So the parallels with Munich and our current U.S. President’s “deal” with Iran are mostly non-existent. Iran is not Germany, except in its ambitions to dominate the Middle East—which does sort of resemble Germany’s ambitions to dominate Europe. But Iran lacks the kind of military power that Germany had in September, 1938.
Thus, the appeasement of Iran by the current American President, the leaders of Europe, and the UN make even less sense than Chamberlain’s.
Sadly there is one more similarity to 1938: war now is inevitable. Peace will not happen as a result of this deal with Iran whether the U.S. Congress accedes to the President’s desires or not. We are already at war with Iran as it is: or rather, they are at war with us.
My youngest daughter suffers from a serious mental illness. A few months ago she agreed to hospitalization for her illness and happily packed her bags. We had a distance to travel before we got to the hospital and about a half hour from our destination, she suddenly got cold feet. “I don’t want to go. Take me home!” But we continued on our way, telling her she at least needed to talk to the intake nurse when we got there.
Upon our arrival, she told the nurse that she no longer wanted to be admitted. The nurse turned to my wife and asked “Do you feel as if your safety would be in danger if she went home with you now?” Reluctantly, my wife said yes. My daughter had hit my wife only the day before. The nurse turned to my daughter and told her, “Then going home is off the table. You have two choices. You can either be admitted to the treatment program you agreed to, or you can be involuntarily admitted to lockdown for at least 72 hours, which will not be pleasant. The choice is yours.” My daughter agreed to the treatment program and today is doing quite well thanks to her ten days in the hospital.
Some will argue that the agreement that our President made with Iran is our only option besides war. This is a false dichotomy—because peace is no longer on the table. It hasn’t been for a long time. We can either fight now, before Iran has a nuclear bomb—and it will be a bloody mess if we do (we could have solved the problem earlier, before it got this bad). Or we can fight them later, after they have the bomb and then the mess will be much larger. But one way or another, we will be going to war. We can’t escape it. Peace will not come from this agreement simply because peace is not what the Iranians want. They want us to die. They’ve made it quite clear. They chant “Death to America” on a regular basis. Worse, it’s what they do to us on a regular basis.
Four Americans are currently being held hostage by Iran. Americans have been killed by Iranian aggression and their sponsorship of terrorists. They currently lend assistance to anti-American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a fiery speech Saturday that Iran would always oppose the "arrogant" United States - but did not criticize its nuclear deal.
In an address at a Tehran mosque punctuated by chants of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel", the hardliner said the deal was only about nuclear issues, pledging: "We won't let foreigners interfere with our affairs."
"American interests and politics in the region are 180 degrees different to ours," he said in the televised speech, four days after the Vienna accord in which crippling sanctions against Iran would gradually be lifted in exchange for long-term nuclear curbs.
"Whether the deal is approved or disapproved, we will never stop supporting our friends in the region and the people of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon. Even after this deal our policy toward the arrogant U.S. will not change," he said.
Some may insist that this sort of stuff by the Iranian leaders is only intended for domestic consumption and needn’t be taken seriously. But the Iranians say this sort of thing in English. To us. And on Twitter they give us this:
This stuff from Iran isn’t just for Iran to distract its citizens from their oppressive government. This is what the Iranian leaders think about us. They want us to know they are not interested in peace, or getting along. War is what they want. And so war is coming. But our feckless politicians in the White House and Congress don’t care. They refuse to face reality. They have their heads in the sand. They are singing “Kum ba yah” and thinking happy thoughts.