Even if it turns out not to be a relevant comparison, it seems very foolish to fail to see the similarities. Shlomo Avineri, professor of political science at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, continues the discussion of the most significant historic parallel of today’s situation with regard to Iraq.
It is today a commonplace that Europe's behavior in the 1930's in facing Nazi Germany was morally wrong and politically disastrous. Yet like the Bourbons, some European statesmen have not forgotten anything or learned anything from one of Europe's most shameful chapters of history.
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So one has to wonder why people who view the appeasement of Hitler in the 1930's as wrong find it difficult to admit that there may be no other way but to use force against Saddam when his record is much worse than that of Hitler in 1936.