THE rEALIST STAMP OF APPROVAL:

Jimmy Carter and Sudan’s genocidal regime (Walid Phares with Khairi Abaza, 4/28/10, The Daily Caller)

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is often lauded by the Arab world for championing the Palestinian cause. However, after stumbling into the world of Sudanese politics, Carter has lost all credibility. Inexplicably, Carter gave his blessing (with perfunctory caveats) to a rigged election that has handed victory to a genocidal war criminal who granted safe haven to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s.

Sudan held polls earlier this month (April 11-16) to elect a president and a legislature. These were the country’s first elections there since Omar El-Bashir’s Islamist military junta overthrew the government in 1989. While some Arab observers described the vote as a new possible beginning for Sudan, many parties decided to boycott them. And for good reason. The elections were neither free nor fair.

Carter, one of the international observers of Sudan’s elections, had an opportunity to expose the vote for the sham that it was. On the Carter Center’s website, he raised several concerns about the vote, but on the ground, the former president told reporters that he saw “no reasons for any concern” about the elections, except for “a few isolated stations way out,” that could experience some complications.

Carter’s endorsement is beyond the pale.