- George Santayana, Reason in Common Sense
Adolf Hitler is undoubtedly the most recognizable and despised dictator in modern history. In 1921, he became the leader of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterparte, (National Socialist German Worker's Party), known as the Nazi Party, for the pronunciation of the first two syllables of its name.
By March of 1933, Hitler assumed Power of Legislation, essentially taking dictatorial control of Germany and placed Nazi officials into powerful political positions throughout the country.
In October of the same year, Hitler, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, withdrew Germany from the League of Nations and began tripling the size of the German army. By 1935, he went public with Germany's military expansion and the world learned that the Nazis had secretly built 2,500 warplanes and an army of 300,000 with plans to increase the size of the army to 550,000 by means of conscription.
In spite of the obvious warnings, the world stood by and did nothing, which emboldened Hitler. By June of 1935, Hitler demanded and got an agreement (the Anglo-German Naval Agreement) that removed the restrictions on Germany's navy, allowing them to increase its size to one third the tonnage of Great Britain's surface ships, and an equal tonnage of submarines. This allowance was the first instance of a concept known as 'appeasement'.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler spoke of his disdain for the Treaty of Versailles and promised to break what he considered, its 'unjust' terms. It was obvious to anyone paying attention that Adolf Hitler was a growing problem that needed to be dealt with. But, it seems that the threat he posed was ignored as the Nazis built up a huge war machine.
In September of 1938, another naive fool believed that he could negotiate an agreement with such a mad man, who was intent on war. Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of England, flew to Germany to bargain with Adolf Hitler in an attempt to stop Germany's military aggression and expansionism. He came back to England, triumphantly declaring 'Peace in Our Time' and waiving a piece of paper in his hand, bearing the signatures of Adolf Hitler and himself. That agreement is known as the 'Munich Accord'.
The Munich Accord allowed Hitler more time to build his military without provocation. Just one year later, September 1939, Hitler and his Nazi army totally disregarded the agreement and began their expansionism in earnest. World War II ensued and over 60 Million people died as a result. It is estimated that 410,000 Americans lost their lives to WW II. To grasp the scope of the horror; in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, from 2001 through 2012, there have been approximately 6,700 American fatalities.
Appeasement was proven to be a failure of monumental proportions. After all, Hitler had just broken the Treaty of Versailles; who would be so naive as to believe that Germany would adhere to this new agreement? Never the less, Neville Chamberlain was convinced that it would lead to long term peace. Obviously, it didn't work out that way.
The cold, hard, lesson learned from the attempt at appeasement is that sometimes it is better to stand up and fight sooner, rather than later, when the consequences are generally much worse. In the case of Iran developing atomic bombs, it most certainly is the case that action needs to be taken sooner, rather than later. Barak Obama seems to be a modern caricature of Neville Chamberlain, albeit even more naive.
Obama is foolish to believe that he possesses the negotiating skills necessary to persuade the lunatics in Iran to relinquish their unholy aspirations of developing nuclear weapons. There mere fact that they have, to date, ignored all sanctions without regard to the level of damage that their nation suffers as a consequence speaks to their determination. Any reasonable observer would conclude that negotiations with the Iranians are more likely to be futile than effective.
Both Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are on record, ad nauseum, declaring their intent to 'wipe Israel off the map' and to 'bring down the Great Satan'. The Iranians refer to Israel as the 'Little Satan', and the United States as the 'Great Satan'. Their blatant hatred for Israel and the United States is palpable. Meanwhile, they continue to feverishly race towards the completion of an atomic bomb and long range missiles that are capable of delivering the nuclear warheads to both Israel, and ultimately, the United States. It is not difficult to imagine what they intend to do with them, given their inflammatory rhetoric of the past decade.
While Obama is pleased to imagine that he might be able to negotiate with Iran, it would serve him better to remember history, relative to nearly identical circumstances vis-a-vis an evil dictatorship and government, obviously building a nuclear capability, while demonstrably intent on deploying them as soon as they achieve their goal. Only this time the consequences are far more dangerous given that nuclear weapons are involved.
But that is not the only consideration to be factored into this equation. Even if the Iranians could be convinced to actually cease the development and enrichment of their nuclear material, there still lies a great danger. Iran has its tentacles extended throughout the Middle East, and in particular with Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Fatah Al Islam; not to mention several splinter groups of al Qaeda.
If Iran was to be thwarted in its efforts to achieve nuclear material enriched to the point necessary to make a functional nuclear weapon, it could still use the material they have on hand today, at its current state of enrichment to make what are known as 'dirty-bombs'. These weapons are comprised of conventional high explosives mixed with non-fissile radioactive material. The explosion is not as powerful as an atomic bomb, but the radioactivity spread by the explosion would effectively render the area of the blast uninhabitable for over 200 years and kill massive numbers of people. Iran has publicly demonstrated a force of over twenty thousand soldiers, in addition to their connections with known terrorist groups, who are ready to use suicide-bomb techniques to detonate these bombs in cities around the world.
Israel is surrounded by these terrorist groups, harbored by adversary countries that resent their existence nearly as much as Iran does. Unless the existing radioactive material, and the equipment used to enrich it, are totally confiscated, any agreement with Iran to get them to cease their efforts of developing nuclear weapons is just plain folly. They will simply divert the material to use in dirty-bombs and deploy them at will.
The United States is far from safe from such dirty-bomb attacks, since our southern border is largely sieve-like. To make that same point, a politician running for office demonstrated the ability to cross the Mexican-United States border, across the Rio Grande, on the back of an elephant, while a mariachi band played loudly on the shore. At no time, did any authorities come to the site.
Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAcIGx-nxdI
It is not hard to imagine that agents of Iran, transporting dirty-bombs, would have an easy time of it, bring them across the border, then dispersing to twenty or so of our most important cities. It has been reported that Mexican 'coyotes', experts at smuggling people across the border, have already been hired to transport Middle Eastern men from Mexico to the United States. Whether or not they have dirty-bombs with them is unknown.
In summary, even if Obama strikes a deal with the Iranians, the likelihood that they will ignore it is extremely high. As in the past, they will stall, lie, hide and negotiate until it is too late. At a minimum, they already have enough radioactive material to make plenty of dirty-bombs and distribute them throughout the world, to detonate at a time of their choosing. Nothing less than total surrender of all their nuclear material, along with the destruction and confiscation of the enrichment machinery is acceptable.
Beware the illusion of appeasement... It won't work.
