Jimmy Carter is at it again. It was only about two weeks ago when the former president said, in an interview with the German magazine, Der Spiegel, that Israel was unjustified in attacking Lebanon. Now, speaking to the British Daily Telegraph, he's condemning British PM Tony Blair for being too compliant and subservient to President Bush.

The Der Spiegel interview was, itself, a comprehensive view of Mr. Carter's view of the Middle East and the war on terror. Flacking his new book, Carter was asked whether he believed that the hatred of the US throughout the Arab world he stated in his book indicated that Washington's calls for democracy in the Middle East had been discredited. The 2002 Nobel Peace Prize laureate answered, "No, as a matter of fact, the concerns I exposed have gotten even worse now with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon."

That was too much for the interviewer who followed up by asking, "But wasn't Israel the first to get attacked?" Carter was undeterred. "I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for the massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon." Carter added later that he believed he spoke for the vast majority of Democrats. Now the UK Sunday Telegraph brings Carter's wisdom to Britain.

The Telegraph article begins, "Tony Blair's lack of leadership and timid subservience to George W Bush lie behind the ongoing crisis in Iraq and the worldwide threat of terrorism, according to the former American president Jimmy Carter." Carter begins by expressing surprise and "extreme disappointment" at Blair's behavior. And it gets worse. Carter blames Blair for what he believes to be a disaster in the Middle East resulting from a wrongheaded policy of pre-emptive war: "We now have a situation where America is so unpopular overseas that even in countries like Egypt and Jordan our approval ratings are less than five per cent. It's a shameful and pitiful state of affairs and I hold your British Prime Minister to be substantially responsible for being so compliant and subservient."

Carter's comments - as offensive as they are ill-timed - will hurt Blair badly. Blair is trying to hold on to office beyond the end of this year at a time when even the hapless Cameron Tories are catching up to him, and his own ministers are working determinedly to maneuver him out of office quickly. Blair - like him or not - has as clear an understanding of the global terror threat as anyone else in his nation or on the Continent. Any new Labor prime minister could easily withdraw British troops from Iraq suddenly, resulting in a substantially weaker coalition presence there at a critical time. That appears to be just what Carter has in mind.