Obama must read up history if he wants Iran deal

SINCE the White House announced the conclusion of the framework agreement in Lausanne, Switzerland, between Iran and the United States and the other major powers, under which Iran would suspend its military nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of international economic sanctions on it, critics have compared the accord to the agreement between Nazi Germany's Adolph Hitler and Britain and France that was signed in Munich, Germany, in 1938.

Many historians regard what is now referred to in shorthand as "Munich" as a symbol of the West's policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany in the 1930s, which allowed Hitler to pursue aggressive diplomatic and military policies in Europe and encouraged him to attack Poland in 1939, a move that marked the start of World War II.

The conventional wisdom has been that if then British prime minister Neville Chamberlain had adopted a tougher stand vis-à-vis Hitler, including by threatening to use military power in response to Germany's aggression against Czechoslovakia, the German leader would have been forced to change his expansionist approach and embrace a more accommodative one. And then - who knows? - perhaps World War II and its many horrors wouldn't have happened.