« previous | TPM CAFÉ READER POSTS HOME | next »
Why Bush is today's Neville Chamberlain, not Obama
Bush at the Knesset a few days ago tried to link Obama and all Democrats to the failed policy of appeasement of Neville Chamberlain. However, looking more closely at the historical record of appeasers, it is clear that it is Bush who is much closer to the policies of Chamberlain than Obama is.
Flash back to 1938-39. Chamberlain is meeting with the leaders of the Nazi regime, and the outcome was letting Hitler take over Austria and overrun Czechoslovakia. Why did he do so? It was not because he thought the Germans were the greatest threat Britain faced. It was because Chamberlain thought the Soviet Union was a much bigger threat to Britain. He was mortified by the thought of Communists increasing their hold in Europe. He thought that if the Nazis fell, the Communists would take over Germany. This he could not abide.
Later on, in the early summer of 1939, when Hitler's aims were apparent, Chamberlain had the opportunity to sign a pact with the USSR against German aggression. This likely would have stopped Hitler in his tracks. However, he could not get over his blind hatred of the Soviet Union, and he fiddled while the German/Soviet non-aggression pact was signed.
So from this it is apparent that Chamberlain greatest failing was not making peace with Britain's greatest enemy. Chamberlain's biggest failing was misapprehending who that greatest enemy was.
And this is the same path taken by Bush. In his first term, Bush never took Al Quaeda seriously. He was convinced that Iraq was involved somehow, that they were pulling the strings. It had to be that SOB who tried to kill his dad several years earlier. This blinded him to overestimate Iraq's danger to the US, making in his eyes Iraq that "greatest enemy." Again, Bush's greatest failing was misapprehending who that greatest enemy was.
Comments (44)
exactly!
May 16, 2008 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't quite catch who Bush (Chamberlain) made a deal with because he was mistakenly more afraid of Iraq (Russia). Which country is Germany in your analogy?
May 16, 2008 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Doesn't quite work, does it?
May 16, 2008 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Billy, first of all, it's not an analogy; it's a metaphor. I am not saying that x = y; I am saying there are properties of x that parallel properties of y.
It does not matter for the point I was making that there is no exact analogue to Nazi Germany in the present day (the closest would be Al Quaeda, but that is a very inexact parallel). The point I was making was that Bush is making the same type of mistake that Chamberlain did--mistaking who posed the greater danger to their respective countries--by holding some preconceived biases.
May 16, 2008 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the more direct parallel ("appeasement in our time") is yours for the taking if you had selected Papa Bush instead of Shrub (to plagiarize Maureen Dowd.)
Prior to the first Gulf War you will recall that Iraq and Kuwait were bickering over the border between their two countries. Our ambassador to the region, April Glaspie, did not give Saddam Hussein a clear "no, do not invade," insteading offering up a lukewarm, easily re-interpreted, re-defined, "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait. I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late ’60s. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via [Chadli] Klibi [then Arab League General Secretary] or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly. With regard to all of this, can I ask you to see how the issue appears to us?" [Wikipedia]
Hussein invaded Kuwait. Kinda like Herr Hitler making Czechoslovakia part of the Vaterland. ("Gee, we thought you said it was okay, or at least that you wouldn't get involved, or would look the other way.") It took Papa Bush and Co. months to decide that allowing Saddam to invade Kuwait was a bad idea.
Shrub on the other hand is less Neville Chamberlain and more Margaret Thatcher. She started a war with the Argentina over the Falkland Islands to look tough. However, Lady Thatcher's war was a short-lived affair. Shrub's may have created the latest iteration of the "Hundred Years War."
May 16, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you.
May 16, 2008 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Huh? It was the Argentines (Galtieri) who started the Falklands war. They did not expect Thatcher to fight back.
It was a great example of a war conducted and exploited for domestic political purposes - on both sides.
May 17, 2008 8:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
The "Falklands" orginally belonged to Argentina. Wouldn't it have been wiser for Thatcher to um, negotiate a solution with Argentina for some islands that have no significance to the UK anymore? She could have created a scenario ala Hong Kong, a lease with a "return by" date.
But the Falklands are a whole 'nother conversation.
Grenada, any one?
