Mr. Jimmy Carter on Bush

Former US president, Mr. Jimmy Carter’s statement Saturday on the impact of George W. Bush’s presidency on US in the eyes of the world is nothing new. According to Mr. Carter who occupied the White House in the period 1977-81, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, the Bush presidency “has been the worst in history”, on the “overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including (those of) George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others”.

Apart from former South Africa president, Mr. Nelson Mandela, Mr. Carter is the other prominent world personality who did not mince words from the outset in his disapproval of Bush’s determination to launch his pre-emptive war on Iraq. Mr. Carter wasn’t as prophetic as Mandela, who predicted that the invasion of Iraq would plunge the world into a holocaust. His criticisms rest mostly on the damage that the policy of pre-emptive warfare has inflicted on US leadership in the world. As he puts it: "We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered," he said. "But that's been a radical departure from all previous administration policies."

The White House’s description of Mr. Carter’s latest criticism as one that renders the former president "increasingly irrelevant” pales in the face of reality. The latest proof of that can be found in Mr. Paul D. Wolfowitz’s recent failure as president at the World Bank. When everything that transpired in the course of the tenacious but failed efforts made by both the White House and Mr. Wolfowitz himself to make the latter retain his job at the Bank is put together, it wouldn’t be difficult to infer from the total package that even America’s age-old European allies are at best very lukewarm believers in the relevance of its leadership role in the world. The story is similar in the traditionalist regimes that dot the Arab world. They appear to be increasingly irrelevant to situation of things as they unfold each day in their neighborhood. Although the situation of affairs as far as the impact of the invasion of Iraq on US leadership role in world affairs is still unfolding, anyone who decides to argue that the over all outcome will be favorable to the US might be running a huge credibility risk. Sharp rhetorical rebuts to one like Mr. Carter who had simply reiterated some of what he had said in the past may not earn the White House the much needed points where they count, i.e. restoring America’s much damaged credibility in the world.