This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox.So much of Donald Trump’s worldview came together in the 1970s, when turmoil in the Middle East sparked an energy crisis around the world and an economic malaise at home set in motion a political realignment that punished those in power.Trump, then a rising real estate magnate, never forgot the dim view many held of Jimmy Carter, the former peanut farmer who resoundingly lost his presidential re-election bid to Ronald Reagan.“He’s a nice man. He was a terrible President,” Trump said of Carter in 2019. “He’s been trashed within his own party. He’s been trashed.”And now, nearly half a century later, it’s like we’ve all jumped into a time machine. The U.S. mired in a seemingly endless conflict with Iran. Oil prices shooting through the roof. Inflation and tepid job growth spurring fears of a recession. Even the long lines are back—Carter had them at gas stations, Trump has them at airports. It’s not a comparison Trump would find particularly comforting. After all, Trump continued to harp on Carter’s as a failed presidency even in the months after his death."Jimmy Carter died a happy man," Trump said in April of 2025. "You know why? Because he wasn't the worst. President Joe Biden was."For his part, Carter was no Trump fan but he nevertheless extended grace to his successor, praising Trump in his first term for calling off a planned retaliatory strike against Iran in 2019. "I agree with President Trump on his decision not to take military action against Iran," Carter said in the days that followed Trump’s restraint. "I had a lot of problems with Iran when I was in office."Much like the outcomes of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars in the present, the United States’ failure to win Vietnam was fresh in the public’s mind in Carter’s days. The prospect of entering another war in Asia with Iran—five times the size of Vietnam— was a nonstarter, even amid the 444 agonizing days when Iran held 52 Americans as hostages. “The problem with all the military options is that we could use them and feel good for a few hours—until we found out they had killed our people,” Carter told his national security team, according to Jonathan Adler’s masterful biography of the 39th President. “And once we start killing people in Iran, where will it end?”These days, Trump has handled that question differently. The Pentagon has ordered 2,000 soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the region, as Trump signaled he wants total domination of that nation. “We negotiate with bombs,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asserted on Wednesday.Carter always viewed that very approach as disastrous, even if it might have helped him politically. “I could have been reelected if I’d taken military action against Iran, shown that I was strong and resolute and manly,” Carter said in 2014, three decades after he left the White House. But the costs—particularly the deaths of scores of innocent people—were not worth it, he determined.Perhaps nowhere on the zoomed-in map makes clear the Carter-Trump divide than the Strait of Hormuz, a treacherous connector between the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through there these days, at least when U.S. foes haven’t cripled it with threats of strikes against tankers. In Carter’s day, the Soviets were the bad actors in that chokepoint for barrels of oil. Moscow backed Tehran, where Americans were held hostage and the world’s energy markets were under similar assault. Although some in Carter’s circle—notably national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski—favored military action and seizing Kharg Island, restraint won the day. “We have Kharg Island and they have the hostages,” Carter’s press secretary argued. In his final State of the Union address, the President explicitly cited the Strait of Hormuz while introducing what would come to be known as the Carter Doctrine: the U.S. military would be a tool to protect its national interests in the Middle East. But not an instrument that was on autopilot. “This situation demands careful thought, steady nerves, and resolute action,” Carter said. “It demands the participation of all those who rely on oil from the Middle East and who are concerned with global peace and stability. And it demands consultation and close cooperation with countries in the area which might be threatened."Then there’s Trump. His war partner Israel assassinated the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ naval commander this week. Trump’s top negotiator, Steve Witkoff, said during Thursday’s Cabinet meeting that he has been telling Iran “that this is the inflection point with no good alternatives for them other than more death and destruction.” Writing on his social media platform, Trump hinted that his Friday deadline to strike a deal was looming: “They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty!” Carter led with cautious diplomacy while Trump offered munitions as motivation.It was Iran and the economy in particular that dogged Carter’s reputation through his post-presidency and beyond. Yet his one term in the job also had its fair share of impressive accomplishments. He negotiated a historic peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, seen as a major step toward de-escalating the risks posed to Israel. Trump can brandish his own diplomatic deals in the Middle East such as his Abraham Accords and a pause to the larger war in Gaza. His Administration has also repeatedly claimed he’s ended multiple other wars in his second term that have been fact-checked to death. He openly campaigned for a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s as if Trump is worried that, like Carter, his achievements toward peace will be overshadowed by his failure to curb Iran.Along with mercilessly mocking Carter, Trump is making good on campaign promises that might as well have been designed to undo Carter’s legacy—dismantling the federal Department of Education, scrapping back Carter’s environmental protections, and reneging on the treaty Carter signed ceding control of the Panama Canal.But objectively, Carter still laps Trump on some key measures. Nobel Peace Prize? Check. Better all-time-high poll numbers? Yep. Average Gallup standing? Yes, at least until Gallup stopped asking about Trump’s job approval last year.Carter had decades of a post-presidency to rebuild his reputation and build a legacy far beyond his four years in the White House. It is unlikely Trump, at 79, will have the same luxury of a long post-White House reflection about this war that hints of the 1970s but is unfolding in a much-changed world.Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter.