the U.S. behave in world affairs," noted Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham.