XXX ratings … impact fluster

There is something distinctly pornographic about Jimmy Carter’s highly publicized performances as self-anointed international mediator and peacemaker extraordinaire. Like a cheap dirty movie, his televised foray this week into such dens of iniquity as Pale and Belgrade leave one feeling degraded and sickened.

The plot is straight out of an XXX-rated film script: Watch the protagonist engage in various obscene acts with a cast of despicable people endowed with bizarre attributes — in this case, megalomania, sadism, genocidal tendencies, etc. In the process, he will demonstrate an astounding indifference to the depravity of his actions and a stamina that impresses even as it disgusts.

The obscenity started with Mr. Carter’s announcement on his way to Sarajevo that he was intent on rectifying the bad publicity the Serbs had gotten during the years that they had inflicted aggression, ethnic cleansing and genocide against their neighbors. He opined that the Serb side of the story had not been adequately conveyed to the American people and that his visit afforded an extraordinary opportunity to rectify that situation.

Those who have seen Mr. Carter perform in previous feature roles will recognize this posture as one of his trademarks. Call it the "emissary position." In it, he prostrates himself before a despicable thug and tries to communicate an empathy for the tyrant’s "pain" at being misunderstood. Never mind that, in the name of creating conditions that will facilitate mediation, he is legitimating war criminals and psychopaths, extending a moral equivalence that plays directly into the hands of such predators.

After a nine-hour marathon coupling with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, it’s off to Sarajevo where Mr. Carter adopts a new persona — playing the dominatrix in a sadistic effort to compel a victim to acquiesce in, if not profess pleasure at, the violence being perpetrated upon him. The fact that the Bosnian government, like its people, has become accustomed to such abuse from Western "leaders" does not make the degrading act of submission any more pleasurable to watch.

Then it’s back to Pale to allow the leading man to experiment with still more exotic contortions. The actors embrace again, this time for the purpose of shoring up, refining and clarifying their promises of a future commitment to one another that ring hollow when made and that will in short order be as forgotten as a one-night stand.

Finally, the scene switches to the home of the master of S&M -Slobodan Milosevic, the unreconstructed communist despot of Belgrade whose insatiable appetite for a Greater Serbia has been directly responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands, the displacement of millions and the destruction of whole nations. Mr. Milosevic’s ability to have his way with a string of Western mediators (some of them far better men than Jimmy Carter), rendered the outcome a bit predictable. The ignominy was made complete though when, following his interlude with the Butcher of Belgrade, Mr. Carter cooed about the desirability of lifting sanctions against Serbia in exchange for nothing more than the initiation of "serious peace talks."

It is in the nature of the human condition that, if exposed to such pornography, one is drawn to play the voyeur. Perhaps it is because of amazement that any individual would be willing to allow himself to be so debased in public. Perhaps it is the spectacle of a man driven by an insatiable "lust in his heart" for an elusive Nobel peace prize, public acclaim and/or political rehabilitation. Or perhaps it is simply the hope that the plot will improve, that some redeeming social value will become apparent.

Unfortunately, North Korea’s odious behavior with respect to the U.S. helicopter it shot down this week is a vivid reminder of the vacuousness of Mr. Carter’s exploits. His "breakthrough" last summer with Kim Il Sung was credited with avoiding a war over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons capability, and thus setting the stage for extended U.S.-North Korean diplomatic intercourse. The truth, however, is it resulted in an agreement that is a profound humiliation for the United States and that rapes American interests in the region — and beyond.

The magnitude of this travesty is evident in the North’s belief that it could act with impunity concerning the pilots it captured and killed, even though the United States is supposed to have enormous leverage in the form of oil supplies, multi-billion reactors and normalized political and economic ties. If such leverage cannot assure Pyongyang’s conformity to the most basic humanitarian requests, can it really be expected to prevent North Korea from covertly proceeding with its nuclear build-up?

Jimmy Carter’s latest performance will have no more lasting value. As with his earlier meddling in Korea and Haiti, the former president’s dalliance with Balkan despots will have the effect of further eroding U.S. moral authority, confusing American and foreign publics about the true nature of the problem and implicating the United States in follow-on initiatives likely to prove profoundly harmful to its vital, long-term interests.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is the director of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the Washington Times.