[Salon] A Remembrance of Jimmy Carter - Guest Post by Richard Falk

A Remembrance of Jimmy Carter By Richard Falk on January 3, 2025 [Prefatory Note: A recollection of my only meeting with the former president at the Carter Center, a minor event, although in the context of repeated mistakes by the 'political realists' who continue to shape American foreign policy, perhaps of some interest. The pessimistic note is that the economic hardships imposed on the Iranian people since the fall of the Shah may have been inevitable so long as imperial geopolitics and predatory capitalism dominate the Washington mindscape, and currently threaten dangerous regional warfare in the Middle East.] In 1981 or 1982 I was invited to a small human rights meeting at the Carter Center in Atlanta. It was in the aftermath of the Iran hostage crisis that is blamed for Carter’s loss, Reagan’s win in 1980. The Carters somehow knew that I had previously supported their daughter, Amy, who was an activist against the Vietnam War. It is so long ago I cannot remember the exact context, whether it was a matter of political support or somehow connected with a legal proceeding associated with civil disobedience. Whatever the past, Rosalynn Carter, apparently to show their appreciation, seated me next to President Carter at a formal conference dinner despite their being more distinguished guests present. I sheepishly did what I was told and took the opportunity to talk with the ex-president about the situation in Iran. I had been in Iran accompanying Ramsey Clark, the former American Attorney General who had become a leading progressive voice after leaving government and someone sympathetic with the Iran movement against the Shah. While in Iran in early 1979 in a period dramatized by the Shah’s departure from the country, we were frequently asked about Carter’s New Year’s toast to the Shah in 1977: “An island of stability” surrounded by “the admiration and love which your people give to you.” Ensuing events proved how wrong were these sentiments, but that is a longer different story of mass disenchantment that has been frequently told. During our visit to Iran, we had met with numerous prominent Iranian officials, Islamic leaders, and ordinary citizens. We also met with the American ambassador in Tehran, William Sullivan, who was a hawkish diplomat during the Vietnam Era. Reacting to the anti-Shah movement, Sullivan was clear about the fact that the Shah’s 1979 abdication a few days before our meeting with Sullivan who felt that the Shah’s departure was an inevitable development given the play of forces in Iran by that time, including the army’s abandonment of the Shah’s government by then. Sullivan hoped that the US Government would accept the outcome, and normalize relations with the new leadership, but reported being blocked by hardline National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was following the pro-Shah diehard diplomacy rather than accommodating approach recommended by the Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, a conservative realist, a somewhat aristocratic acquaintance of mine, yet seemingly free from the compulsions of the geopolitically oriented deep state that guided US foreign policy from its undercover sites during the Cold War, and beyond. We should be aware that the Shah was perceived as a major strategic asset in the Middle East, what Henry Kissinger described “as the rarest of things, and unconditional ally.’ During the hostage crisis that started on November 4, 1979 I had been asked to accompany Andrew Young to negotiate the release of the hostages after Ayatollah Khomeini had let it be known that he would welcome an Afro-American negotiator to arrange a diplomatic solution. The trip was vetoed by Brzezinski. I recall the somewhat bitter, but likely discerning, comment by the head of the State Department’s Iran Desk at the time: “Brzezinski would rather see all the hostages dead than have Andrew Young get credit for their release.” This senior civil servant favored the Young mission, and Young was willing to go, but only if he received a green light from the White House, which never came, we never went, and the rest is history still in the making. After some pleasantries at the dinner about the Carter Center and the conference, I gathered my courage and asked Carter why he followed Brzezinski policy advice rather than Vance’s counsel, and he gave a short, yet talked further but it was evident that Carter had no deeper reasons to cling to a lost cause, unsatisfactory answer: “Because he was loyal to me.” Nothing more, nothing less. I reflected at the time that Carter would probably have been hosting a state dinner at the White House and being hailed as a peace minded statesman rather than having this tense chat about the low point of his presidency with a brash stranger at his Center. The Road Not Taken We do not know what would have ensued in Iran or the Middle East had the Vance view prevailed, and the US fully respected the exercise of the right of self-determination by the Iranian people. The political sequel to the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy was not clearly prescribed in advance. It might have led to a more democratic version of the Islamic Republic had it not been immediately threatened by internal enemies linked to foreign states in the region. With bad memories of the 1953 anti-Mossadegh coup, facilitated by the CIA, it is hardly surprising that Iran theocratic hard liners took command of the government, especially given the internal and regional challenges mounted against Iranian developments of 1978-79.’ What might have been’ could serve, even belatedly, as a signpost to ‘what should have been’ and more hopefully, ‘to what will be in the future.’ More soberly, imperial geopolitics and neoliberal capitalism have displayed a willingness to potentially radical enactments of the right of self-determination, and as Kurt Vonnugut vainly tried to teach us, “and so it goes.”