By John Burtis
Sunday, January 1, 2006
By all accounts, Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, who was replaced by Winston Churchill as the fortunes of war took a tumble following the debacle in France, was a reticent man, and many felt he was ill at ease at 10 Downing Street. Chamberlain was also a snappy dresser in the tweeds, bowler and bat wing collar couture. Despite these sartorial assets, he was decidedly out of his depth in dealing with the dapper adolf Hitler in Munich in 1938.
In those halcyon days of gentlemanly foreign relations, handshakes, mutual agreements, treaties and the like were undertaken with a solemnity viewed almost laughably today. and the pace of the negotiations were limited by the leisurely speed of early aircraft, train travel and cruise ships.
Subjected to tea, cakes and seemingly endless harangues in Munich and at the Fuhrer's spacious eyrie in Berchtesgaden, Chamberlain eventually gave way to Hitler's badgering, settling on an agreement giving Germany the Sudetenland, the most prosperous and most highly industrialized area of Czechoslovakia. all this came on top of Hitler's continual protestations of his peaceful intents and his previous occupation of the Rhineland, his abrogation of the Versailles Treaty and his anschluss with austria.
Chamberlain returned to a tumultuous greeting in England, where he waived that scrap of paper and boasted of, "Peace in our time." Unfortunately he was hoisted on his own petard, when not long afterward Hitler grabbed the remainder of Czechoslovakia and then, finally opening Chamberlain's eyes to the real menace he was dealing with beneath the bourgeoisie trappings, invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939. Waves of Stuka dive bombers and mobile murder squads provided Chamberlain with a belated ring from a poorly set alarm clock.
By mid-June of 1940, German troops were billeted in Paris. British troops had been removed from Dunkirk, weaponless, in fishing boats. and Chamberlain had been sent packing, scrap of paper and all, while Churchill was offering blood, sweat and tears, as waves of German bombers set fire to Coventry and London.
Today, however, foreign relations will offer us no such lengthy period of time to watch a situation go south. Nuclear weapons have changed all that. Real time communications and joint tactical data links allow unprecedented command and control, and countries with enough oil money, like Iran, can buy hardened systems with sufficient redundancy to make them regional and possibly world players. and when nuclear weapons are added to this lethal mix, gents like the mullahs, steeped in their Islamist and Wahabbist paranoia, possess enough effective military power to dominate an entire region of the planet.
I guess not many of you remember Julius Streicher. He was one of Hitler's oldest paladins, the gauleiter of Nuremberg and a violent and perverse anti-Semite who edited the loathsome Der Sturmer newspaper, and would go on to be hanged as a war criminal. He is notable because the current Iranian president, Mahmoud ahmadinejad, is spewing the same anti-Semitic lines that old Julius did. and getting pretty good press while he goes about it, that is, if any press is good.
Here's my concern. We have a gentleman, and believe me, I'm using that term lightly, serving as president of Iran. Iran's about ready to go nuclear. Iran is working night and day on the Shahab missile, which can be modified to have three or four stages and can carry a nuclear warhead capable of reaching Israel and Europe. and now good old Mahmoud, sporting some fancy duds, fresh from his packed ballot box victory in Teheran's rotten boroughs, accompanied by a gleeful audience of cloned and turbaned mullahs, is talking trash just like Julius. and soon he may be waving a multi-kiloton nuke with an effective delivery system backed up by the finest command systems he can buy.
and the chances of leisurely sit down with him anywhere, having tea and cakes, with or without the harangue, and just having a chat, are mighty slim. and with the time compression in today's world, what options do we have to stop him if he gets pushy? Especially with the nuclear button? after all, Julius, I mean Mahmoud, has already promised to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
We have to recognize that this wild and wacky Iranian gentleman is a troubling menace right now, and I fully suspect a martyr in waiting, despite the three button suit, the toney shoes and the Brylcreamed hair.
as the Duke of Wellington put it so succinctly, "a Frenchman will slit your throat if you say he is not a gentleman, but that doesn't make him one." Ditto for Mahmoud.
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