This is going a brief post about the most important September 1 in the twentieth century. Today in 1939, Adolph Hitler launched a massive invasion of Poland and plunged the world into war. Eleven months earlier Hitler had signed the Munich Agreement pledging to end his aggression in exchange for certain borderlands in Czechoslovakia inhabited by German-speaking people. Most of us know this history in the context of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain triumphantly returning to London and waving the agreement while declaring "peace for our time."
In the coming months the United States Senate will have an opportunity to pass judgement on a nuclear agreement with Iran. We don't know if this agreement will produce peace for our time. We almost assuredly know the agreement will produce, with the assistance of the West, a advanced nuclear program for Iran, and possibly a nuclear armed Iran. The prospects have already produced a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Those who recognize the phrase, "balance of terror," may see a new parallel developing in the region. With history as our example and virtual wholesale trust as our principle, I believe those who accept the agreement and proudly wave it over the heads of their admirers will become the feckless Chamberlains of the twenty-first century.
Many writers have warned us about the perils of ignoring history. Even in plain sight, we don't seem to listen well.
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Photo: huffingtonpost.com
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