May 17, 2008 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Malvinas originally belonged to Argentina, in part because the islands are rather closer to Argentina than they are to the UK.
The problem is that the Falklands are inhabited (almost?) exclusively by British nationals. That makes the situation very much unlike HK. I can understand why Argentines want the islands back and why Brits want to keep them.
I understand that at least some British governments were not at all opposed to returning the islands, but the islanders were always against it.
May 17, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh come on. You shouldn't even put Al-Qaeda and the Third Reich in the same sentence. There is no comparison.
May 17, 2008 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well put. Recommended.
May 16, 2008 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bush ceded Al Qaeda's hideouts in Pakistan, placating Musharraf and Pakistani Islamists. And he's continued to pander shamelessly to the Saudis. If that isn't appeasement to a known enemy, I don't know what is.
May 16, 2008 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice read.
I would change it a little, in terms of foreign policy:
Hitler: George W. Bush
Chamberlain: The Democratic Party
USSR: No one.
Al Quaeda?? LOL!
May 16, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Flash back to 1938-39...
let's flash back to today.
as reported by newsweek, mr. bush's gift to iranian appeasement -- ahmad chalabi -- "has been removed from a top Iraqi government post over his continued contacts with suspected Iranian operatives, according to U.S. officials."
the same chalabi trusted by the bush administration for his phony intelligence on iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
the same chalabi showered with millions of u.s. taxpayer dollars by the bush administration before and during the war to convince iraqis of american good intentions.
the same chalabi whose baghdad compound was raided by iraqi and american authorities in 2004 for "suspected fraud in a government ministry" and "harboring "an agent [or agents] of Iranian intelligence."
the same chalabi authorized by the bush administration for access to sensitive information and subsequently investigated by the fbi in 2004 for tipping iran to top secret developments related to the u.s.'s ability to crack iranian communication codes.
the very same chalabi who sat behind laura bush as an honored guest at the president's last sotu.
so why isn't chalabi behind bars, staying at hotel gitmo or rendered to a place far far away from any future opportunity to cause the united states harm?
ask mr. bush, aide, abettor, "appeaser" of iran viz. de facto iranian agent ahmad chalbi.
May 16, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
sharp
May 16, 2008 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have it wrong; Bush is neither the appeaser nor the non-appeaser: he is the appeased.
May 16, 2008 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Small correction. In 1938, at the time of the Munich talks (the appeasement phase), overrunning Czechoslovakia was not officially on the table (though there is little doubt it was on Hitler's mind). In September 1938, the deal was to give so-called Sudetenland, the majority-German border areas, to Germany. In March 1939, Germany occupied the rest of what's now the Czech Republic, declaring it a protectorate, while Slovakia became a Hitler-friendly "independent" state.
That said, Chamberlain was right to fear Stalin. Stalin was, if anything, a mass murderer even worse than Hitler. And after Germany lost, Communists did take over a good chunk of it, along with about half of Europe.
Chamberlain's mistake was that he underestimated Germany, not that he overestimated danger of the USSR. Hitler was just as dangerous as Stalin, and much closer to Britain.
Our only luck was that Hitler couldn't strategize his way out of a wet paper bag. Hitler's idea of a winning strategy was to attack all enemies at once, so that he could fight them on several fronts and nicely spread out and weaken his forces.
May 16, 2008 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The USSR had no intention of threatening other countries (except for possibly Finland) before the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, despite its bloody domestic record. Dealing with Hitler whetted Stalin's appetite, and gave him the idea of taking Poland and the Baltic States. After the war, Stalin regarded Eastern Europe as his just due after the suffering Russia underwent during the war.
In contrast, there was no question of Hitler's aggressive intentions.
May 16, 2008 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
On what basis do you claim to know what exactly Stalin was thinking back in '38?
It is true that in the late 1930s, the USSR was not in a good shape for military expansion, not after Stalin's bout of bloodletting in the Red Army.
But forgive me if I consider your assertion that before dealing with Hitler, Stalin was a peace-loving model citizen of the world, to be laughable. Just because Stalin was too busy killing his own subjects (USSR citizens) doesn't mean he wasn't a threat to the rest of the world!
