Success Quote by Jimmy Carter

Carter’s line does two things at once: it canonizes Anwar Sadat and indicts the moral psychology of the people who wanted him dead. Calling Sadat “a great and good man” is eulogy language, but it’s also diplomatic positioning. Carter isn’t merely praising a partner; he’s defending the entire gamble of Camp David-era peacemaking as an act of character, not just strategy. In that framing, peace isn’t a transaction. It’s a test of leadership.

The key move is the inversion embedded in “bitter and dangerous enemies.” Carter doesn’t say Sadat’s enemies opposed him because of legitimate interests, nationalism, or fear. He says they were “obsessed with hatred for his peaceful goals.” That’s a psychologically loaded accusation: the enemy is not mistaken, but consumed; not calculating, but addicted. Carter is effectively quarantining anti-peace violence from the realm of understandable politics and placing it in the realm of moral pathology.

Context sharpens the intent. Sadat’s outreach to Israel and the resulting treaty redrew the region’s power map, splitting Arab opinion and intensifying internal Egyptian backlash. By emphasizing that the fiercest hostility was directed at “peaceful goals,” Carter spotlights the tragedy at the heart of Sadat’s assassination: the idea that reconciliation can be more threatening than war because it collapses the narratives that justify permanent struggle.

Carter’s subtext is also self-reflective. Defending Sadat is defending the legitimacy of Carter’s own presidency-defining project. It’s a reminder that peacemaking often fails not on policy details but on the social ecosystems that need conflict to stay coherent.