Jimmy Carter helped save the Korean Peninsula from a devastating conflict 30 years ago, but future American leaders will be wary of how interventions by former presidents can take on a life of their own.

Carter, who died on Sunday at the age of 100, became the first former U.S. head of state to travel to North Korea for talks with leader Kim Il Sung, just as the U.S. was gearing up to take military action against the DPRK to stop its then-emerging nuclear program in the mid-1990s.

In the Oval Office from 1977 to 1981, the first post-Vietnam War