At the same time, while all the signs indicated that Germany was getting ready for war, in 1938 they hadn't actually been involved in any wars. I would also point out that some countries (such as the US) didn't consider Germany to be particularly dangerous until the early 1940s.
Sure, Russians didn't threaten anyone, but the very fact that they entered the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact and invaded part of Poland plus the Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) as soon as they could would seem to suggest that they did, in fact, have expansionist tendencies.
And yes, Stalin regarded Eastern Europe as his "due". That's because he was a bloodthirsty dictator just as bad as Hitler. But as you (should?) know, the USSR tried to gain a foothold in many European countries through local Communist Party proxies as early as the 1920s. There was no "aha" moment in 1939 or 1945, it was all part of the long-term plan.
May 16, 2008 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't want to get too far off track here, but what I said about Stalin's intentions in the late '30s was true. As you mentioned, the Soviet military was in no shape to conduct invasions. Historians have combed through the documents of the era and found no evidence of an intent on the part of Stalin to invade any country other than Finland prior to mid-1939. And don't forget the central argument between Stalin and Trotsky was on this very issue: Trotsky was the one pushing for foreign adventures, and Stalin was the one pushing to put his own bloody house in order.
But I thank you for giving me an opportunity to elucidate my analogy. Being a mass murderer at home does not make one have ideas of doing the same to foreign countries. Chamberlain did not understand this about Stalin, and Bush did not understand this about Hussein.
May 16, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think the Stalin/Saddam analogy is appropriate. In 2003, Saddam already had a record of starting one medium-size war and one small but highly unsuccessful invasion. Of course he was in no shape to fight another war, but no one could have said with a straight face that Saddam had never shown to be aggressive. The Bushies played up Saddam's history and willfully ignored all recent data.
In 1938, both Stalin and Hitler had relatively clean records internationally. Doesn't mean either one wasn't dangerous. Again, Stalin may not have had immediate military plans, but discounting the USSR as a benign giant would have been foolish (as subsequent history clearly demonstrated).
One smaller point - the fact that Stalin did not have any immediate military plans didn't mean much. In a thoroughly undemocratic country like the USSR was, leadership could change rapidly and unpredictably, and a 180 degree turn was not out of the question. Again, Chamberlain was right to fear the USSR, but wrong to underestimate Germany.
That said, I completely agree that trying to link Obama and Chamberlain is as idiotic as it is historically inaccurate.
May 16, 2008 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
"no one could have said with a straight face that Saddam had never shown to be aggressive. "
Please note that the Iran-Iraq war would not have happened without heavy US support of Saddam.
Also, it is fair to say that Saddam might not have invaded Kuwait if the US State Department had warned him not to when he told them his plan in advance. In fact the State Department told Saddam they had no problem with his Kuwait invasion plan.
May 17, 2008 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good points, but I was talking more about the perceptions. I don't think you disagree that in 2003, it was easy to point out to cases where Saddam had attacked other countries in the past.
May 17, 2008 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I love your concept but I think that there was more to Iraq than simply paybacks for daddy.
Greg Palast has a great article on this. I highly recommend it.
Live Frankly
May 16, 2008 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
No question there is more, and Palast's article is very good on these points. I just didn't want to get bogged down in more details which would obscure (but not contradict) my main argument.
May 16, 2008 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
One other historical note re: comparing Bush to Chamberlain. Chamberlain was a "fanatic for party discipline" (Manchester, The Last Lion v. 2). He saw any criticism of his government's foreign policy as unpatriotic. In fact, he privately considered Churchill and Eden, his main opponents on foreign policy in the late 30s, as borderline traitors.
I'll let people fill in the blanks as to how this applies to Bush.
May 16, 2008 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I should also add that, in my opinion, all comparisons of the current situation with WWII are wildly off the mark. 2008 is nothing like 1938.
May 16, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
...and this constant and insistent conflation of "turrurhists" with foreign governments is the mechanism through which the confusion arises.
Of course you can't deal with fanatics with nothing to lose - we wouldn't sit down with some suicide bomber.
But states have interests and something to lose - they can't be 'fanatic' or self destructive for long. Would Iran 'commit suicide' to destroy Isreal?
OF COURSE NOT.
But Bush's attack all traces back to his willfull conflation of 'terrorsts' with 'rouge states.'
