The arguments that Barack Obama is presenting to defend his awful agreement with Iran help explain why it turned out so awful.
The central such argument is that we had only two options--take whatever agreement we could get, however flawed and one-sided, or go to war.
The positing of a choice only between bad (the agreement) and worse (war) is a disingenuous tactic designed to smear critics as "warmongers," but it also provides a useful window into the motives for appeasement.
Because at the heart of appeasement is fear; more specifically, fear of war.
Europe stumbled into war in the summer of 1914 because its leaders didn't fear it enough. The limited wars of the 19th Century, a lack of understanding of the impact on the industrial revolution on warfare, and sheer societal boredom after a century of relative peace since Waterloo conspired to lower the fear threshold (with Kaiser Wilhelm even promising German soldiers departing for the front that they would be back before the leaves fell from the trees).
Two decades later, after the worst war to that point in history, the pendulum had swung all the way to the other extreme--a fear of war so great that any means, including appeasement, should be resorted to in order to prevent it.
The roots of Munich were thus found in fear, with widespread assumptions that the next war would be fought in such a manner, including the aerial bombardment of population centers with poison gas, that civilization itself would be imperiled (as Stanley Baldwin put it, "The bomber will always get through").
Appeasement produced World War II, but it was fear that produced appeasement.
The great tragedy was that Hitler was still the weaker party at Munich, despite five years of frantic rearmament after breaking out of the shackles imposed by Versailles. Had the British and French mustered some courage and stood their ground, there need never have been war, let alone one as horrific as World War II turned out to be.
Rather than producing "peace for our time," the appeasement at Munich made war more likely by consolidating Hitler's hold on power inside Germany (the German high command was preparing to overthrow him if the Western powers resisted his demands) and by spurring the negotiations that led to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (Stalin, after Munich, became convinced Britain and France were seeking to turn the Nazi menace East, so he entered into negotiations, successful until Barbarossa, to turn it West).
More important still, Munich convinced Hitler that Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier were spineless cowards too fearful of war to resist his further advances--no one was more shocked than Der Fuehrer when, during the Nazi-Soviet dismemberment of Poland, they honored their promises and declared war on him.
Like Hitler at Munich, the mullahs in Teheran must have been delighted by the desperation and fear they detected in their adversaries at the negotiating table. More important was the realization that that which they feared most--use of American military force that would not only terminate their nuclear program but also their regime--had been inexplicably taken off that table.
Once you signal to an adversary that you are afraid to go to war to achieve your objectives, those objectives have been assuredly sacrificed amid the stream of concessions that inevitably follows.
War is always a last resort to be feared, but when you fear it too much, and convince yourself (and your foes) that it must be avoided at all costs, there will be no end to the interests you sacrifice, the principles you violate, and the indignities you suffer.
Never mind that the collective gross domestic product of the six countries ostensibly seeking to halt the Iranian nuclear program amounted to over $40 trillion, roughly 100 times that of Iran ($400 billion). Or that the military power disparity, taking only U.S. capabilities into account, was of comparable magnitude.
The more powerful side only prevails in diplomacy if it is willing to threaten the use of its greater power, and if its threats are seen as credible by those being threatened.
Beyond all that, as Winston Churchill so pungently observed after Munich, appeasement doesn't work, even on its own terms, because, as with the handing over of the "Sudetenland" by Chamberlain and Daladier, it makes war more, rather than less, likely, and more tragic and costly as well.
The essence of the U.S. negotiating strategy, as well as the reasons for the resulting debacle, were actually nicely captured near the end of the talks in Vienna--according to U.S. negotiator Wendy Sherman, John Kerry choked up when addressing the assembled delegation and said, "When I was 22 I went to war ... and it became clear to me that I never wanted to go to war again."
In Sherman's words, "It was such a moving moment, that everyone in that small room applauded, including the Iranian delegation."
A poignant moment, yes, but one has to wonder whether the Iranian delegation was cheering for the same reasons as everyone else.
And also about how it all is being perceived by a certain despot with offices in the Kremlin and designs on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
Editorial on 07/27/2015