Appeasing the Enemy

September 6th, 2006 at 14:58 Björn Hallberg

Scott Adams’s humorous take on the US-Iran conflict. Scott isn’t quite convinced of the Chamberlain parable that is being floated in some circles for one.

One thing that became clear from your comments is a fact that’s well known to trial lawyers: People learn by stories more so than by facts. In other words, we form our opinions based on what stories we are familiar with that seem the closest to the current situation.

In this case, many people drew on the story that all American kids learn in history class, that Neville Chamberlain’s idea of appeasing Hitler was a huge mistake. Thus we conclude that giving the Iranian leadership anything they are asking for would be a similar mistake.

And furthermore … it takes a reasonably sharp mind to cut through the complete BS and Americocentrism of the issue. It may not seem like much of an achievement but in today’s America it is nearly a revolutionary act.

I know from the comments to this blog that most of you are against the idea of appeasing Iran. Your thinking is that if we back down on any of our demands, then sometime next week the United States will be a smoldering crater. You can’t give those evil empires an inch.

With that concept in mind, I wonder how you would advise the leadership of Iran. If they give in to U.S. demands for nuclear inspections and whatnot, the Iranians will be appeasing their enemies. And you know that never works. Within a week Israel will be building settlements in Tehran.

Iran could try to be friends with the United States, so their appeasing looks more like being friendly. But frankly I would see that as a sign of weakness. I think I speak for all Americans when I say that that would be an ideal time to attack.

Seemingly without effort Adams is able to demolish the entire basis of the American view of international relations.

Entry 628 filed under: Middle East. This entry was posted 2 years, 2 months ago. RSS feed for comments on this post.