May 16, 2008 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's encouraging that Obama is distancing himself from the insane idea of holding a summit meeting with Ahmadinejad without preconditions. He's morphed his position into "touch diplomacy" and "talking with your enemies" without specifying the level. Unfortunately, he's on tape saying the other. He is going to have to admit that he has, in the course of the campaign, come around to Clinton's position on Iran.
May 16, 2008 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Believe it or not Billy, but the general election will not be all about Clinton.
May 16, 2008 9:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
The hell you say.
May 16, 2008 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
The hell *I* say, too.
Have you ever read any of Obama's statements? He is not Clinton and the GE will be about him and McCain. If you're old enough, how about that Gephardt or Simon in '88. Exactly. Huh or Who?
The world does not revolve around a Clinton...nor does American politics.
May 17, 2008 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was still about 80 years in the future when that happened. Gebhart makes chili powder or something, doesn't he?
May 17, 2008 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
"the insane idea of holding a summit meeting with Ahmadinejad without preconditions."
Billy, you have swallowed the mainstream media BS and have reversed the truth. Iran has long been a model of restraint and responsibility compared to the US.
May 17, 2008 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now that is just plain Obamaish. They've backed every terrorist organization in the ME except for al Qaeda, who they naturally hate, being Shiite fanatics and all. They probably suckered Bush into Iraq, and, not that we're stuck in a disastrous occupation are supplying arms and training to anyone who will kill Americans. They are pursuing nuclear weapons, have the missiles to deliver them to Israel all ready, and have declared that Israel has no right to exist. And have they said why?
Okay. Here's something. You are obviously an expert on Iran. Would you please explain exactly why Ahmadejinad believes Israel has no right to exist. Exactly what is about Israel that he hates?
Suppose Obama has a summit meeting with him and says: Why do you hate Israel? What do you think Ahmadejinad will say?
And following on that a little, exactly what do you imagine Obama could say to Ahmadejinad that he doesn't already know?
May 17, 2008 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm adding my less-than two cents - the answer to the Czech bargain is the same answer as to - who by far lost more soldiers than any other country during WWII - by wayyyyy far? Thinking of a particular densely wooded area...
May 16, 2008 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not sure I understand what you're getting at... but the country with highest military losses in WWII was clearly the USSR. Stalin did not regard the lives of his soldiers very highly.
May 17, 2008 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Another reason why Bush did not go after Osama bin Laden is the close business ties between the Bush family and the bin Laden family. They go back aways.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/09_18_01_bushbin.html
May 16, 2008 9:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I could not disagree more with your assumption that Bush was convinced that Iraq was involved with Al Queada. Bush isn't that stupid.
He is one of the greatest living liars today, why you would take him at his word is beyond me.
We invaded Iraq because of Greed.
Why is this so hard to understand?
May 17, 2008 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Life is rarely black and white. Why should there be just one and only one reason for the invasion?
May 17, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
A bit more background in Hitler, Czechoslovakia and 1938.
In 1938, Hitler demanded the Sudetenland. Those areas were mostly inhabited by German speakers. Before WWII, Czechoslovakia had population of roughly 14 million, with slightly over 3 million Germans (somewhat ironically, much of the Jewish population spoke German).
Hitler's demand was not totally unreasonable on the face of it. The Germans were not treated terribly well in Czechoslovakia, which was a direct consequence of Germans' poor treatment of Czechs in the preceding centuries. But Hitler also knew that after taking the mountainous areas of Sudetenland, the rest of Czechoslovakia would be indefensible.
One of the reasons why Hitler wanted Czechoslovakia was that the country was one of the world's largest arms exporters and was heavily industrialized. All those factories were then converted for war production, building airplanes, tanks, rifles, machine guns, armored cars, you name it.
More immediately, after occupying (the rest of) Czechoslovakia, Germans also captured all the Czechoslovak army equipment, which was subsequently used in the invasion of Poland and elsewhere.
This is something that people like Chamberlain could have and should have foreseen. I suspect that Hitler simply blindsided most of the rest of the world.
Side note - German armed forces used the (t) designation for Czech (Tschechisch) designs, for example Panzer 38(t) tank or Gewehr 24(t) rifle.
May 17, 2008 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Post a Comment