To Appease or Not Appease

This post makes a good point about Chamberlain in 1938.  The author posts about a Chris Matthews' interview with Kevin James.

MATTHEWS: You don't know what you're talking about. Your problem, Kevin, is, you don't know what you're talking about.

And the problem is, you don't understand there's a difference between talking to the enemy and appeasing. What Neville Chamberlain did wrong, most people would say, is not talking to Hitler, but giving him half of Czechoslovakia in '38. That's what he did wrong, not talking to somebody.

If we leave Iraq and if we talk about making Iran/Syria take responsibility for the situation over there -- that is in fact a de facto appeasement, a land give in essence.  With the Iranians trying to subvert our strides in Iraq, they are making the case for not working with us.  And if we leave Iraq, with no real support, we are essentially giving the Iranians a puppet state. 

That is worse than out in the open appeasement.  It is essentially a under the table land deal.  By handing responsibility over to the Iranians -- we are basically holding up a middle finger to Iraq while giving the keys to Iran and saying we don't want to deal with this anymore.

You have to see that by letting Iran and Syria be the ones that create stability in the region, you have to figure their stability is different from what we want.  Their stability would entail a puppet regime running Iraq with them pulling the strings.  That is something we definitely don't want.

In 1938, I am sure the Czechoslovakians felt the deal was fair and just as other powers toyed with what was theirs.  Imagine what the Iraqis must feel with the political rhetoric being thrown around here.