Chicago Sun-Times - David Harris
In the early 1920s, an imprisoned Austrian rabble-rouser dictated his thoughts for eventual publication. The book that resulted, Mein Kampf (”My Struggle”), was a clear manifesto of how he saw the world. Yet, even when Adolf Hitler became Germany’s chancellor in January 1933, the international community, with few exceptions, failed to grasp that he might actually mean what he wrote, instead choosing to believe that power would moderate his actions.
The celebrated American journalist Walter Lippmann wrote in May 1933, “The outer world will do well to accept the evidence of German goodwill and seek by all possible means to meet it and to justify it.”
The same year, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull declared, “Mistreatment of Jews in Germany may be considered virtually eliminated.”
And British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who told his citizens to “go home and get a nice quiet sleep” after he signed the 1938 Munich Pact with Hitler and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier, noted, “In spite of the hardness and ruthlessness I thought I saw in his face, I got the impression that here was a man [Hitler] who could be relied upon when he had given his word.”
Commenting on the Munich Pact, a New York Times journalist wrote, “It declares to those who have ears to hear that Germany henceforth wants peace.”
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited New York last week to address the U.N. General Assembly session. His speech, by its aggressive tone, messianic zealotry, and misrepresentation of the facts, revealed once again the threat he poses. It would be well to recall the history of the 1930s — in particular, how otherwise thoughtful individuals, often backed by the machinery of state, were incapable of believing that Hitler actually meant the chilling things he expressed. Instead, they deluded themselves into thinking he could be appeased or negotiated with.
Inevitably, there are those who will say that any attempt to compare Iran with Germany, Ahmadinejad with Hitler, or 2006 with the 1930s, is way off the mark. But the essential point remains — the world powers got it wrong in the 1930s and paid a catastrophic price for their mistake.
The world cannot afford to get it wrong again. Ahmadinejad has a long paper and voice trail that is impossible to ignore. He calls openly for the destruction of Israel, threatens the United States, denies the Holocaust, supports terrorist groups outside Iran’s borders and suppresses human rights inside them.
Iran’s nuclear ambitions are beyond dispute, as documented by the U.N. Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as by Western intelligence agencies. Its missile development program is in high gear. And Ahmadinejad’s all-encompassing Shiite brand of theology or, more precisely, eschatology, should give pause to those who believe his regime can be dealt with rationally through Cold War policies of containment and deterrence. After all, this is a country, still in the throes of a 27-year-old Islamic revolution, which sent hundreds of thousands of untrained teens to their deaths in the name of martyrdom during the war with Iraq in the 1980s.
Like Hitler, Ahmadinejad surely feels emboldened by the world’s timid response. Tehran’s leaders have negotiated masterfully to date, buying precious time to reach the technical point of no return.
The Iranians have felt no real heat. Deadlines and threats of sanctions have been pushed back and ignored. Iran seems to have concluded that other than the United States no country will consider serious measures against it, from travel bans on its leaders to restrictions on the sale of refined oil products to Iran, from limiting Iranian students’ access to science and technology programs at elite Western universities to freezing overseas bank accounts and reviewing trade policy. Instead, Iran confronts a divided and tentative international community which it can skillfully exploit, figuring that the United States is in no position now to act unilaterally.
The challenge posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions has no easy answers. Every potential stratagem presents its own risks and uncertainties. But history teaches that, unless the Iranian leadership is convinced of the key nations’ collective resolve, this story will not end well. A nuclear Iran would endanger the region and the world.
In announcing that he was giving a gift to Britain by releasing the British hostages Ahmadinejad stated that he wanted to get along with all nations of the world …. except Israel.
Ahmadinejad has never hesitated to state his intentions. We just don’t seem to be listening. Apparently, we learn nothing from history.
Iran got a feel for how we’d react to their blatant aggressive act of war against Britain. They got their answer. Words, words and more words and no action. Our leaders are appearing weak to the world. That puts us in a very precarious position.
Then again, the promise to release the Brits came just after another fleet of American ships was dispatched to the Persian sea. That makes three U.S. fleets there. I imagine Iran doesn’t want to provoke us to the point we’ll attack.
At least, not until they have their nukes.
