An Exemplary Nation

Since leaving office, Jimmy Carter has worked as a roving peace negotiator, election monitor (through the Carter Center), home builder (through Habitat for Humanity) and author. Now 83, the former president spoke to NEWSWEEK'S Jonathan Tepperman about the United States' battered image and the role of ethics in politics. Excerpts:

TEPPERMAN: What's your take on America's world standing?
CARTER: It's at the lowest ebb I have ever known. Our country—our government—has abandoned some of the crucial moral values that made our nation popular with people hoping for a better life. This administration has departed from the policies of previous Republican presidents as well as Democrats.

Such as?
Peace. In the past, our country had a policy of going to war [only] when our security was directly threatened. Now there's a policy of pre-emptive war; that is, we'll go to war when there might be a regime we want to overthrow. Second, our country has basically abandoned every nuclear-arms agreement that has been negotiated since the time of Eisenhower. We're one of two holdouts on the Kyoto Protocol [on climate change]. And we've failed until recently to make any effort to bring peace to Israel and its neighbors.

How would you describe the underlying problem?
Our country was once the champion of human rights—which include the right to live in peace—and raised high the banner for people to follow around the world. Now we're looked on as one of the foremost rights violators.

Is the damage irreparable?
No, I don't think so. I could write a 20-minute speech for the next president that the world would find instantly reassuring. It would say that our nation will comply with all international agreements ever consummated against torture or the improper treatment of prisoners or on the control and reduction and ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, and that we will be in the forefront of the global economy and of the world on protecting the environment. Those kinds of things would reassure the rest of the world that the United States is returning to its ancient commitment to moral values.

So what kind of posture should the United States adopt in its foreign policy? Benign hegemon? Humble giant? Just another ordinary state? Moral crusader?
I think "exemplar" would be best. There's no way to escape the fact that the United States is the only superpower on earth. It must set an example that can be emulated. I would like it if—in the future, as has sometimes happened in the past—everybody on earth, when faced with civil conflict or war with a neighbor or with democracy or human-rights abuse or environmental [problems], would say instantly, "Why don't we go to Washington? They'll do everything they can to help us resolve or prevent our conflict. They exemplify the kind of values we need in our own lives." That's what I'd like to see.