[cpk]

Carter's negatives--

* Iran hostage crisis. Pretty much everyone knows what went wrong here.

* South Korea. He wanted to remove troops from SK, which would've left SK totally undefended from the aggressive North. He had to fire a general over it. Ultimately, he backed down, which looks inept.

Slight positives--

* Panama Canal. Objectively he did the right thing, but he had a number of PR problems because at the time Panama was locked in the hold of a brutal dictatorship. He was assaulted from both the right and left over the issue, but ultimately successful in getting the treaties ratified.

* SALT II. Reducing the number of nuclear weapons is always a good thing, but he never got this treaty ratified because the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. However, in subsequent years, both the USA and Soviets obeyed the treaty's stipulations anyway.

* Central America. In general, Carter began to weaken the US's policy of backing brutal dictators if they were hostile to Soviet interests, but he didn't go far enough.

* Rhodesia. He continued sanctions against Rhodesia, and a new government was elected, but the head of that government was Robert Mugabe. Hard to call that a win.

Positives--

* China. Carter's administration normalized diplomatic and trade relations with China, while at the same time maintaining economic ties to Taiwan. Nixon gets all the credit for normalizing our relations with China, but the reality is that Carter's team did all the dirty work.

* Afghanistan. The covert action sponsored by the Carter Administration was ultimately successful in denying the Soviets this territory, and it contributed ultimately to the collapse of the Soviet Union. There were numerous downsides to this action, to be sure, but on the face of it this was a foreign policy success attributable to Carter.

* Egypt and Israel. The Carter Administration was instrumental in this process, culminating in the Camp David accords.

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Some positives, a lot of almost-positives, and some negatives.

W's Negatives
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* Iraqi occupation.

* Afghan aftermath.

* Guantanamo Bay and torture via waterboarding.

W's Slight Positives
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* Removal of Saddam Hussein from power. Hate all you want, it's difficult to say that the Iraqi people were better off with this brutal dictator in power. But the aftermath has not been very promising.

* Removal of the Taliban from power. Same as above.

* North Korean nuclear program shutdown.

I don't see how anyone would say that Carter is a worse foreign policy president than W. Carter accomplished a [censored]-load of stuff in 4 years. W's main legacies are mostly negatives--he gets some credit for removing Hussein and the Taliban, but he has been utterly inept in managing the aftermath.