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| Ukrainian war refugees in Poland (The Guardian) |
Hitler fully laid out his plan for ridding the world of Jews in Mein Kampf, but no world leader treated his ambitions seriously.
This is why Chamberlain thought he could find ‘Peace in our time’ by giving in to Hitler’s demands to take over Czechoslovakia, a country Chamberlain thought Hitler had legitimate claims to anyway. And as we have learned all too well - that event precipitated the Holocaust. Hitler saw weakness and he took advantage of it. As Jonathan further notes:
Winston Churchill dubbed World War II “the unnecessary war,” in which tens of millions lost their lives, because Britain and her allies failed to rebuild their militaries after World War I. Had Neville Chamberlain not capitulated to Hitler’s demands at Munich, in part because of Britain’s military weakness, it is quite likely Germany’s generals would have overthrown Hitler.
History is repeating itself. When Putin smelled weakness in the US he was encouraged to live out his dream of restoring the glory of the FSU (Former Soviet Union) by attacking and taking back the Ukraine that was once part of it. And after accomplishing that he would then perhaps forge ahead to take back other countries that were once part of the FSU. And beyond! He saw in the US a paper tiger unwilling or unable to flex its considerable muscle to counter any such attack. A weak nation that will not do anything to rattle the nuclear cage.
Putin saw numerous indications of America’s weakness. For example by inaction in the takeover of Crimea from the Ukraine. And more recently by the disastrous pullout of American troops from Afghanistan.
In the meantime he also saw an American President that focuses on climate change as the most important issue on his plate. Which fostered a policy devoted to eradicating fossil fuels and replacing them with renewable clean energy. Not that this is a bad goal. It is actually a great goal. Except that it ignored the reality of a world still highly dependent on fossil fuels. Here is how Jonathan put it:
Indeed, the West’s obsession with eliminating fossil fuels set the stage for Putin. When Joe Biden was sworn in as president, the United States was on the verge of energy self-sufficiency. His first day in office, he nixed the Keystone Pipeline and banned oil exploration and fracking on federal lands.
Those actions were symbolic of what environmentalist Michael Shellenberger labels a “delusional ideology” that the need for fossil fuels (and perfectly clean nuclear energy as well) can be simply wished away, and “green” replacements will magically appear, despite all the well-known limitations of renewables: unreliability; high prices; lack of storage batteries to retain the energy generated; the environmental damage cause by wind turbines; and the huge land use requirements of solar.
The ridiculousness of that approach became clear when, in the face of rising oil prices, President Biden was left imploring OPEC countries to ramp up production. How are oil and natural gas extracted by other countries somehow less injurious, except that they cost Americans more?
It is this foolish energy policy together with the ineptitude of the pullout from Afghanistan where Putin saw an opportunity. And the US is now suffering the consequences with the highest prices on gas in American history. Which raises the price of just about everything transported by truck.. The President is now scrambling to find more sources of oil and possibly looking to Iran as one of those sources.
And while we are on that subject, Iran is yet another country that has promised to annihilate Israel, a nation with over 6 million Jews. Iran has not been reticent to express their desire (and promise) to do so. At the moment they are spreading terror via their proxies and supplying them with means. They are also on the verge of developing nuclear weapons while feverishly working on missiles capable of delivering them long range.
Any deal that might be made to delay that will nonetheless allow them to go forward eventually. At which time Iran may actually act on their promise of yet another Holocaust. This time in Israel. Menachem Begin’s dictum surely applies more to the religious fanatics that rule Iran than it did even to Nazi Germany.
This is why virtually every political party in Israel (from right to left) opposes making a deal with Iran. They are surely more in tune with the right approach since their very existence depends on it. Anyone that might argue that Israel’s existence is not vital to American interests and that therefore we should look the other way while it Israel annihilated doesn’t know what America is all about. Nor are they aware of America's strategic interests in keeping Israel safe
And yet because of a bad energy policy and the lack of focus on foreign policy the President is currently in a predicament that might that might sooner or later increase the chances of a nuclear catastrophe from either Russia or Iran.
Biden’s dilemma is the following. On the one hand avoiding a nuclear war should be a top priority. On the other hand by going too far in that direction he shows a weakness that allows despotic dictators like Putin to do whatever they want with relative impunity. In other words ‘We don’t want to punish Putin too much because who knows what he will do in response.’
Is that any way for the greatest, most powerful nation on earth to be?!
The question is, what can we do about it? How can we have nuclear safety while standing up to Putin effectively? The current sanctions haven’t made a dent in Putin’s resolve.
No one wants a nuclear war from which there will be no return.. But neither can we be too afraid to do anything that might trigger it. Do we let Putin continue to do what he wants? Or do we stand up to him? And what price are we willing to pay to do so? Is Putin willing to destroy the world if he doesn’t get what he wants? Or is there a limit even to what Putin will do?
These are questions i cannot answer. But the leader of the free world must make a decision given the facts at hand. What’s it going to be?
The one bright spot (if there is one) is that Putin miscalculated the response to his attack. He thought it would be a cakewalk. Much the same as taking over Crimea was. Nobody did a thing then. He thought it would be the same now. But he was badly mistaken. He is basically at a stalemate right now. The tiny Ukrainian military (compared to Russia) has managed to prevent Putin form reaching his goal. The Ukrainians have been inspired by their Jewish leader to fight back with everything they have.
That now leaves Putin with two options.
He will either negotiate with Zelensky and find a path out of this that will give him some sort of victory without taking over the Ukraine. Or instead double down on his attack and use weapons of mass destruction, like chemical weapons. That raises the stakes. Which may get us into WWIII. I believe that the US along with NATO will respond militarily to that. (How can they not?!)
I sure hope it’s the former. Because if it’s the latter, it may escalate from there to a nuclear Armageddon. God forbid.
