The Nuclear Deal with Iran, Hitler, and the Ayatollahs

The July 14, 2015 Vienna accord over Iran’s development and use of nuclear energy and the lifting of sanctions inevitably brings to mind the “Munich Agreement” made by the governments of Britain and France with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler on September 30, 1938.¹

Believing Hitler’s Word…

Hitler demanded the surrender of territories in Czechoslovakia (Sudetenland) whose inhabitants spoke German as a condition for preserving peace in Europe. He assured the other powers that the surrender of these regions would be his last territorial demand.

The representatives of Britain and France — Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier — trusted the word of the Nazi dictator and signed the agreement authorizing Germany to annex those territories as a means to “save the peace.”

Instead of “Peace for Our Time,” the Bloodiest of Wars

Returning to London that day, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said before a jubilant crowd that this agreement had secured “peace for our time.”

Less than six months later, however, on March 15, 1939, German troops occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, and in September of that year invaded Poland, thus beginning the Second World War, in which an estimated 75 million people perished.

Feed the Beast to Appease It?

History has shown the failure of Neville Chamberlain’s policy of “appeasement” toward Hitler, who demanded ever greater concessions.

Today, the same policy is being applied to Iran and one is right to fear that it will have the same results.

Believing Iran’s leaders …

The July 14, 2015 Vienna deal:

•  allows Iran to keep most of its nuclear enrichment infrastructure and operate its centrifuges, enshrining it as a nuclear threshold state and enabling its quick breakout as a nuclear weapons state;
•  allows Iran to develop ballistic missiles with which to target America;
•  allows Iran to have nuclear weapons ten years from now;
•  lifts many of the U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran since the 1979 Iranian Embassy hostage crisis even though Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism;
•  rewards the Ayatollah regime with the return of some $100 billion in Iranian assets frozen since the Embassy hostage crisis and which it will be free to use in its jihad against America;
•  allows international businesses to invest in Iran generating even more funding for the regime to spread the Islamist Revolution;
•  implements a risible “fox-watching-over-the-chicken-coop” system of inspections for checking Iran’s fulfillment of its promises;
•  is an enormous psywar victory for Iran, thus strengthening the Islamist regime, while greatly undermining America’s leadership in the world;
•  triggers an arms race in the Middle East as U.S. allies and Iranian adversaries there see America as the ever more unreliable peace guarantor in the region.

The agreement with Iran rests on the promises made by that country’s representatives. But what good are the promises of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani if real political power is vested in the Ayatollahs?

“Iran’s Supreme Leader”

Indeed, the highest political and religious authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who holds the titles of “Iran’s Supreme Leader” and “Leader of the Revolution” carried out in 1979. He is also the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, guides foreign policy, and decides on matters relating to war and peace.

Thus, in assessing the chances of Iran complying with promises made in Vienna it is imperative to ascertain what the “Supreme Leader of Iran,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, thinks about the United States.

The United States Is the “Devil Incarnate” and Must Be Destroyed
Khamenei considers America to be “the devil incarnate,”² and four days after the deal’s Vienna signing he applauded “Death to America” chanting Iranian masses, asking God to heed their prayers:

At Al-Quds day rallies last week, Khamenei noted appreciatively, “You heard ‘Death to Israel’, ‘Death to the US.’ You could hear it. The whole nation was shaken by these slogans. It wasn’t only confined to Tehran. The whole of the nation, you could hear, that was covered by this great movement. So we ask Almighty God to accept these prayers by the people of Iran.”³

Do these affirmations and the sentiments they display offer any confidence that Iran will keep its word and can be trusted during these ten years?
And does it make any sense to sign an agreement with a fanatical regime that has vowed to destroy us, empowering it with nuclear weapons a mere ten years down the road?

The Middle East Can Set the World on Fire

The Middle East is one of the most sensitive parts of the world, and a nuclear conflict in this region can involve the whole planet.
The Munich agreement with Hitler led to a bloody war that lasted five years with millions of victims. Now we are being asked to accept an agreement that will allow access to nuclear weapons by a country dominated by fanatics who hate America. A new, nuclear war may wreak far more destruction and in far less time than the carnage witnessed in the Second World War.

Can America afford to run this risk?

Prudence and Fortitude, the Necessary Virtues

Joining with millions of concerned Americans, the American Society for the Defense of Tradition Family and Property — TFP respectfully urges the political leaders of our nation to not be carried away by an imprudent and unfounded optimism, but rather, to abandon this bad deal remembering the warning from Scripture: “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty” (Prov. 22:3).

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6), obtain from her Divine Son graces of prudence, fortitude, and above all wisdom for our nation’s leaders at this dangerous crossroads in America’s history.

September 7, 2015

The American TFP