PrintDecember 7, 2008
The Exquisite Difficulty of Preemption
Ever hear of an obscure German Chancellor by the name of Hitler? Probably not. He ruled for three years in the 1930s until he took an aggressive step too far, marching troops into the Rhineland against treaty commitments. The Wehrmacht was promptly ejected by the French Army, and an appalled and fearful German General Staff liquidated Hitler and called for new elections.Of course, it didn't work that way. Herr Hitler was not removed, because the pacific French and British democracies -- knowing only that any action would result in serious bloodshed, but not the then-future of the German Chancellor -- shrank from the challenge and hoped for the best. Disaster struck, and instead of disappearing, the name Hitler is a byword for horror. It's the perennial problem with democracies -- which naturally abhor violence and dislocation -- and just what we face in the Middle East today with Iran: If we make war to remove any but the most imminent and...(Read Full Article)
