Jimmy Carter

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In 1976 Jimmy Carter, a small peanut farmer from Georgia was elected the President of the United Sates. Carter had limited experience in the National Political Arena. He used his inexperience to his advantage and promised to restore honesty and morality to the government. After the corruption that the United States had seen within the previous administrations of Nixon and Ford, Carter was welcomed with open arms. During his presidency Carter was faced with a plethora of domestic and foreign issues. At home, economic problems dominated causing massive unemployment and inflation. Oil shortages also presented a challenge. Domestically, Carter’s policies were a failure, with no success in alleviating the economy or the oil crisis. In the Middle East as series of conflicts between Egypt and Israel resulted in peace talks and with the Presidents’ mediation they were successful. However, Carter was not completely successful abroad. In Iran Carter was ineffective in procuring a quick solution and as a result lost public support. While Carter was successful in dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict, he was disastrous in his domestic economic policy and his other foreign diplomatic endeavors; ultimately his successes paled in comparison to his failures.

Carter’s main attempt to resolve the energy crisis came in the form of a national energy program that moved to conserve oil and promote alternative energy sources like coal and renewable energy sources. The President convinced Congress to form the Department of Energy, and pleaded with Americans to control their energy consumption. Oil companies however insisted on more deregulation of the energy industry. In order to prevent oil companies from taking advantage of the American consumer he ...

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...w the United States’ close ally Shah. Countless modernizers were persecuted, arrested and executed. In November 52 United States diplomats were held hostage by student revolutionaries who’d seized the American embassy in Tehran. America took immediate action and seized all Iranian assets. The United States attempted to negotiate. The negotiation, to the dismay of the American people dragged on for 444 days. There was a large push for President Carter to use military forces as means of negotiations; he however opted for peaceful means, which proved to be unsuccessful. Finally in April 1980 the President sanctioned a rescue mission. The attempt failed due to technical difficulties, eight men died; as a result the nation became extremely unnerved. Carter's dialogue with Iran continued throughout 1980. This was yet another failure on Carter’s part to rectify an issue.

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