If only…we knew history. Contrary to popular understanding, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s September 1938 Munich Agreement with Germany – intended to avert war – was met with “jubilation.” The West, uneasy, unready, and in debt, wanted to believe – so did. They imagined that flimsy accord meant peace; Hitler imagined it opened the door to victory.
In September 1939, a year later, Hitler invaded Poland, triggering a war that would kill 53 million people, blithely destroy whole countries, and vanquished all peace and normalcy.
While 2023 is not 1938, risks associated with appeasement, wishful thinking, and faux agreements – paper worth little but inviting bad actors to do bad things – are just as real.
Now comes news – after the US decisively withdrew, in May 2018, from a breached, unenforceable, permissive agreement with Iran aimed at taking their appetite for nuclear weapons away – that Joe Biden has negotiated a new deal with no Senate approval.
Treaties, of course, have to be approved by two-thirds of the US Senate – Article 2, section 2, US Constitution – but what a treaty is can be fiercely debated. It should be again – right now.
Biden has no authority to give away money for pie crust promises – easily made, easily broken, especially to Iran around nuclear weapons. What he has done, in effect, is to renegotiate – secretly in Oman – an agreement that resembles Chamberlain’s naivete in Munich in 1938.
Intentionally muddied by a comingled with a hostage release, getting five Americans home to stir “jubilation,” Biden’s Munich Agreement gives Iran six billion dollars (much needed), in part for a reported promise by Iran not to enrich uranium above 60 percent, to “weapons grade.”
While Biden’s team denies talk of uranium enrichment, they also denied talks of any agreement. On August 10, a State Department spokesman called “rumors” of a nuclear accord “false and misleading,” but on June 28, Secretary Blinken himself denied talks, “no deal in the offing.” If Blinken could so boldly shade the truth, what do you think those nuclear denials are worth?
Of course, somewhere in the ether – if House Republicans or what is left of a curious press push hard – we might see the text and codicils, if not the nods and winks, around this non-treaty treaty. The likelihood is when we all do is talk about limiting uranium enrichment for money occurs.
The main thing to take away is that wishful thinking – compounded by intentional misdirection – seems to be how this White House operates, again and again, on Iran, the world, and everything.
What this “Iran deal” tells us is sobering. Biden’s team believes what they want to believe, that like Iran, can be trusted. They believe Iran will stop angling for nuclear weapons if paid. They refuse to imagine the unimaginable, a war started based on hate, opportunity, and weakness.
More broadly, this gambit tells us what they think of Americans. They think we will not notice they paid billions to the world’s biggest terrorists for hostages, violating US policy and laws.
They think we will not recognize this as a treaty since they blurred the lines, secretly talking about limits on uranium enrichment for that big money, and hid it all behind a hostage purchase.
They think, in effect, if they can imagine being lawful, pretend the Senate has no rights, and dub this treaty something else, all will be well. It will not.
They think we are stupid – stupider because we do not trust Iran, think this is just another Biden sham within a sham, another attempt to end-run statutes, the Constitution, and accountability.
Here is what they should do: Go back and read their history and think harder about what got Neville Chamberlain and his wishful thinkers in trouble. Look up appeasement, and see what it buys you.
Contrary to popular understanding, there is no cause for “jubilation” in Biden’s new “Iran deal,” a profoundly misconceived, poorly disguised, historically wrongheaded attempt to gild the lily – an attempt to make something of nothing, misunderstanding an adversary, imagining victory.
Time and again, Biden reveals a dangerous lack of understanding and acts on that misunderstanding, gets cold water in the face, and declares victory. Think Afghanistan, China, and Ukraine, overspending, energy deprivation, high inflation, anti-police-open-border sentiment followed by high crime, drug deaths, sex trafficking, homelessness, and eroding public trust – now this.
Truth is, if anyone could make Neville Chamberlain look good, Joe Biden is the guy. Robert Gates, Obama’s Defense Secretary, was right – Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Let’s add another – Biden’s 2023 Munich Agreement with Iran. If only…we knew history.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
