Marcia Meoli: Carter's legacy a true testament to leadership

As I brace for the apparent imminent passing of President Jimmy Carter, my thoughts go to ideas I have had for years: That he is substantially misunderstood and under-appreciated as a former president of our country.

For a one-term president, Carter had a number of accomplishments and work on other things accomplished later:

The Camp David Accords. Carter was determined to mediate the Arab-Israeli conflict that existed for years in the Middle East. He convinced Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat to visit Israel in 1978. He then invited Begin and Sadat to Camp David in September 1978. Because direct negotiations between Sadat and Begin proved unproductive, Carter began meeting with the two leaders individually. This was a time when Israel occupied the Sinai peninsula, taken from Egypt after a war. At Camp David, Carter was able to get an agreement on some issues. On March 26, 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in Washington, D.C. Among other things, the treaty provided for mutual recognition of the countries, cessation of the state of war, normalization of relations and the withdrawal by Israel from the Sinai Peninsula. These countries remain at peace to this day.

President Carter is widely known as essential to getting Israel and Egypt to agree to that peace treaty.

Emphasis on human rights. Carter started a process to shift from support of brutal dictators as part of a Cold War strategy and toward supporting human rights around the world. This included the withdrawal of support of dictators — Somoza in Nicaragua, Pinochet in Chile and leaders in Brazil and Argentina, all of whom were guilty of human rights violations to their own people. He extended this to Africa and opposed white minority rule in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, culminating in the 1979 elections there where the majority black population could finally vote. He supported similar efforts against South Africa’s white minority rule government, although it took longer there to hold inclusive elections.

Part of his human rights philosophy appears to have been instrumental in Carter’s negotiation and passing of the treaties to end the U.S. control over the Panama Canal. There was a bipartisan national policy that the canal should be turned over to the Panamanian government — it was, after all, located within that country, but previous Presidents did not succeed in getting this done.

The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (“SALT”) II signed by President Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev on June 18, 1979. The US and Soviet Union worked on arms control since 1969. The SALT I treaty was negotiated by the Nixon Administration and was signed in 1972. The SALT II treaty negotiations started before Carter took office. He completed the negotiations and, for the first time, the countries agreed to actually reduce the number of weapons. The treaty was not approved by the Senate, however, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

I see that these are part of Carter’s foreign policy. While I see accomplishments in domestic policy and other accomplishments in foreign policy during his term, I do not see that those were as significant as those listed above. Perhaps this is due to Carter’s poor relationship with Congress, including with Democrats (his party). He was an outsider — no previous experience in Washington. And, of course, a number of things went wrong during his term — a recession at the start of the term, and inflation for the last two years; an energy crisis; the Iranian hostage crisis. He paid a price for this at the polls in 1980 and that’s history. But history can also recognize his accomplishments along with the problems.

And so can we, as Americans. I do not understand some of the harsh statements made about President Carter. It’s not as if he lied to us, cheated on his wife, got us into a war under false pretenses or tried to steal an election. No, he asserted leadership in ways to make things better for everyone, but particularly for those who have had the hardest of lives. In some ways, he failed and he lost office. In other ways, a number of his ideas live on to this day. And, of course, there is the man he showed himself to be after his one term in office.

Thank you, President Carter, for who you are and what you bring to this country and the world. I wish we had more leaders like you. Maybe we do — but we just don’t give them sufficient recognition.

— Community Columnist Marcia Meoli is a Holland attorney and resident. Contact her at Meolimarcia@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Marcia Meoli: Carter's legacy a true testament to leadership