Time for Europe to Abandon Appeasement

Israeli cabinet meeting (Jerusalem Online)

It seems Iran has decided to renew its determination to build a nuclear weapon. They have announced that they have surpassed the threshold of uranium enrichment allowed by that ill considered nuclear deal. They are now back on track towards becoming a nuclear power.

I’m sure that the pressure caused by the US abandoning that deal and reinstating the sanctions now crippling their economy is responsible for that.

One might say that it is therefore incumbent upon the US to beg its way back into the deal. We must plead with them to stop. Whatever it takes! The thought of a Iran becoming a nuclear power is too terrible to contemplate. We have no choice. Maybe they will listen to our pleas. And back off. Their exportation of terror is a small price to pay. We should understand that Iran needs to restore its economy. We need to let them do it. That will surely bring us peace in our time.

One might say that. But seriously, does anyone really believe that this makes any sense? That the solution to the crisis is to let Iran continue to develop ballistic missile technology and export terror? Is that the only way to get them to stop building ‘the bomb’? Not in my world. And yet if you listen to the Democratic candidates you might think it is.

Now it’s true that I do not hear any of them saying we must beg and plead our way back into the deal. But they might as well be saying that. Because by blaming their own country on Iran’s renewed drive toward building ‘the bomb’ - the implication is that we should reconsider going back into it. Even if it means giving up more than we did the first time. That is a small price to pay for ‘peace in our time’. Anything is better than allowing Iran to develop the bomb.

How short sighted that is. That deal only delayed their development of ‘the bomb’. It did not eliminate it. What it did also did is restore their economy while allowing them to further develop their ballistic missile system - that would enable them to attack the US mainland at such time in the future when a nuclear Iran would become a reality. Not to mention the fact that their improved economy made possible by removing the sanctions, enabled them to better finance terror all over the world.

The United States would not have any of that. The leader of the free world promised he would break the deal if he was elected. He was elected. He kept that promise. 

That upset all of those that supported that terrible deal. Meaning most Democrats, but more importantly our European allies that signed onto that deal. For their part Europe decided to keep honoring their part of the deal. The hope was that if only one country (the US) pulls out and reinstates the sanctions, Iran would not be hurt enough to back out of its part of the deal.

That didn’t last too long. Iran has now broken it.

Apparently the Washington Post doesn’t see it as a big deal. From Jerusalem Online: 

This type of enrichment is only for one thing – nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said. Netanyahu made direct reference to an article published in the Washington Post that said that the Iranian measures of enrichment of uranium “is not terrible because they are a small step”. Netanyahu compared this thinking to World War II, where the world remained silent before the first attacks of the Nazis because ”they were only small things”.

”How World War II began in Europe. It began when Nazi Germany took one small step, reentering the Rhineland. It was a small step, no one said anything and no one did anything. The next step was the Anschluss, and the step after that was the entry into Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. The rest is known,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu gave a direct message to the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom to fulfill the commitments established in the nuclear agreement, “You signed this deal, and you said the moment this step would be taken, there would be harsh sanctions. Where are you? 

I could not agree more. My hope is that the spirit of Neville Chamberlain is dead and buried. Europe must abandon the philosophy of capitulating to a dictatorship so that we can have ‘peace in our time’. It didn’t work then. And it won’t work now. If anything Iran is worse than Germany in one sense. Their leaders have a religious fervor motivating them that Nazi Germany did not.

It is time to break the back of those fundamentalist dictators. Let them keep enriching uranium - while their people are starving. A situation that will get exponentially worse if Europe snaps back its sanctions as they promised they would.

There are those who believe that Iran will not give in even under those conditions. That it will only make things worse. I believe they are wrong. The fact is they have already shown that they are willing to deal when their backs are against the wall. That is what brought them to the table in the first place. They were pretty bad off then and decided to negotiate their way out of it. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. 

The right move then was not to capitulate to a bad deal but to increase the sanctions - eventually forcing them to make a better one. Not like the terrible deal they got. Which only delayed but did not eliminate the very thing the entire free world fears.

If Europe reinstates all of its sanctions - or even better increases them, Iran may be the ones begging and pleading. Not us. They currently believe that their belligerent fire and brimstone threats about going to war with them will make us blink first. But we shouldn’t. Their people are starving now. Things will only get worse. What are they going to feed their people? Enriched uranium? Does anyone believe that they will declare war on the United States if the sanctions aren’t removed - once they realize that the US will use all of its might against them if they attack us in any way?

They will be annihilated and they know it. Threatening war is nothing more than a scare tactic. They think the US does not have the stomach for war. But they are they ones that will blink once they realize that we are not afraid of their empty threats. If they choose war, they choose annihilation and they know it.

While there are no guarantees, now is the time to act. If we can get Europe to respond the way they are supposed to, this is will be the opportunity for a deal with the kind of teeth in it  that will force them to behave… and rid them forever of even the thought of a becoming a nuclear power. And then maybe, just maybe we will have peace in our time.