While Iran is the most visible failure of Carters policies, it is not the be all and end all of his foreign policy fuck ups. The man needed to choose to be a hardass, the way he was when he sanctioned the Timor invasion, or the good christian and stick with it. Frankly Carters main foreign policy issue came from the skitzo nature of his decisions, half the time coming off as the coldest of cold warriors the other half coming off as a complete push over. It was a reoccuring theme in his administration.
To get Carter re elected from a foreign policy prospective you need for him to pick on or the faces he showed to the world and stick with it. Thats going to take a POD thats way before Iran. Secondly, i know its popular to say that he started Reagans build up, but the man was a technocrat. He, despite having been a serving officer, completely missed the depredation in quality that made US ground forces equal or lesser then, to use a bit of hyperbole, their third world cousins. The US army in the eighties had very deep problems, ones that were not solved until Reagans second term. Carter was a systems guy, not a people person, when it comes to the military.
To get Carter re elected from a foreign policy prospective you need for him to pick on or the faces he showed to the world and stick with it. Thats going to take a POD thats way before Iran. Secondly, i know its popular to say that he started Reagans build up, but the man was a technocrat. He, despite having been a serving officer, completely missed the depredation in quality that made US ground forces equal or lesser then, to use a bit of hyperbole, their third world cousins. The US army in the eighties had very deep problems, ones that were not solved until Reagans second term. Carter was a systems guy, not a people person, when it comes to the military.