{"id":6808,"date":"2013-12-02T12:08:42","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T20:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6808"},"modified":"2013-12-02T12:08:42","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T20:08:42","slug":"obamas-munich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-munich\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama’s Munich"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The interim agreement negotiated by the Security Council and Germany with Iran is a serious advance toward what Winston Churchill\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0the Munich agreement: \u201ca total and unmitigated defeat\u201d\u00a0and a \u201cdisaster of the first magnitude.\u201d\u00a0Nothing in the agreement guarantees that Iran will fulfill its promises, or that inspectors will be allowed access to all of Iran\u2019s enrichment facilities,\u00a0let alone its secret sites, or that serious consequences will follow violations of the terms of the agreement. The agreement does nothing to force Iran to come clean on,\u00a0let alone dismantle, all its weapons facilities, or to\u00a0reverse Iran\u2019s capacity to enrich uranium\u2013\u2013indeed, it is arguably a de facto recognition of Iran\u2019s right to do so. In exchange for signing, Iran will gain access to multiple billions of dollars in sanction relief, and 6 more months to spin the centrifuges, confident that sanctions once relaxed are unlikely to be reimposed.<\/p>\n

No wonder they are celebrating in Tehran.\u00a0And for good reason, given how much they will receive\u00a0and how little they have promised. It reminds me of Churchill\u2019s metaphor in the same speech when he refuted the Chancellor of the Exchequer\u2019s claim that Hitler had been made to \u201cretract.\u201d In fact, Churchill said of the three meetings between Chamberlain and Hitler,\u00a0 \u201c\u00a31 was demanded at the pistol\u2019s point. When it was given, \u00a32 were demanded at the pistol\u2019s point. Finally, the dictator consented to take \u00a31 17s. 6d. and the rest in promises of goodwill for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

So much is obvious, even to many Democrats in Congress, who may join with Republicans to stop this quantum leap towards full-blown appeasement and a nuclear-armed Iran when in 6 months some \u201ccomprehensive\u201d appeasing agreement is proffered. What remains to be seen is whether the American people will become as worried over this disaster as they have been angry over Obamacare. Weary of war, and seemingly indifferent to the squandering of lives in Iraq and Afghanistan wrought by Obama\u2019s hasty and feckless withdrawal from those countries, Americans may feel about the Middle East and its complex hatreds and rivalries as Chamberlain did about the crisis in Czechoslovakia\u2013\u2013 \u201ca quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such shortsightedness is dangerous not just to our ally Israel. For years Europe\u2013\u2013and now it appears America too\u2013\u2013has tried to force Israel into the role of Czechoslovakia in the Munich crisis in order to appease Palestinian Arab aggression and violence. In 1938 politicians in France and England were impatient with the Czechs\u2019 desire to maintain their sovereignty and ensure their security against an aggressor on their borders. Every outrageous demand made by Hitler and his stooges in the Sudetenland was met with scolding of the Czechs for their intransigence. The French warned the Czechs not to be \u201cunreasonable,\u201d the British thought they needed \u201cto get a real twist of the screw,\u201d the English minister in Prague advised Czech president Edvard Benes to \u201cgo forthwith to the very limit of concession,\u201d English Foreign Minister Lord Halifax told the Czechs that \u201cin the interests of international peace every possible step should be taken to remove the cause of friction or even of conflict,\u201d and both French and English diplomats urged the Czechs to accept the dismemberment of their country \u201cbefore producing a situation for which France and Britain could take no responsibility.\u201d Faced with a ruthless aggressor, the victim was bullied into committing suicide by its so-called allies.<\/p>\n

