User:Orser67/CarterFP

The foreign policy of the Jimmy Carter administration was characterized by a relatively high emphasis on human rights. Major foreign policy developments during the Carter administration include the Camp David Accords, which helped restore relations between Israel and Egypt, and the Torrijos–Carter Treaties, which returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. As part of the ongoing Cold War, the Carter administration provided support to Afghanistan in the wake of the Soviet–Afghan War. After the Iranian Revolution, Carter faced the Iranian hostage crisis.

Human rights
Carter initially departed from the long-held policy of containment toward the Soviet Union. In its place, Carter promoted a foreign policy that put human rights at the forefront. This was a break from the policies of several predecessors, in which human rights abuses were often overlooked if they were committed by a government that was allied, or purported to be allied, with the United States.

He nominated civil rights activist Patricia M. Derian as Coordinator for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and in August 1977, had the post elevated to that of Assistant Secretary of State. Derian established the United States' Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, published annually since 1977, and made their findings a factor in military aid determinations, effectively ending such aid for five Latin American countries for the remainder of Carter's tenure. The Carter Administration ended support to the historically U.S.-backed Somoza regime in Nicaragua and gave aid to the new Sandinista National Liberation Front government that assumed power after Somoza's overthrow. However, Carter ignored a plea from El Salvador's Archbishop Óscar Romero not to send military aid to that country; Romero was later assassinated for his criticism of El Salvador's violation of human rights. Generally, human rights in Latin America, which had deteriorated sharply in the previous decade, improved following these initiatives; a publisher tortured during Argentina's Dirty War, Jacobo Timerman, credited these policies for the positive trend, stating that they not only saved lives, but also "built up democratic consciousness in the United States".

Many in his own administration were opposed to these initiatives, however, and the more assertive human rights policy of the Carter years was blunted by the discord that ensued between, on one hand, Derian and State Department Policy Planning Director Anthony Lake, who endorsed human rights considerations as an enhancement of U.S. diplomatic effectiveness abroad, and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who held Cold War considerations as paramount. These policy disputes reached their most contentious point during the 1979 fall of Pol Pot's genocidal regime of Democratic Kampuchea following the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, when Brzezinski prevailed in having the administration refuse to recognize the new Cambodian government due to its support by the Soviet Union. Carter was also criticized by the feminist author and activist Andrea Dworkin for ignoring issues of women's rights in Saudi Arabia.

Carter convinced Congress to repeal the Byrd amendment, thus effectively re-imposing sanctions on white-ruled Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe Rhodesia, currently Zimbabwe), and, after Bishop Abel Muzorewa was elected Prime Minister, protested the exclusion of Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo from participating in the elections. Strong pressure from the United States and the United Kingdom prompted new elections in Zimbabwe Rhodesia, which saw Robert Mugabe elected as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe; afterwards, sanctions were lifted, and diplomatic recognition was granted. Carter's focus on helping facilitate the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe reflected his desires to both prevent Soviet Cold War gains and advance racial equality. His Zimbabwe policy benefited from his close cooperation with black African leaders such as Kenneth Kaunda, the president of Zambia. Carter was also known for his criticism of Paraguay's Alfredo Stroessner, Augusto Pinochet (although both Stroessner and Pinochet, along with other Latin American dictators of whom Carter was critical, attended the signing of the Panama Canal Treaty ), the apartheid government of South Africa, Zaire (although Carter later changed course and supported Zaire, in response to alleged – albeit unproven — Cuban support of anti-Mobutu rebels ) and other traditional allies.

Arab–Israeli conflict/Camp David Accords
Carter's Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski paid close attention to the Arab–Israeli conflict. Diplomatic communications between Israel and Egypt increased significantly after the Yom Kippur War and the Carter administration felt that the time was right for comprehensive solution to the conflict.

In mid-1978, Carter became quite concerned as there were only a few months left before the Egyptian-Israeli Disengagement Treaty expired. As a result, Carter sent a special envoy to the Middle East. The American Ambassador flew back and forth between Cairo and Tel Aviv in search of ways to narrow the disagreement between the two countries. It was then suggested that the foreign ministers meet at Leeds Castle, England where they could discuss the possibilities of peace. They tried to come to an agreement, but the foreign ministers failed. This led to the 1978 Camp David Accords, one of Carter's most important accomplishments as President. The accords were a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt negotiated by Carter, which followed up on earlier negotiations conducted in the Middle East. In these negotiations King Hassan II of Morocco acted as a negotiator between Arab interests and Israel, and Nicolae Ceauşescu of Romania acted as go-between for Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO, the unofficial representative of the Palestinian people). Once initial negotiations had been completed, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat approached Carter for assistance. Carter then invited Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Anwar El Sadat to Camp David to continue the negotiations. They arrived on August 8, 1978. Upon their arrival, neither leader had addressed one another since the Vienna meeting. President Carter inevitably became the mediator between the two leaders. He spoke to each leader separately until an agreement was reached. Almost a month had passed, but no resolution had been reached. President Carter decided to take the two of them on a trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to break this deadlock. He showed the two leaders the battlefield and gave them a history lesson about one of the battles that had taken place during the U.S. Civil War. Carter emphasized how important it was to have peace in order to bring prosperity to the people. A lesson was learned, and when Begin and Sadat returned to Camp David, they finally agreed that something had to be signed.

