"Appeasement"

May 15, 2008: President Bush wants to score points during a speech before the Israeli parliament and attacks Obama's intent to engage in talks with Iran:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have an obligation to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Same day, Republican pundit Kevin James insists on MSNBC that Obama's plan to open a dialogue with the "axis of evil" and to use force as a last resort, not a first option, is no different than Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement towards the Nazis when he ceded part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938 (James is massacred by "liberal" Chris Matthews for not knowing the difference between diplomacy and appeasement) --



Danny Ayalon (Israel's ambassador to the U.S. from 2002-2006), makes the same point in Haaretz, writing in an online forum hosted by that newspaper:

My specific concern is [Obama's] policy towards Iran. On one hand he describes the Ayatollah's regime in Tehran as Hitler-like and on the other he calls for negotiations with them. What needs to be clarified is:

1. What does he expect to achieve in negotiations with "evil"?
2. Why does he think talking to "Hitler" can succeed?
3. What would be on the agenda?
4. How would such negotiations be conducted in terms of timeline and consequence of failure.

July 18, 2006: President Bush sends a high ranking diplomat to Switzerland to meet with Iranian envoys and plans to open a diplomatic presence in Tehran.

Hmm... Will we now hear Kevin James and Danny Ayalon refer to "George W. Chamberlain?" Will they concede that the administration has flip-flopped and stop demonizing Obama for his (pragmatic and sensible) approach to deescalate the political problems in the Middle East? Of course not. Gotta love these so-called "conservatives" -- consistent only in their branding of opponents. There's only one word to describe it: chutzpah!