How similar to the shameless pressure on Israel from the Western powers and the Obama administration.\u00a0They have scolded and bullied Israel over \u201csettlements\u201d and the so-called \u201coccupation\u201d of lands that were the homeland of the Jewish people for two millennia. They have urged Israeli acquiescence to the specious \u201ctwo-state solution\u201d and respect for \u201cPalestinian self-determination.\u201d They have pressed negotiations with and concessions to enemies that have made plain in word and bloody deed their goal of \u201cwiping Israel off the map,\u201d as an ex-president of Iran once said, and as every Friday imams across the Muslim Middle East preach to their flocks. Once more Churchill is instructive:\u00a0\u201cWe in this country, as in other Liberal and democratic countries, have a perfect right to exalt the principle of self-determination, but it comes ill out of the mouths of those in totalitarian states who deny even the smallest element of toleration to every section and creed within their bounds.\u201d\u00a0Yet this current agreement, which de facto concedes to Iran the right to create the weapons that can turn these threats to reality, ignores the true nature of Israel\u2019s intolerant enemies, and the security concerns of the most vulnerable state in the region.<\/p>\n

On the contrary, Obama\u00a0is pressuring Israel to forbear and trust the oft violated and broken promises of a mortal enemy, just as France and England in 1938 ignored Hitler\u2019s threats at the Nuremberg party-rally that no agreements would be reached with an \u201cirreconcilable\u201d enemy.\u00a0It would be dangerous for Americans sick of this seemingly far-away conflict to buy into this false narrative that blames Israeli \u201cintransigence\u201d and \u201coccupation\u201d over a \u201cPalestinian homeland\u201d for Muslim terrorism and violence that are in fact rooted in Islamic doctrine and evidenced by the record of history.<\/p>\n

Worse yet, it would be equally dangerous\u00a0to think that the comparison of the current appeasement of Iran with Munich is false because we Americans do not face an existential threat from an enemy as militarily powerful as we, or that, to paraphrase Churchill, \u201cnothing vitally affecting us [is] at stake.\u201d If Iran becomes a nuclear power, there will not be a world war like the one that was spawned by Munich\u00a0and that cost 50 million lives. But we will indeed be vitally affected. The on-going conflicts of Sunni against Shiites, jihadists against autocrats, and everyone against Israel will be intensified and magnified immeasurably by Iran\u2019s possession of nuclear weapons and the regional proliferation to follow\u2013\u2013assuming Israel does not strike the facilities and set back the program, with violent and disordering blowback that can only be imagined.<\/p>\n

And make no mistake, this violence and disorder will indeed affect our interests and security. We may be nearing energy independence, but in a globalized economy, the rest of the world with whom we trade will still be dependent on Middle Eastern oil, and the disruption to their economies from oil shortages and a shut-down of the straits of Hormuz will affect our own, which is still struggling with unemployment, rising debt, and run-away entitlement spending. Nor should we dismiss as fantastic the possibility that Iran, the world\u2019s foremost supporter of terrorism with 35 years of American blood on its hands, will hand off dirty bombs to one of its many jihadist affiliates for attacks on our homeland. Who on September 10, 2001 believed that terrorists armed with box-cutters would level the World Trade Center? Total war will not follow from Iran\u2019s possession of nuclear weapons, but an insidious degradation of our security will, until another terrorist attacks breeds more war, more compromises of our individual freedoms, more erosion of our morale and will, and more appeasement, the consequences of which will be borne by our children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n

Finally, this deal signals once again that under Obama America is now considered weak and cowardly, uninterested in acting on the global responsibilities that necessarily have attended its unprecedented wealth and power, and eager for retreat and withdrawal no matter how dangerous the long-term consequences. Here too we resemble the British as Churchill described them in his Munich speech: \u201cWe have been reduced in those five years [since Hitler\u2019s rise to power] from a position of security so overwhelming and so unchallengeable that we never cared to think about it. We have been reduced from a position where the very word \u2018war\u2019 was considered one which could be used only by persons qualifying for a lunatic asylum. We have been reduced from a position of safety and power\u2013\u2013power to do good, power to be generous to a beaten foe, power to make terms with Germany, power to give her proper redress for her grievances, power to stop her arming if we chose, power to take any step in strength or mercy or justice which we thought right\u2013\u2013reduced in five years from a position safe and unchallenged to where we stand now.\u201d All diplomacy and negotiation with our foes depends on their belief that we back our agreements with punishing force. Today both our friends and enemies no longer believe that we have the will or courage to back our words with deeds.<\/p>\n

