Thank You, Jimmy Carter

WHEN THE HISTORIAN WALTER RUSSELL MEAD, in a FOREIGN POLICY article published in early 2010, sought to criticize the Obama administration and warn it against the risks of “weakness and indecision” and “incoherence and reversals,” the essay’s headline evoked the threat of a “Carter syndrome.” The meaning was clear: a damning allusion to President Jimmy Carter’s famously weak foreign-policy record.

But there was a problem with Mead’s comparison: The conventional wisdom about Carter is wrong. Far from the feckless leader he’s often portrayed as today, Carter racked up more tangible successes in just four years than most other presidents have in eight.

Consider the global situation that Carter bequeathed to Ronald Reagan when he left office in January 1981. Through assertive