On September 12, 1978, President Carter suggested dividing the negotiations over the peace treaty into two frameworks: framework #1 and framework #2. Framework #1 would address the West Bank and Gaza. Framework #2 would deal with Sinai.

The first framework dealt with the Palestinian territories (the West Bank and Gaza). The first point stated that the election of a self-governing authority would be allowed to provide full autonomy to the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza. This government would be elected by the Palestinians and would only look after municipal affairs. The second step would be to grant Palestinians autonomy mainly on those municipal matters. Five years down the road after having gone through steps one and two, the status of Palestine could then be negotiated. Framework No. 1 was not very well received; the Palestinians and Jordanians were furious. They objected to the fact that Begin and Sadat were deciding on their ultimate destiny without consulting them or their leaders. Framework No. 1 for that reason was not going to work; it was essentially a dead end.

The second framework dealt with the Sinai Peninsula. This framework consisted of two points:

1. The two parties, Egypt and Israel, should negotiate a treaty over a period of six months based on the principle of Egyptian sovereignty over Sinai and the withdrawal of Israel from that region. 2. This treaty would be followed and included in it would be the establishment of diplomatic, political, economic, and cultural relations between Egypt and Israel.

President Carter admitted that "there's still great difficulties that remain and many hard issues to be settled." This would be a peace that would establish normal relations between the two states. This was the basis of the two frameworks, but it had yet to be approved.

The reaction to this proposal in the Arab world was very negative. In November 1978, there was an emergency meeting held by the Arab League in Damascus. Once again, Egypt was the main subject of the meeting, and they condemned the proposed treaty that Egypt was going to sign. Sadat was also attacked by the Arab press for breaking ranks with the Arab League and having betrayed the Arab world. Discussions pertaining to the future peace treaty took place in both countries. Israel insisted in its negotiations that the Israel-Egypt treaty should supersede all of Egypt's other treaties, including those signed with the Arab League and Arab states. Israel also wanted access to the oil discovered in the Sinai region. President Carter interjected and informed the Israelis that the U.S. would supply Israel with whatever oil it needed for the next 15 years if Egypt at any point decided not to supply oil to Israel.

While framework #1 was already approved by the Israeli Government, the second framework also needed approval. The Israeli Cabinet accepted the second framework of the treaty. The Israeli Parliament also approved the second framework with a comfortable majority. Alternatively, the Egyptian Government was arguing about a number of things. They did not like the fact that this proposed treaty was going to supersede all other treaties. Egyptians were also disappointed that they were unable to link the Sinai question to the Palestinian question.

On March 26, 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in Washington, D.C. Carter's role in getting the treaty was essential. Aaron David Miller interviewed many officials for his book The Much Too Promised Land (2008) and concluded the following: "No matter whom I spoke to — Americans, Egyptians, or Israelis — most everyone said the same thing: no Carter, no peace treaty."

Panama Canal Treaties


Hoping to ease tensions with Latin American countries, Carter negotiated the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, two treaties which provided that Panama would gain control of the Panama Canal Zone in 1999. Carter's initiative faced wide resistance in the United States, and many in the public, particularly conservatives, thought that Carter was "giving away" a crucial U.S. asset. Conservatives formed groups such as the Committee to Save the Panama Canal in an attempt to defeat the treaties in the Senate, and Carter made ratification of the treaties his top priority. In March 1978, the Senate ratified both treaties by a margin of 68-to-32, narrowly passing the two-thirds margin necessary for ratification.

Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT)


Ford and Nixon had sought to reach agreement on another round of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), which reduced the number of nuclear weapons possessed by both the United States and the Soviet Union. Carter hoped to extend these talks, but he also criticized the Soviet Union's record with regard to human rights, partly because he believed the public would not support negotiations with the Soviets if the president seemed too willing to accommodate the Soviets. Carter and Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev reached an agreement in June 1979 regarding SALT II, but Carter's waning popularity and the opposition of Republicans and neoconservative Democrats made ratification difficult. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ended any hope of ratifying SALT II.

