St. Jimmy

By longstanding tradition, former presidents do not publicly cast aspersions on successors currently holding office. Former presidents do not—in a time of war—make unsupported accusations against a leader of a closely allied nation. And former presidents certainly do not do both of these things in interviews with a prominent newspaper from that allied country.

But as we are learning time and again, neither rules nor longstanding traditions matter to certain Democrats convinced of the shimmery transcendent rightness of their cause.

Carter savages Blair and Bush: 'Their war was based on lies'

Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has strongly criticised George Bush and Tony Blair for waging an unnecessary war to oust Saddam Hussein based on “lies or misinterpretations”. The 2002 Nobel peace prize winner said Mr Blair had allowed his better judgement to be swayed by Mr Bush's desire to finish a war that his father had started.

In an interview with The Independent on the first anniversary of the American and British invasion of Iraq, Mr Carter, who was president from 1977 to 1981, said the two leaders probably knew that many of the claims being made about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were based on imperfect intelligence.

Reality check: Intelligence is always imperfect. And Carter knows this, unless memories of his time in office are still clusterfarged over the rigors of scheduling the White House tennis courts.

He said: “There was no reason for us to become involved in Iraq recently. That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and from Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for [the] 9/11 attacks, claiming falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And I think that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence … a decision was made to go to war [then people said] 'Let's find a reason to do so'.”

Notably absent from Carter's claims: Anything resembling evidence.

Before the war Mr Carter made clear his opposition to a unilateral attack and said the US did not have the authority to create a “Pax Americana”. During his Nobel prize acceptance speech in December 2002 he warned of the danger of “uncontrollable violence” if countries sought to resolve problems without United Nations input.

His latest comments, made during an interview at the Carter Centre in Atlanta, are notable for their condemnation of the two serving leaders. It is extremely rare for a former US president to criticise an incumbent, or a British prime minister. Mr Carter's comments will add to the mounting pressure on Mr Bush and Mr Blair.

Or instead help cement his reputation as a foreign policy meddler with a soft spot for left-wing despots the world over.

By comparison, Bill Clinton's ex-presidency has been a model of restraint. (Oddly enough, I'm being serious on that.)

I was in junior high when Carter was president. Too young to know anything about politics, but there was this one phrase that I kept hearing over and over again.

What was it? Ah, yes…now I remember:

Human rights.

Our morally superior former President can't bring himself to mention the 400,000 corpses being exhumed from mass graves in Iraq. That is but one example: there are so many more, from torture to institutionalized rape to—oh, let's see…how about a prison for children? That should be worth comment.

But Mr. Carter, the president who prided himself as champion of human rights, will not discuss the victims of the regime which killed more Muslims than any other in history. Because that would distract from his successor's putative crimes against internationalism.

One can offer a coherent and principled case against Gulf War II, though such presentations are rare. Carter's charges—like those of so many others—are both intellectually lazy and based on claims of dubious merit. And in the ex-President's case, the arguments are laced with an overweening hypocrisy as well.

Postscript: Carter's public image little resembles what I've described above; and up until a few years ago I regarded him as a noble-minded and genial soul doing good works after a mediocre presidency. But then I started paying attention.

Although these Jay Nordlinger columns are linked above, they are worth emphasizing: 1 2.