The Washington Post’s Paul Waldman explains what’s up with all those “Neville Chamberlain” analogies Fox News and the conservatives are throwing at President Obama over the Iran nuclear negotiations.
On Wednesday, Fox’s Neil Cavuto spoke with New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind about the Iran talks. Hikind is Fox’s favorite kind of Democrat: one who has nothing good to say about Obama.
Hikind, who looked and sounded angry throughout the interview, said, “The president is desperate for some kind of accomplishment. …All of his (foreign) policies going back to the very beginning have fallen, one after the other.”
Cavuto asked, “You think he’s going to be a modern day Neville Chamberlain?”
”That’s exactly the point," Hikind said. "That’s what I’m afraid of: 1938, Chamberlain returns from Hitler and says peace in our time. God forbid, we could have the same thing with President Obama.”
Hikind was just one of many Chamberlain evokers seen on Fox lately. As Waldman noted, it’s just as big elsewhere in the right wing. He wrote on April 1, before the framework of a deal was announced:
If you believe that the negotiations with Iran are the equivalent of those in Munich in 1938, what you’re basically saying is that war with Iran is inevitable, so we might as well get started on it right away. After all, it isn’t as though, had Chamberlain left Munich without an agreement, Hitler would have retired and gone back to painting. The whole point of the “appeasement” argument is that the enemy cannot be appeased from his expansionist aims, and the only choice is to wage war.
…Some might protest that, No, what the hawks advocate is a “better deal” on Iran’s nuclear program. But that’s a ridiculous canard. Let’s be clear about one thing: this agreement (which, we need to stress, nobody outside of the administration actually knows the details of) might indeed be a bad deal. That’s possible. But the alternative is walking away without an agreement, in which case Iran would have no reason at all not to go ahead and pursue nuclear weapons.
…(I)f you’re going to advocate war with Iran, you should at least have the courage to admit that’s what you’re after. Any time you hear the words “appeasement,” “Chamberlain,” or “Munich” in the coming days and weeks — and you will — know that war is exactly what’s being promoted.
You can watch that happen below, from the April 1 Your World.
In case the two of you forgot, the ME nation with the largest nuclear arsenal is . . . Israel.
Wonder why nobody ever advocates an attack on them . . .
.
On this Good Friday, please allow me to quote the Bible…
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
What Mr Hikind probably doesn’t realize (or chooses to ignore) is that following Munich, Chamberlain is the one who set up the defense pact with Poland which ensured British retaliation against Germany if Hitler attacked Poland. Chamberlain also continued arming Britain very shortly after returning from Munich.
Oh. And Chamberlain was a Conservative—not a liberal (granted, British conservatism tends to be a bit to the left of US conservatism).
’Nuff said.
Apologies To John Lennon