Afghanistan
Communists under the leadership of Nur Muhammad Taraki seized power in Afghanistan on April 27, 1978. The new regime—which was divided between Taraki's extremist Khalq faction and the more moderate Parcham—signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union in December of that year. Taraki's efforts to improve secular education and redistribute land were accompanied by mass executions (including of many conservative religious leaders) and political oppression unprecedented in Afghan history, igniting a revolt by mujahideen rebels. Following a general uprising in April 1979, Taraki was deposed by Khalq rival Hafizullah Amin in September. Amin was considered a "brutal psychopath" by foreign observers; even the Soviets were alarmed by the brutality of the Afghan communists, and suspected Amin of being an agent of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), although that was not the case. By December, Amin's government had lost control of much of the country, prompting the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan, execute Amin, and install Parcham leader Babrak Karmal as president.

Carter was surprised by the invasion, as the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community during 1978 and 1979—reiterated as late as September 29, 1979—was that "Moscow would not intervene in force even if it appeared likely that the Khalq government was about to collapse." Indeed, Carter's diary entries from November 1979 until the Soviet invasion in late December contain only two short references to Afghanistan, and are instead preoccupied with the ongoing hostage crisis in Iran. In the West, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was considered a threat to global security and the oil supplies of the Persian Gulf. Moreover, the failure to accurately predict Soviet intentions caused American officials to reappraise the Soviet threat to both Iran and Pakistan, although it is now known that those fears were overblown. For example, U.S. intelligence closely followed Soviet exercises for an invasion of Iran throughout 1980, while an earlier warning from Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski that "if the Soviets came to dominate Afghanistan, they could promote a separate Baluchistan ... [thus] dismembering Pakistan and Iran" took on new urgency. These concerns were a major factor in the unrequited efforts of both the Carter and Reagan administrations to improve relations with Iran, and resulted in massive aid to Pakistan's Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Zia's ties with the U.S. had been strained during Carter's presidency due to Pakistan's nuclear program and the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in April 1979, but Carter told Brzezinski and secretary of state Cyrus Vance as early as January 1979 that it was vital to "repair our relationships with Pakistan" in light of the unrest in Iran. One initiative Carter authorized to achieve this goal was a collaboration between the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI); through the ISI, the CIA began providing some $500,000 worth of non-lethal assistance to the mujahideen on July 3, 1979—several months prior to the Soviet invasion. The modest scope of this early collaboration was likely influenced by the understanding, later recounted by CIA official Robert Gates, "that a substantial U.S. covert aid program" might have "raise[d] the stakes" thereby causing "the Soviets to intervene more directly and vigorously than otherwise intended".

In the aftermath of the invasion, Carter was determined to respond vigorously to what he considered a dangerous provocation. In a televised speech, he announced sanctions on the Soviet Union, promised renewed aid to Pakistan, and committed the U.S. to the Persian Gulf's defense. The U.S. military commitment to the Persian Gulf became known as the Carter Doctrine. Carter also called for a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, which raised a bitter controversy. British prime minister Margaret Thatcher enthusiastically backed Carter's tough stance, although British intelligence believed "the CIA was being too alarmist about the Soviet threat to Pakistan". The thrust of U.S. policy for the duration of the war was determined by Carter in early 1980: Carter initiated a program to arm the mujahideen through Pakistan's ISI and secured a pledge from Saudi Arabia to match U.S. funding for this purpose. U.S. support for the mujahideen accelerated under Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, at a final cost to U.S. taxpayers of some $3 billion. The Soviets were unable to quell the insurgency and withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, precipitating the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself. However, the decision to route U.S. aid through Pakistan led to massive fraud, as weapons sent to Karachi were frequently sold on the local market rather than delivered to the Afghan rebels; Karachi soon "became one of the most violent cities in the world". Pakistan also controlled which rebels received assistance: Of the seven mujahideen groups supported by Zia's government, four espoused Islamic fundamentalist beliefs—and these fundamentalists received most of the funding. Despite this, Carter has expressed no regrets over his decision to support what he still considers the "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan.

Conspiracy theorists have alleged that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were beneficiaries of CIA assistance. This is refuted by experts such as Steve Coll—who notes that declassified CIA records and interviews with CIA officers do not support such claims—and Peter Bergen, who concludes: "The theory that bin Laden was created by the CIA is invariably advanced as an axiom with no supporting evidence." U.S. funding went to the Afghan mujahideen, not the Arab volunteers who arrived to assist them.

Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis


The main conflict between human rights and U.S. interests came in Carter's dealings with the Shah of Iran. The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, had been a strong ally of the United States since World War II and was one of the "twin pillars" upon which U.S. strategic policy in the Middle East was built (the other being Saudi Arabia). However, his rule was strongly autocratic, was seen as kleptocratic at home, and in 1953 he went along with the Eisenhower Administration in staging a coup to remove the elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. On a 1978 state visit to Iran, Carter spoke out in favor of the Shah, calling him a leader of supreme wisdom, and a pillar of stability in the volatile Middle East.

When the Iranian Revolution broke out in Iran the administration was divided on how to help the Shah. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance argued that the Shah should institute a series of reforms to appease the voices of discontent while National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski argued in favour of a crackdown - the iron fist approach - and a military government. Unable to receive a direct course of action from Carter, the mixed messages that the Shah received from Vance and Brzezinski contributed to his confusion and indecision. The Shah went into permanent exile in January 1979 and Iran fell to Khomeini's forces the following month.

Although he was initially given the opportunity to reside in the U.S. for a period, the Shah opted to stay in the region. Following the revolution however Carter refused him entry to the United States, even on grounds of medical emergency. Upon learning of his illness, on October 22, 1979, Carter finally granted him entry and temporary asylum for the duration of his cancer treatment. The Shah left the U.S. for Panama on December 15, 1979. In response to the Shah's entry into the U.S., Iranian militants seized the American embassy in Tehran in November, taking 52 Americans hostage. The Iranians demanded: Though later that year the Shah left the U.S. and died in Egypt in July 1980, the hostage crisis continued and dominated the last year of Carter's presidency. The subsequent responses to the crisis – from a "Rose Garden strategy" of staying inside the White House, to the ill-prepared and unsuccessful attempt to rescue the hostages by military means (Operation Eagle Claw) — were largely seen as contributing to Carter's defeat in the 1980 election. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, believing that the mission would be unsuccessful and endanger the lives of the hostages resigned.
 * 1) The return of the Shah to Iran for trial.
 * 2) The return of the Shah's wealth to the Iranian people.
 * 3) An admission of guilt by the United States for its past actions in Iran, plus an apology.
 * 4) A promise from the United States not to interfere in Iran's affairs in the future.

After the hostages were taken, Carter issued, on November 14, 1979, Executive Order 12170 – Blocking Iranian Government property, which was used to freeze the bank accounts of the Iranian government in U.S. banks, totaling about $8 billion U.S. at the time. This was to be used as a bargaining chip for the release of the hostages.

In the days before President Ronald Reagan took office, Algerian diplomat Abdulkarim Ghuraib opened negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. This resulted in the "Algiers Accords" one day before the end of Carter's Presidency on January 19, 1981, which entailed Iran's commitment to free the hostages immediately. Additionally, Executive Orders 12277 through 12285 were issued by Carter releasing all assets belonging to the Iranian government and all assets belonging to the Shah found within the United States and the guarantee that the hostages would have no legal claim against the Iranian government that would be heard in U.S. courts. Iran, however, also agreed to place $1 billion of the frozen assets in an escrow account and both Iran and the United States agreed to the creation of a tribunal to adjudicate claims by U.S. Nationals against Iran for compensation for property lost by them or contracts breached by Iran. The tribunal, known as the Iran – United States Claims Tribunal, has awarded over $2 billion to U.S. claimaints and has been described as one of the most important arbitration bodies in the history of international law. Although the release of the hostages was negotiated and secured under the Carter administration, the hostages were released on January 20, 1981, moments after Reagan was sworn in as President.

