| | | TG, by the way, I just did a search, and I came across this gem, which confirms my analogy between Obama and Chamberlain:
Obama: 'Peace in Our Time'
The phrase appeared in a passage on foreign policy, in which the president pledged to defend the nation while resolving differences peacefully [emphasis added]:
And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice--not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice.
The sentence is rather tortured, but the idea seems to be that promoting socioeconomic equality around the world can help prevent conflict. It echoes the “root causes” theory of terrorism, which is that poverty produces extremism or at least provides it fertile ground There is some truth to that, although many terrorists come from middle class origins, and target America precisely because it symbolizes the values the president described.
Regardless, the reason Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” is remembered is not that his theory of international relations was wrong but because he was hopelessly, dangerously naïve about Hitler’s intentions. A year after Chamberlain waved the paper on which he had signed the Munich Agreement, ceding the sovereignty of Czechosolvakia in return for Hitler’s promises of peace, Germany had invaded Poland and Britain was at war. |
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