Germany, Iran, appeasement, and partisanship

Today at the Daily Standard Joseph Loconte, a senior fellow at Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy, begins:

Last week Germany marked the 75th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, on January 30, 1933. Within a decade the Nazi juggernaut had devoured much of Europe, and its death camps had incinerated millions.

No nation in Europe bears the shame of Nazism and anti-Semitism more heavily, yet none seems more determined to prevent their recurrence.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier no doubt spoke for many over the weekend: "The memory of the genocide committed by the Germans serves to keep us alert and fight anti-Semitism and racial hatred around the world."

This is a good thing, this mixture of grief and resolve. We will need more of it. For on the very same day last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--in yet another bellicose political sermon--promised that Iran would produce nuclear energy within a year and that Israel would soon collapse. "I warn you to abandon the filthy Zionist entity," he said, "which has reached the end of the line."

All historical analogies are hazardous, of course. Yet it is not necessary to believe that the Iranian president shares Hitler's demonic fury, or that his brand of Shi'a Islam is a kind of Islamo-fascism, to draw useful lessons from Europe's decade of appeasement.

Foremost among these lessons was the fatally naïve critique of Hitler, his anti-Semitism, and his designs on Europe. …

Laconte’s entire article is here.

Mentioning a “fatally naïve critique” brings to mind the recent NIE report which seemed to claim Iran was no longer developing nuclear weapons; and the eager hyping of the report by many Dems and their MSM allies who saw in the NIE’s alleged claim a chance to undermine President Bush’s oft repeated warnings that Iran’s determined to become a nuclear power and the world’s need to prevent that.

After reading Laconte’s article and recalling how the Ds and so much of MSM reacted to the NIE report, I was reminded again that while I’m not an R, I can’t be a D.