Only the American people can stop the unfolding disaster of the agreement with Iran, and only by the means Churchill recommended to his countrymen: with \u201ca supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine\u00a0 The interim agreement negotiated by the Security Council and Germany with Iran is a serious advance toward what Winston Churchill\u00a0called\u00a0the Munich agreement: \u201ca total and unmitigated defeat\u201d\u00a0and a \u201cdisaster of the first magnitude.\u201d\u00a0Nothing in the agreement guarantees that Iran will fulfill its promises, or that inspectors will be allowed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[124,22],"tags":[12,1055,149,141,1039,1027,400,1068],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1LO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8324,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-shadow-of-munich-haunts-the-iran-negotiations\/","url_meta":{"origin":6808,"position":0},"title":"The Shadow of Munich Haunts the Iran Negotiations","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Once again our leaders are needlessly appeasing a hostile state that shows them nothing but contempt. by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online The Western capitulation to Adolf Hitler in the 1938 Munich Agreement is cited as classic appeasement that destroyed Czechoslovakia, backfired on France and Britain, and led to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitics"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitics","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/geopolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Neville Chamberlain (Central Press\/Hulton Archive\/Getty)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/pic_giant_040215_SM_Neville-Chamberlain-G-500x292.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":949,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/iranian-threat-heats-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":6808,"position":1},"title":"Iranian Threat Heats Up","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine Iran announced Sunday that it was cutting off crude oil sales to France and England, a mostly symbolic act given that Iran provides England less than 1% of its crude, and France claims that it \u201cpractically stopped importing Iranian oil,\u201d according to the head\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iran"","block_context":{"text":"Iran","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iran\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8544,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-iran-failure-has-many-fathers\/","url_meta":{"origin":6808,"position":2},"title":"The Iran Failure Has Many Fathers","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The dangerous belief that words alone can transcend an eternal truth of human nature. by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine Everybody knows the deal with Iran is a disaster. Why is equally obvious: Iran will get $150 billion to spend on weapons and its terrorist proxies, will keep its\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via FrontPage Magazine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/sw-500x281.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10417,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/10417-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6808,"position":3},"title":"\u201cPushing Back\u201d Iran by Reuel\u2026","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cPushing Back\u201d Iran by Reuel Marc Gerecht Image credit:Poster Collection, US3436, Hoover Institution Archives. On both the left and the right, there is a consensus in Washington that the United States needs to \u201cpush back\u201d against the Islamic Republic\u2019s nefarious actions in the Levant, Iraq, and Yemen. The clerical regime\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Strategika"","block_context":{"text":"Strategika","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/strategika\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8584,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/iran-the-munich-comparison-and-the-abuse-of-history\/","url_meta":{"origin":6808,"position":4},"title":"Iran, the Munich Comparison, and the Abuse of History","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Iran Deal is not Munich, but the same foolishness of Western leaders is close enough to warn us what happens next. And it will not be good.\u00a0 by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media The Iranian deal has called to mind the Munich Agreement of 1938. Then Britain and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The World"","block_context":{"text":"The World","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"obama_chamberlain_iran_8-2-15-1","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/obama_chamberlain_iran_8-2-15-1-500x410.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":984,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-final-countdown-israel-vs-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":6808,"position":5},"title":"The Final Countdown: Israel vs. Iran","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The 33-year farce of Western appeasement of Iran may be reaching its denouement. For the last few months, the pace of events have quickened as the West sanctions and threatens, and Iran blusters about closing the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off oil to Europe,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Israel"","block_context":{"text":"Israel","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/israel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6809,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808\/revisions\/6809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}