Lord Jim wrote:
The naive, Amateur Hour foreign policy of TIC was of course both a complete disaster for US and Western security and diplomacy, (a disaster which in some aspects we continue to pay for to this very day) and a policy approach that did not improve the level of freedom for one single human being anywhere on the planet . (As opposed to Reagan policies which resulted in a couple of hundred million people all across Eastern Europe today enjoying representative democracy.)
As I've pointed out before, the two countries where the "we won't support a pro-Western autocrat" policy were most vigorously pursued under Carter, proved to be the biggest disasters...
In Nicaragua, we wound up having a pro-American authoritarian regime replaced with an authoritarian Soviet client state, and in Iran, we wound up having a pro-Western autocrat replaced by the world's first anti-Western Islamo-fascist regime...(we're still paying for that one.... )
While these were the worst results of his disastrous policy, they were hardly the only ones....All over Africa, Soviet-aligned states bloomed like spring flowers, as the Russians rushed to take advantage of their unexepected good fortune....in Angola, in Mozambique, in Ethiopia....
It was not until the late 80's, after the Reagan Administration had put the Soviets back on their heels, (and undone much of the damage caused by Carter) that a country finally saw a successful transfer of power from an authoritarian leader to a real democracy; when under US pressure, and without substantial bloodshed, Ferdinand Marcos finally packed it in....
The necessary, essential pre-condition for a policy of pressuring pro-West dictators to accept democratic reforms to be a successful one, (both in terms of Western interests, and the well being of the people of those countries themselves) was the removal of the Soviet Union as a player ready willing and able to rush into to provide the support necessary to replace pro-Western dictatorships with pro-Soviet ones....
The historical record makes this quite clear. The proof is abundant; under Carter, not one single authoritarian regime anywhere was replaced by a democratic one; after the defeat of the Soviet Union, it's happened at every point of the compass. (This is particularly true not only in Eastern Europe, but in also in Latin America... and the peaceful transfer of power by the Apartheid regime in Africa is another case in point; so long as the ANC was a Soviet backed guerrilla movement, the Afrikaners were fully prepared to endure whatever sacrifices they had to make as a result international sanctions; it was only after this dynamic changed that they were ready to cut a deal. )
Now, in having this discussion with some folks over the years, I have sometimes received a counter argument, that goes something like this:
"Well, even if Carter tried to implement the policy badly and percipitently, you still have to give him credit for coming up with it. If he hadn't then subsequent Administrations wouldn't have incorporated it into their policies."
I completely reject this. Of course, all things being equal,the US is better off not supporting dictators, (in addition to being more in line with our values as a country, dictatorships tend to be more unstable and unreliable as partners, and supporting genuine democratic movements tends to provide much better relations for the US with those countries in the long run.)
But this is so obvious, that once the larger threat of enhanced Soviet power was removed, it is inconceivable to me that any Administration, of either party, would have failed to recognize it, Carter or no Carter.
ETA:
More countries fell into the Soviet sphere of influence in the mercifully brief four years of Carter's Presidency than at any time since the late 1940's...
On top of that this "on the verge of bankruptcy" country bankrolled Cuban mercenaries all over Africa, and for the first time surpassed the US in surface navy fleet strength...
Yeah, there were a
helluva lot of "runs"....
