Michael Ledeen posts a most impressive and sobering article from The Intellectual Activist.
The larger evasion is this: the left senses that a regional war is coming, that Iran is hell-bent on starting it, and that there is no way to avoid it. But all of this runs directly counter to their whole world-view. Rather than questioning that world view, they simply assert that this can’t be happening. They have to believe that something, anything—no matter how implausible—will stop it from happening. If we just get everyone together and talk, and we keep tinkering with diplomatic solutions until we find something that works, surely we can find a way to avoid a regional war in the Middle East. Can’t we? Please?
And so the left confirms the right’s sense that the appeasement of the 1930s is the best historical precedent for the current era.
Fortunately, George Bush is not Neville Chamberlain. He has already waged two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Imagine if, during the 1930s, the Allied Powers had already joined forces to defeat the fascists in Spain, then invaded Italy and overthrown Mussolini’s regime. It would have made the coming conflict easier—but it would not have defanged our most dangerous enemy.
Unfortunately, George Bush is not Winston Churchill. It is as if, having suppressed fascism in Spain and Italy, we were still appeasing Germany and subordinating our interests to a wobbly consensus at the League of Nations. Just as Germany was the central enemy in the European theater of World War II, so Iran is the central enemy in the Middle East today.
Leave a Reply