Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister of Great Britain in the prelude to World War II, is the man who made the word “appeasement” notorious – perhaps history’s ultimate LD.  It was his meeting with Hitler at Munich in 1938 where he appeased Hitler by allowing him to annex the Sudetenland – an area of Czechoslovakia populated by Germans that had been broken off from the “Fatherland” after World War I.  In a very trivial way this was similar to any bad deal made in an auto dealership.  Chamberlain could have negotiated a better deal – though that was unlikely, gotten up and walked away – an outcome that would have ultimately led war earlier than 1939, or he could have accepted a bad deal hoping the price he paid would be worth the “peace” he bought – which he of course did.  In a negotiation at a car dealership a customer can continue negotiating until a more palatable deal is reached, walk away, or “lay down” and accept a price that may not be in their best interest.  At Munich, it was Adolph Hitler in the role of the car dealer (but then again, was Hitler truly THAT evil?).

As far as what would be considered appeasement, it is hard to believe that anyone could actually consider merely sitting down at a table to talk to someone as appeasement.  Now if some hypothetical diplomat – or even, future president – were to sit down with, say…the Iranians, how would that negotiation be appeasement?  If, in return for shutting down their uranium enrichment activities and ceasing all activities inside Iraq, the Iranians demanded that the United States give them the Shiite-dominated southern provinces of Iraq, and this imaginary U.S. negotiator accepted – yes, that would be appeasement.  The likelihood of this scenario, or a similar one, actually taking place is truly between slim and none.  If an unreasonable demand is all that an adversary is willing accept then any diplomat – much like a customer in a car dealership – should be willing to stand up and walk away.

On the other hand, if a negotiation was to bring to fruition a deal that benefited both sides, then why shouldn’t it be undertaken?  For example – to once again use the Iranians – if they were to hypothetically say that they would formally recognize the state of Israel, suspend support for Hezbollah and Hamas, and cease all activities inside Iraq in return for the United States reestablishing diplomatic relations with them, lifting its economic sanctions against them, ceasing support for the Mujahdeen el-Khalq – an internal Iranian opposition group that is actually on the State Department list of terrorist groups, and allowing them to continue a civilian nuclear energy program under the authority of the United Nations and the IAEA (which is their right as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). How would that not be in the interest of the United States?

For any negotiation to be successful a clear result must be desired.  To be successful at reaching a good deal on a car, a customer must go into the dealership with an idea of the car they wish to buy and the price they are willing to pay for it.  Often time’s people will walk into a car dealership with a price in mind but willingly pay more because of their desire for that particular car.  In a way, this is what Chamberlain did at Munich.  He paid a price too high because he desired peace over conflict – an inevitability that came anyway. 

Of course, if you don’t actually want to buy a car you will not bother to sit down at a car dealership, and if you don’t want to see if there is a peaceful way to settle issues such as the Iranian nuclear program, then you won’t bother to sit down with them.  It would seem that many neoconservatives do not want to put the effort into seeing if a peaceful solution is available because it is not something they desire.  For example, Michael Ledeen has said, “Iraq is just one battle in the larger war, bringing down the regime in Iran is the central act, because Iran is the world’s most dangerous terrorist country.”  And you should not forget Norman Podhoretz, the so-called “Godfather” of the neoconservative movement, wrote in Commentary – the magazine he founded and his son, John Podhoretz, now runs – said that he “hopes and prays” President Bush will bomb Iran before his time in the Oval Office ends.

The point here is not that the United States must come to a negotiated agreement with, to continue the example, the Iranians.  The point is that you cannot appease someone if you never even attempt to come to an agreement.  If you sit down to buy a car you could, possibly, get ripped off and settle for a bad deal, but if you refuse to sit down at all then you will never even have the chance to buy a car.  And judging by the neoconservative opinion of negotiation it would seem they either can’t buy cars or are not interested in them whatsoever.

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