Iran–Iraq War
Following the Iranian Revolution, the Carter administration continued to see Iran as a bulwark against Iraq and the Soviet Union, and therefore attempted to forge a strategic partnership with the new Interim Government of Iran under Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan. "Acting head of the U.S. embassy in Tehran" Bruce Laingen realized that Iranian officials were acutely interested in U.S. intelligence on Iraq, and convinced Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Harold H. Saunders to approve an intelligence-sharing liaison with the Iranian government, culminating in an October 15, 1979 meeting between longtime Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer George Cave and the Iranian Deputy Prime Minister Abbas Amir-Entezam and Foreign Minister Ebrahim Yazdi. Cave told Mark J. Gasiorowski that he briefed Entezam and Yazdi on Iraqi military preparations and covert operations seemingly designed to facilitate a large-scale invasion of Iran, although no final decision had been made. (The content of Cave's briefing was corroborated by Laingen, Yazdi, Entezam, and Bazargan.) In particular, echoing a March 1979 warning from Pentagon analyst Howard Teicher regarding Iraqi designs on Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan Province, Cave pointed out that Iraq had created a front organization that could instigate unrest among Khuzestan's majority–Arab inhabitants—yet Cave emphasized that war could still be avoided if the strength of Iran's armed forces did not continue its post-revolutionary decline. Furthermore, Cave urged his Iranian interlocutors to monitor the movement of Iraqi troops with "the IBEX listening posts the CIA had constructed in northern Iran" under the Shah. Although Teicher and Cave's predictions proved accurate, they were the product of circumstantial evidence disputed internally within the U.S. government, and the significance of Cave's briefing has been debated. For example, according to Bureau of Intelligence and Research analyst Wayne White, who was not aware of the intelligence that informed Cave's briefing: "The Iraqi army was doing little more than continuing its well-known annual schedule of primarily battalion and brigade-level training exercises ... Very little of the Iraqi military was anywhere near the Iraqi-Iranian frontier." Similarly, the head of the Iran desk at the State Department, Henry Precht, stated: "I had no impression at the time that anyone believed Iraq was planning a major attack although we thought that [Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] might be stirring up the Kurds. At the time I did not think he would take on his larger and still probably more potent neighbor." On the other hand, Gasiorowski contended that "If Iran's leaders had acted on the information provided in Cave's briefings ... the brutal eight–year [ Iran–Iraq War ] might never have occurred."

Iraq's invasion of Iran in September 1980 was preceded by a long period of tension between the two countries throughout 1979 and 1980, including frequent border skirmishes, calls by Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini for the Shia of Iraq to revolt against the Ba'ath Party, and allegations of Iraqi support for ethnic separatists in Iran. On June 18, 1979, U.S. chargé d'affaires Charlie Naas asked Yazdi about the deterioration in relations; Yazdi stated he "does not know what might be bothering Iraq ... certainly we have done nothing to bother them." Khomeini had recently condemned Iraq's arrest of Shi'ite leader Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, but Yazdi claimed this had nothing to do with any effort to export the Islamic Revolution to Iraq: Iran was merely concerned with protecting the "religious centers in Najaf and Karbala." Nevertheless, in a subsequent conversation between Naas and Entezam it emerged that the latter was unaware of the anti-Iraq broadcasts "Sadegh Ghotbzadeh was sanctioning in his role as managing director of National Iranian Radio and Television." Continuing to seek good relations with Iranian authorities, U.S. officials uncovered considerable evidence of Iraqi support for Kurdish rebels in Iran under the leadership of Jalal Talabani (Fatah contacts told the CIA's Beirut station that "Saddam Hussein himself was directly involved in supervising these operations"); while these rebels were not considered capable of overthrowing the Iranian government militarily, they were undermining Iranian moderates, prompting Precht to broach the possibility of meeting with Iraqi officials to persuade them that Iraq's support for the Kurds was not in its best interest. Throughout this time, Iraq's intentions toward Iran were not entirely clear, as "the Iraqi government was continuing to put out diplomatic feelers, unsuccessfully inviting a delegation led by Bazargan to visit Iraq in July 1979," while the CIA concluded in November (despite Cave's warning the previous month) that Iraq intended "to settle its differences with Iran through negotiations." Muhammed Dosky, "a Kurdistan Democratic Party representative in Washington," also believed "Iraq's overriding goal was to persuade the new government in Tehran to live up to the conditions of the Algiers Accord ... Iraq was using Kurdish groups not out of a sense of opportunism, or as a prelude to the coming conflict, but in order to consolidate agreements made with the Shah." Saddam was willing to work with Iranian moderates such as Yazdi, whom he met in Havana in October, but "the mass resignation of the Bazargan government" following the November 4th seizure of the U.S. embassy and initiation of the Iran hostage crisis—and the resulting consolidation of power under Khomeini—"would profoundly change Saddam's decision-making calculus." While the Iraqi archives suggest that Saddam contemplated invading Iran as early as February 1979, he was deterred from doing so until July 1980, at which point "purges and revolutionary chaos" had rendered Iran grossly unprepared for the attack.

