President Biden Can Still Save the World in His Remaining Time in Office
by Alan M. Dershowitz • October 14, 2024 at 7:30 am
"[I]n 1933 a French premier ought to have said (and if I had been the French premier I would have said it): 'The new Reich Chancellor is the man who wrote Mein Kampf, which says this and that. This man cannot be tolerated in our vicinity. Either he disappears or we march!' But they didn't do it. They left us alone and let us slip through the risky zone, and we were able to sail around all dangerous reefs. And when we were done, and well-armed, better than they, then they started the war!" — Joseph Goebbels, Germany's Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from 1933-1945.
Obama has been the "Chamberlain" in this 21st-century version of Great Britain's and France's appeasement of an evil and dangerous regime.
The Biden administration has extended Obama's destructive policy, resulting in an even stronger and more dangerous Iran. Under the Trump administration, Iran was considerably weakened economically and thus militarily. Now it is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear arsenal which will allow its proxies to operate under the protection of Iran's nuclear umbrella.
The other step that Biden could take would be to work with Israel on preventing Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal. Unfortunately, this cannot be achieved by more treaties or negotiations. As recent history shows, Iran will simply cheat, as it did after Obama's 2015 JCPOA "nuclear deal." The only way to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is through a military attack against its nuclear facilities, many of which are very deep underground. This can be achieved through U.S.-Israeli military and intelligence cooperation.
Israel should not give up any military advantage in exchange for intangible promises. Just look at how Russia violated its commitment, in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange for the latter giving up its nuclear weapons. Ukraine gave the weapons up; in 2014 and 2022, Russia invaded anyway.
Although the United States, even as far back as the Obama administration, has pledged to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no reason why Iran should believe that, considering US appeasement tactics under Democratic administrations.
So the only realistic alternative – the least bad among the series of not very good alternatives – is a joint military attack, as surgical as possible, on Iran's nearly-completed nuclear weapons program. To allow Iran to cross the threshold and acquire nuclear weapons would pose a catastrophic threat to world peace. Stopping Iran from having a nuclear arsenal would, on the other hand, be a great accomplishment and a lasting positive legacy for the Biden presidency.
The result of inaction will be a terrorist regime with a nuclear arsenal, followed by a global nuclear-arms race. The fault for such a dangerous outcome will lie squarely with the "Chamberlain" Democrats.
The legacy of the last two Democratic presidencies – President Barack Obama's and President Joe Biden's – will be the appeasement of Iran in its efforts to dominate the Middle East and eventually expand its influence through the acquisition of a nuclear arsenal.
Obama has been the "Chamberlain" in this 21st-century version of Great Britain's and France's appeasement of an evil and dangerous regime. In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain thought he had a secure peace treaty with Hitler – "Peace in our time," he promised the British -- only to have Hitler break it at the first opportunity by invading the rump Czechoslovak Republic.
By the mid-1930s, Nazi Germany's plan to dominate Europe should have been clear to western leaders. As Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary:
