They came to destroy civilization

In 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Although his totalitarian, Nazi ideology commanded but a minority of the German people, his dogma of of race supremacy appealed to many in society.

The destiny of the Aryan race, Hitler claimed, was to dominate Europe by cleansing the gene pool. The cleansing process was straightforward: exterminate Catholics, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the handicapped, and other 'undesirables'. Only then would the thousand-year Reich reign.

The Nazis quickly violated every international treaty agreement related to armed forces and military equipment. They created new, deadly organizations like the SA and SS for internal and external security. And they began undermining the governments of neighboring countries through clandestine military and intelligence activities.

The German people were, at first, hesitant to embrace the tenets of Nazism. Church leaders and many members of the original Prussian officer corps resisted the Nazis. Students, academics and unions also served as opposition to Hitler in the early years of the Reich.

By 1938, however, the Nazis had seized sufficient power to launch the Holocaust and the attendant military takeover of Europe. Their rationale:

A massive arms buildup defied every international convention and represented forward-thinking military technology. The Nazis' Panzer tanks and Stuka dive-bombers quickly proved, at least regionally, that the German war machine was without peer.

Furthermore, their demonstrations of dominance quickly convinced the Soviets that an alliance was preferable to conflict. And no one else in Europe was willing to challenge the buzz-saw represented by Hitler's war machine.

Historians now claim that Hitler's buildup could have been preempted much earlier. But opposition from the allied powers -- England and France -- came only after an untenable series of affronts by the Nazis. And the U.S. tried to avoid direct intervention until it suffered a catastrophic sneak attack at Pearl Harbor.

But the most effective check against Nazism -- a sanity check, if you will -- never came, because most Germans could not believe that Hitler was serious about exterminating the Jews. In fact, German Jews felt relatively secure seeing as how they operated in Europe's most culturally and economically advanced country.

Compounding the issue, leaders in England and France believed that their political fortunes rested on diplomacy with Hitler. While history now reviles Neville Chamberlain, he had returned from negotiations with Hitler in 1938 as an acclaimed peacemaker.

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The religious extremists that rule Iran today enjoyed significant popular support in 1979. Khomeini, Ahmadinejad, Khameini and other Iranian leaders enunciated two clear goals: (a) to bring about the return of the Twelfth Imam and (b) to wipe "Israel from the face of the earth."

Many years ago, Iran began a massive military buildup. Its most secretive program related to the production of nuclear weapons -- and attendant guided missile technologies. At the same time, Iran helped support terrorist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and Ansar al-Islam.

Today, members of Iranian society believe that they are ruled by the Middle East's equivalents of rednecks and hill-jacks. This year's deadly student protests in Iran prove that most citizens are simply not aligned with the Mullahs.

But the greatest check on serious measures against Iran are -- just as in the case of Nazi Germany -- eradicating the sober suspicion that the Mullahs "can't be serious."

Now, as in the case of the thirties, little time remains. Will the President have the wherewithal to truly isolate Iran if it defies basic international convention? That appears unlikely, based upon Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent actions and remarks. Somewhere, Neville Chamberlain is shaking his head.


Based upon: R. James Woolsey's Parallels Between Present-Day Iran and Nazi Germany