Iranian leaders, including Khomeini and his successor Ali Khamenei, have long espoused a belief that the U.S. gave Saddam Hussein a "green light" to launch the invasion of Iran—something U.S. officials "have unanimously and vociferously denied." Joost Hiltermann observed that a U.S. "green light" is also "the conventional wisdom in the Arab world." In fact, Iranian suspicions that the U.S. would use Iraq to retaliate for the hostage-taking predated the invasion, as Carter noted in his diary on April 10, 1980: "The Iranian terrorists are making all kinds of crazy threats to kill the American hostages if they are invaded by Iraq—whom they identify as an American puppet." There are several reasons for this perception, including some circumstantial evidence. First, although the Carter administration had long been interested in rapprochement with Iraq, prior to the hostage crisis the administration's preference for Iran as the "strategic choice" effectively rendered this impossible. After the dramatic break in Iran–United States relations, however, both American and Iraqi officials made a number of positive gestures towards one another, including "a speech by Saddam denouncing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan," and culminating in an April 10 statement by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David D. Newsom that "The United States is prepared ... to resume diplomatic relations with Iraq at any time." Saddam later acknowledged that Iraq had accepted Newsom's offer "during the two months prior to the war between us and Iran" but "when the war started, and to avoid misinterpretation, we postponed the establishment of relations." Moreover, the CIA—desperate for intelligence on Iran—maintained contacts with Iranian opposition figures including "the Shah's last Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar" and Gholam Ali Oveisi, who were themselves in touch with Iraqi officials and had encouraged Saddam to invade. Even though declassified documents state the U.S. "would not fund, assist, or guide [Bakhtiar's] movement, but [was] providing the channel as a means by which he could provide us information on his intentions and capabilities," and there is no evidence either Bakhtiar or Oveisi were acting at the behest of the U.S., "the Iranian militants occupying the embassy found dozens of documents detailing these contacts"—which began "even before the hostage crisis"—and "read them extremely selectively." What ultimately convinced the Iranian leadership of "American complicity in any Iraqi attack" was the July 9 Nojeh coup plot, a failed military coup d'état against Khomeini funded by Iraqi intelligence through Bakhtiar (the Iraqis may have notified the Iranian authorities in advance, as they understood "the damage the subsequent purge would inflict on the Iranian military"). Bakhtiar told the plotters the U.S. "had given [the coup] its blessing," but "he was lying" as the U.S. "knew nothing about the Nojeh operation and would likely have opposed it on the grounds that it would endanger the lives of the hostages." In August, Saddam made a trip to Saudi Arabia in which King Khalid "reportedly gave his personal blessing to the invasion and promised Saudi backing," which Bryan R. Gibson commented was "a very significant gesture, especially in light of the closeness of American–Saudi relations." United States Secretary of State Alexander Haig told Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, that it was during this visit that "President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through [Crown Prince] Fahd," as related to Haig by Fahd himself, but at a 2008 conference several academics and former U.S. officials questioned the veracity of this assertion as well as the motives of both Haig and Fahd in promulgating it. As described by Malcolm Byrne: "The American veterans were unanimous that no 'green light' was ever given, and that the Haig document, while intriguing on its face, leaves far too much room for interpretation to be definitive. In any event the Saudi comments did not address the various policy arguments that militated against an invasion—chiefly, the potential danger posed to the American hostages in Tehran—which the participants said held sway with most American officials."

On April 9, the Defense Intelligence Agency received information from a source considered reliable, predicting that "the situation is presently more critical than previously reported" and postulating a 50% chance Iraq would invade Iran. An April 11 CIA analysis is more blunt: "Evidence indicates that Iraq had probably planned to initiate a major military move against Iran with the aim of toppling the Khomeini regime"—and had "sought to engage the Kuwaitis to act as intermediary in obtaining United States approval and support for Iraqi military action against Iran." Carter himself has confirmed that fear the U.S. hostages would be executed if Iraq attacked was one reason he approved a failed rescue mission on April 24. In light of these alerts, the claims of senior Carter administration officials involved with Iran—including White, Naas, Precht, and head of the National Security Council (NSC)'s Iran desk Gary Sick—that they were surprised by the invasion require some explanation. In all likelihood, these warnings went unheeded because "those who doubted they amounted to compelling evidence won the argument. In effect, they were right. Only in early July did U.S. observers note the movement of Iraqi assets out of garrison with war-related 'basic loads' of ammunition" and it was not until September 17 that the CIA indicated "the intensification of border clashes between Iran and Iraq has reached a point where a serious conflict is now a distinct possibility." Even then, as recounted by State Department official W. Nathaniel Howell, U.S. officials remained unsure what to make of Saddam's intentions: "We all followed Saddam's actions and rhetoric closely but most people I knew tended to believe he was posturing." When the invasion came on September 22, "it was unclear whether Saddam had simply fallen into a rage following a smaller skirmish." White recalled: "The outbreak of war did, in fact, come as a surprise to most of us because a decent portion of Iraq's ground forces were still in garrison. The hasty movement of the remaining units up to the front immediately after the beginning of major hostilities was the activity that tended to nudge me toward the abrupt scenario in which Saddam ordered the attack before all military preparations had been completed." Thus, in the view of Chris Emery, "it is unlikely that the United States was ever in possession of clear evidence of Saddam's intention to invade Iran. Although the Carter administration drastically underestimated the scale of Saddam's plans, the disorganized and apparently impetuous nature of the invasion, with much of the Iraqi army still in garrison, and occurring in the context of border skirmishes and aggressive propaganda, muddied the waters for U.S. observers."

