Learning from History
Reader comment on item: [Appeasement and] Why Europe Balks

Submitted by s.r.judah (United Kingdom), Jan 30, 2003 at 09:19

Europe's idea of giving time to Saddam is foolish. Once he has acquired WMD, it would be foolish to attempt disarming him. He can thus pursue the re-conquest of Kuwait, or for that matter the conquest of Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile Iran, a Shia nation will be compelled to acquire a similar capability. As these two have already fought a brutal war fairly recently, the stage is set and primed. Moreover both Iraq and Iran have made publicly known that they will nuke Israel, given the opportunity. Given this, Israel is likely to use its nuclear capability while it still has the chance.

The consequences of not disarming Iraq while we have the chance, thus significantly increases the probability of a full-scale nuclear war in the Middle East, with ample chance of it becoming global. Disarming Iraq is akin to starting a controlled bush fire to prevent a much greater conflagration. If Iraq is not disarmed then the whole world but particularly people in the Middle East will be the main victims.

It is impossible to predict the future with any certainty, but I sometimes wonder if World War II and its attendant 50 million dead, could have been averted if the Allies had forcefully prevented Germany from re-arming, i.e., obliging it to comply with the Armistice treaties that it signed.

A very similar situation pertains today. Those who do not learn from history are not necessarily doomed to repeat it but are likely to suffer an even worse fate.

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