Daily Circuit Blog

Op-ed pick: Obama’s similarity to Neville Chamberlain

While other pundits compare the crisis in Syria to Iraq or to Kosovo, the National Journal's Michael Hirsh looks all the way back to the German invasion of Poland after Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement failed.

Already the United Nations, NATO, and Great Britain have failed to enforce (Obama's) red line against chemical weapons use. Only the United States, with the possible help of France, stands in the way of allowing Assad to grin triumphantly atop the WMD massacre he authorized, to do it again and again, and thus make it more acceptable internationally. As Obama said in his Rose Garden statement Saturday: "If we won't enforce accountability in the face of this heinous act, what does it say about our resolve to stand up to others who flout fundamental international rules? To governments who would choose to build nuclear arms? To terrorists who would spread biological weapons? To armies who carry out genocide?"

Read all of Hirsh's column here.