The column argues that the emerging U.S.-Iran deal resembles the 1938 Munich Agreement, when Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler decided Europe’s future without involving Czechoslovakia. It says the parallel is especially troubling because the weaker ally was again excluded while stronger powers pushed it to accept territorial loss in the name of peace.
The piece opens with quotes from U.S. President Donald Trump, who said his deal with Iran would bring “peace and security to the whole region,” and that leaders had finally found a president who could deliver “real peace.” After Iran fired missiles at Israel, Trump also said Israel had responded enough and that “we can get peace after 3000 years.” The author then recalls Chamberlain’s triumphant return from Munich on 30 September 1938, when he claimed he had secured “peace for our time.”
A detailed historical review follows. Since Adolf Hitler took power in 1933, Britain and France pursued appeasement, ignoring German rearmament, the remilitarization of the Rhineland, and the annexation of Austria. Chamberlain accepted Hitler’s demand to transfer the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia to Germany, believing it would satisfy him. London and Paris then pressed Prague to surrender territories with more than 50 percent ethnic Germans, warning it would bear the consequences if it refused.
On 28 September 1938 Hitler issued an ultimatum, demanding public acceptance by 2:00 p.m. The Czechoslovaks rejected it, but were excluded from the Munich talks that began on 29 September. Their representatives waited in a side room for five hours while the four powers decided their fate. Hitler and Benito Mussolini coordinated in advance, while Chamberlain did not even coordinate fully with French premier Édouard Daladier. In the early hours of 29 to 30 September, the agreement was signed, forcing Czechoslovakia to hand over its territory peacefully. The article says Germany gained major fortifications, industry, coal mines, gold reserves, cities, and a strong army and air force, while the West lost a key ally. Chamberlain returned declaring “peace in our time,” but Winston Churchill warned that Britain had chosen disgrace. On 15 March 1939 Hitler destroyed what remained of Czechoslovakia, and a year later World War II began.
