The death of Jimmy Carter brings to mind some of the courageous decisions he made in his presidency.
His bringing together of Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin in the Camp David Accords began a possible long-term peace solution that was ended by the religious fanatics' assassinations of Sadat in 1981 and Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. We have seen the slow-motion annihilation of those in Gaza and the West Bank ever since. Carter also exposed Israeli apartheid in his 2006 book "Peace: Not Apartheid."
Carter's engineering background with numbers led him to appoint Paul Volcker as Federal Reserve chair. Bert Lance, Carter's friend, had said that if Carter appointed Volcker that Carter "...would be mortgaging his reelection to the Federal Reserve." But Carter put the country's economy first.
Finally, the Iranian hostages were released right as Reagan was inaugurated. Reagan had made a deal to sell weapons through Israel to Iran in exchange for the hostages during Iran's war with Iraq.
Carter was a flawed but moral president.
Matt Somers
Midtown
Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.
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