Once the war began, the Carter administration's policy was broadly neutral and included several actions that favored Iran, although these could also be seen as aimed primarily at preventing a wider war. While many U.S. officials were initially optimistic that limited Iraqi gains would force Iran to agree to an arms-for-hostages deal (this proved unnecessary because Iran purchased adequate arms and equipment from Syria, Libya, North Korea, the Soviet Union, and Israel), a consensus soon emerged that the war had disrupted whatever progress had been made during negotiations with Sadeq Tabatabaei. When Iraq unilaterally attempted to station MiG-23 aircraft, helicopters, and special forces in several Persian Gulf states to use for operations against Iran, "most made frantic attempts to dissuade the Iraqi aircraft from landing; Bahrain even physically blockaded its runways." The Iraqi presence was initially tolerated in Oman (Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said "had been a close friend of the Shah and was probably convinced by Saddam that one decisive attack could bring the revolution down") and Ras al-Khaimah (which had designs on an island the Shah had seized from the United Arab Emirates in 1971), but U.S. officials were "horrified" by the prospect of a regional war, and "after a series of telephone conversations between the White House, Sultan Qaboos, and Sheik Saqr, the Iraqis were swiftly sent on their way." Likewise, when King Hussein informed "U.S. ambassador to Jordan" Nick Veliotes that Iraq was considering the annexation of Khuzestan Province, Veliotes stated: "The U.S. was unalterably opposed to any efforts to dismember Iran." On October 3, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski advised Carter that "we should actively seek new contacts with Iran to explore the possibility of helping it just enough to put sufficient pressure on Iraq to pull back from most, if not all, its current acquisitions," citing the need "to safeguard Iran from Soviet penetration or internal disintegration." The U.S. even tried, unsuccessfully, to stop the flow of weapons from Jordan to Iraq—prompting "Saddam to claim in December that it was supporting 'Iran's "aggression" against Iraq.'" Despite this, the U.S. tolerated the provision of weapons and intelligence from Egypt to Iraq, in exchange for Iraq's assistance in ending the diplomatic isolation Egypt had endured as a result of its Peace Treaty with Israel. In addition, the U.S. "took active steps to make sure that Iraq's ability to export [oil] through the Gulf was unimpaired and could be quickly restored after the cessation of hostilities, primarily by expediting the purchase and early placement of single point mooring buoys," although this "had only limited effect, given the scale of Iranian retaliatory strikes." Finally, "American AWACS planes" were deployed to protect Saudi Arabia at the Saudi government's request.

In Emery's judgement, claims that the Reagan administration's later "tilt" in favor of Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War was merely a continuation of Carter-era policies cannot be supported by available evidence: "The policy that emerged was characterized by a desire to preserve all options, while trying to avoid actions that would undermine the Carter Doctrine or establish an opening for the Soviet Union. The impetus for America to adjust its policy of neutrality, and take a definitive position on which side to back, came in 1982, when the Iranian military threatened to overrun Iraq." Indeed, "the State Department's transition team advised the incoming government" to avoid threatening Iran militarily or assisting the Iranian opposition, as doing so would "make an eventual rapprochement with Iran more difficult." In Carter's own account, "I despised Saddam Hussein, because he attacked Iran when my hostages were being held. It was President Reagan who established diplomatic relations with Saddam Hussein after I left office." Gibson averred: "If Washington had any foreknowledge of the invasion, logic would suggest that the timing would be postponed until after the hostages were successfully released." Regardless of whether the U.S. provided any express "green light" to Saddam, Iranians continue to view the failure of the United Nations Security Council to condemn Iraq's invasion—or to recognize Iraq as the aggressor until after Iraq's Invasion of Kuwait nearly a decade later—as a form of tacit complicity in Iraq's aggression against Iran—not just on the part of the U.S., but the entire world.

