Back on Oct. 5, 1938, in the House of Commons in the British Parliament, Winston Churchill stood and gave this rebuff to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain had signed the Munich Agreement permitting Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia. Churchill warned, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.”
These wise words captured the ignominy and peril of appeasement. Churchill later offered a deeper point: “When nations abandon their honor, they invite their own destruction.”
Unlike besieged and underpowered Britain, mighty America began negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran with an air force commanding the skies and an armada like none ever assembled cruising offshore. America had partnered wing tip to wing tip with Israel, leveraging its regional proximity and intelligence apparatus.
While the U.S.-Iranian 14-point Memorandum of Understanding’s 60 days of discussion have yet to play out, it seems that Tehran was dictating terms that experts describe as a near surrender. Many who have praised U.S. President Donald Trump’s prior actions to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons, to demolish Iran’s missile factories and to curtail funding to terrorist proxies were dumbfounded by his signing an agreement that so disadvantages America and Israel.
Trump’s apparent capitulation comes after he had successfully waged a hot war, risking life and spending treasure, and had effectively won. Yes, the economics of a Strait of Hormuz blockade were painful, but it wasn’t existential. Iran was also suffering from its inability to deliver its vast petrochemical resources. In the bigger scheme of things, experts suggest, the economic impact was a small price paid to avoid Iran’s long-standing troublemaking and what would soon become nuclear blackmail.
Looking back, Iran could see a pattern of America’s underwhelming reactions to prior deadly provocations. It is a dishonorable pattern of an unwillingness to engage the enemy when materially provoked.
In 1983, Reagan withdrew the U.S. Marines after 241 were killed in the Beirut barracks bombing.
In 1996, then-President Bill Clinton did not effectively respond to the Khobar Towers destruction.
Former President Barack Obama’s failure in 2021 to enforce the red line declaration against the use of poison gas by Syria on its own people. Obama again in 2015 sent a succumbing message when he signed the Iranian nuclear deal with its up-front payments, lack of inspections and an eventual “sunsetting” path to nuclear weapons.
Former President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 was yet another disaster with the collapse of the Afghan military, the death of soldiers at Abbey Gate and civilian supporters left behind.
The MoU contains provisions that, like those of the Munich Agreement and the abandonment of Czechoslovakia, will ultimately lead to war.
The first paragraph demands, “ … the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” Israel’s northern border has been assaulted by Hezbollah since Oct. 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in the south. The Israel Defense Forces are fighting to eliminate the threat. Israel will not submit to allowing a terrorist entity to make uninhabitable a portion of its land, and it will not accept a dagger pointed at its heart.
Funding Iran with hundreds of billions of dollars will lead to the enhancement of the Iranian proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. In the past, Tehran has not been able to control its malign ways and will continue to battle Israel, America and the West. In addition, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which holds sway with Iran’s government, will surely use the money to rebuild its destroyed military and associated industries.
The MoU delays the commitment of the Iranians to eliminate their nuclear program. As such, no one should expect anything but deception and procrastination. Unlike his predecessors, Trump has shown a willingness to act kinetically. What happens now?
Iran knows that control of the Strait of Hormuz is a pressure point it can apply at any point. Economic pressure brought Washington to the settlement table. Should the world expect Iran not to apply this leverage whenever needed? Blockades and war are likely to follow.
Spawned from theocratic fundamentalism, Iran’s malevolence and intransigence are nearly 50 years’ proof positive that it is a rogue nation. The actions of the mullahs have frustrated the prior eight presidents. Military experts know that conquering a nation and forcing regime change requires occupation and will violate a “no boots on the ground” political red line. And the supercharged American press, steered by a bias for the political opposition, constantly makes the case for But Trump and his advisors had to know all this before going off to war.
Trump’s “Make America Great Again” aspiration had to include dealing with a world filled with adversaries. External threats by China, Russia, North Korea and Iran were in place, and formed the geopolitical resistance affecting global power and economics. His disdain for the capitulation of Obama and his disastrous nuclear deal was fodder for many of his political speeches.
Those who are Jewish and Zionist are well-versed in the fragility of alliance and the infrequency of principled stands against danger. Until the MoU, Trump’s heroic and principled actions, especially in support of assaulted ally Israel and the American Jewish community facing rising antisemitism, gave good reason to cheer him on.
The jarring reverse, of course, has unsettled his political allies, as well as the leaders of nations who wanted to see a muscular America defeat a malevolent foe. The cost of war was seen at the gas pumps and reflected in popularity polling, but the risk of nuclear weapons in the hands of madmen should have been enough to see the conflict through. Nations in the Middle East, Europe and in the Asia-Pacific arena that seek a reliable ally now must add this disquieting reversal into their political calculus.
Trump is in his last presidential term, and his legacy is surely important to him. No doubt he wants Republicans to succeed in the midterms and in 2028. As in Chamberlain’s Britain, elements of Trump’s party dislike foreign entanglements. Still, he will be judged by the adversaries of his time and how honorably he performed.
The negotiated defeat at the hands of a third-rate dictatorship—and a likely future war while he stood within reach of a monumental victory—will poison all that Trump had accomplished.
