The current debate about Bush’s Knesset speech, its applicability to the present time and to Obama’s “dialogue” obsession, is hung up on the appeasement at Munich but misses a much more pertinent analogy. Liberal apologists for Obama laugh off the analogy between Hitler and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by, in effect, saying that no way is Iran now as relatively powerful, compared to us, as Germany was to the British and French in 1938; the implication being that we can take action before the situation got to Munich proportion, if we can’t talk Iran out of its ambitions. This could be true- if we had any will to fight (or if our putative president had a reputation of being willing to fight), instead of JUST talk, perpetually!
The situation now is much more analogous to 1936 when Hitler’s occupied the Rhineland. Hitler succeeded then, and we were headed on the path to Munich, because of the neglect and appeasement by Britain and France when he blatantly broke the Versailles Treaty. The French were dysfunctional and the British saw the “reasonableness” and even justice of Germany’s action. At that point Hitler was weak and, as he admitted, "If France had then marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs."
Post-war research showed that the German military were so afraid of disaster that they might have carried out a coup to oust Hitler from power if Germany had to withdraw in humiliation. Such an “illegal” action by the German military (oh the Liberal caterwauling!) would have saved the world incalculable tragedies and suffering.
But, of course, the irresolute democracies did nothing, preferring Oxford debates on banishing war to action that would have deterred a bully and tyrant before he had accumulated the power to be a real threat.
“Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it”.
No comments:
Post a Comment