Cuba
The Mariel boatlift was a mass emigration of Cubans who departed from Cuba's Mariel Harbor for the United States, authorized by U.S. president Jimmy Carter, between April 15 and October 31, 1980. The event was precipitated by a sharp downturn in the Cuban economy which led to internal tensions on the island and a bid by up to 10,000 Cubans to gain asylum in the Peruvian embassy. The Cuban government subsequently announced that anyone who wanted to leave could do so, and an exodus by boat started shortly afterward. The exodus was organized by Cuban-Americans with the agreement of Cuban president Fidel Castro. The exodus started to have negative political implications for U.S. president Jimmy Carter when it was discovered that a number of the exiles had been released from Cuban jails and mental health facilities. The Mariel boatlift was ended by mutual agreement between the two governments involved in October 1980. By that point, as many as 125,000 Cubans had made the journey to Florida. About fifty percent of the Mariel immigrants decided to reside in Miami permanently and this resulted in a seven percent increase in workers in the Miami labor market and a twenty percent increase in the Cuban working population. Castro publicly stated "I have flushed the toilets of Cuba on the United States."

South Korea
During his first month in office, Carter cut the defense budget by $6 billion. One of his first acts was to order the unilateral removal of all nuclear weapons from South Korea and announce his intention to cut back the number of US troops stationed there. Other military men confined intense criticism of the withdrawal to private conversations or testimony before congressional committees, but in 1977 Major General John K. Singlaub, chief of staff of U.S. forces in South Korea, publicly criticized Carter's decision to lower the U.S. troop level there. On March 21, 1977, Carter relieved him of duty, saying his publicly stated sentiments were "inconsistent with announced national security policy". Carter planned to remove all U.S. troops from South Korea by 1982, with the exception of 14,000 U.S. Air Force personnel and logistics specialists, but after cutting only 3,600 men, he was forced by intense Congressional pressure as well as strong opposition from the military generals to abandon the effort in 1978.

People's Republic of China

 * See also Sino-American relations

Carter continued the policy of Richard Nixon to normalize relations with the People's Republic of China. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and China expert Michel Oksenberg who was serving on the National Security Council, traveled to Beijing in early 1978, where they worked with Leonard Woodcock, head of the liaison office there, to lay the groundwork for granting the People's Republic of China full diplomatic and trade relations. In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations dated January 1, 1979, the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The U.S. reiterated the Shanghai Communiqué's acknowledgment of the Chinese position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China; Beijing acknowledged that the American people would continue to carry on commercial, cultural, and other unofficial contacts with the people of Taiwan. The U.S. unofficially recognized Taiwan through the Taiwan Relations Act.

Indonesian occupation of East Timor
The Carter administration resumed and dramatically increased arms sales to the Indonesian Suharto government during its occupation of East Timor. In an interview, Carter's Assistant Secretary Richard Holbrooke described its interest to the United States: "Indonesia [...] is the fifth largest nation in the world, is a moderate member of the Non-Aligned Movement, is an important oil producer – which plays a moderate role within OPEC – and occupies a strategic position astride the sea lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans."

The Suharto regime invaded East Timor in 1975 to protest from the United Nations. Annual U.S. arms sales to Suharto, which began shortly before the invasion, was around $11 million for Ford's last two years. "Roughly 90%" of the arms belonging to the Indonesian military at the time of East Timor's invasion were U.S. supplied, according to State Department Deputy Legal Advisor George H. Aldrich's testimony at the 1977 House International Relations Committee.

By 1977, the Indonesian government's occupation drained its army of the resources supplied by Ford. The next year, the Carter administration sold $112 million in arms to the Suharto government. American arms sales to the Suharto regime averaged about $60 million annually during Carter's term, more than double the figure of Ford's yearly sales. The pattern of arms sales to the Indonesian occupation regime continued under Reagan, Bush and Clinton and completely finished after the East Timorese independence referendum in 1999. According to the United Nations, 84,000-183,000 East Timorese civilians were killed during the occupation, by methods including forced starvation, with Indonesian forces being responsible for 70% of the 18,600 unlawful killings.

In a 2007 interview with Amy Goodman, Carter discussed the actions of his administration regarding East Timor: "I have to say that I was not, you know, as thoroughly briefed about what was going on in East Timor as I should have been. I was more concerned about other parts of the world then."

Rapid Deployment Forces
On October 1, 1979, Carter announced before a television audience the existence of the Rapid Deployment Forces (RDF), a mobile fighting force capable of responding to worldwide trouble spots, without drawing on forces committed to NATO. The RDF was the forerunner of CENTCOM.

List of international trips
Carter made 12 international trips to 25 nations during his presidency.