As the present leaders of the free world, particularly those from the English-speaking countries, contemplate the undisguised threat of Iran acquiring nuclear capability, they might well ponder that moment in recent history when another such group of leaders failed to do their duty.
It was 70 years ago this spring—in March 1936—when Adolf Hitler sent his military into the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland in defiance of France, Britain and the League of Nations.
The German dictator deliberately set out to test the resoluteness of his main adversaries, and found it lacking.
The Rubicon was crossed, and war that engulfed Europe and the world 42 months later became unavoidable.
But could Hitler have been stopped in 1936?
He had spelled out his policies in Mein Kampf that could be achieved to his satisfaction only by war. He had warned the world, but those who needed to be prudent paid no heed to him.
Yet Hitler could have been stopped in 1936 if France, acting in conceert with Britain, had taken forceful military action as the occasion demanded. Such a counter-move might well have unleashed a chain of events within Germany that would have put the Nazi regime at risk.
Hitler reminisced: “If the French had marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs, for the military resources at our disposal would have been wholly inadequate for even a moderate resistance.”
What could have been the result of France’s response to Hitler in the spring of 1936?
Here is Hitler’s answer: “A retreat on our part would have spelled collapse…. The 48 hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve wracking in my life.”
Hitler’s private conversations were recorded by Paul Schmidt, a translator in the German Foreign Ministry, and published after the war; the English edition was made available in 1951 under the title Hitler’s Interpreter.
General Alfred Jodl, one of Hitler’s principal military advisers in the German High Command, confessed during the Nuremberg trials: “Considering the situation we were in, the French covering army could have blown us to pieces.”
The lesson from 70 years ago is obvious.
Democracies stalemate themselves by ceaseless self-doubt—when resolute pre-emption is what is required to checkmate dictators and madmen—only to pay later steeper price in tears and blood for what could well have been averted.
President Ahmadinejad of Iran speaks as did Hitler. He has repeatedly declared Iran’s determination to acquire nuclear weapons, to defy the United Nations and its agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and to wipe Israel “off the map.”
The language emanating recently out of Tehran has been chilling. But it is not new, and no one can plead Iran has not forewarned of its intentions to reorder the balance of power to its advantage in the Middle East.
In 1936 a counter-move by France and Britain in the Rhineland to check Hitler’s ambitions designed to bring regime change in Germany—as was done in Iraq in the spring of 2003—would have saved Europe from being turned into a charred continent. Can this be doubted?
The time for negotiation with Iranian leaders might be over.
What remains uncertain is whether Iran has crossed its Rubicon.
This will only be known in retrospect if the free world fails to do its duty and allows Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Islamic Pluralism based in Washington, D.C., a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and an academic-consultant with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He has been a consultant with CIDA on development issues and has published widely in academic journals on foreign policy matters and area studies of the Middle East and South Asia.
Mansur is featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He also unsuccessfully ran for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.
Mansur has been accused by Canadian Islamic Congress of using "provocative, self-serving rhetoric", and for "promoting an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim agenda".
He is an Ismaili Muslim.
At a press conference on October 2, 2008, Mansur stated that "Islam is my private life, my conscience...[but] my faith does not take precedence over my duties...to Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely;" "I am first and most importantly a Canadian;" "only in a free society will you find Islam as a faith and not a political religion." Mansur also criticized New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton, whom Mansur said "has gone to bed with Islamists", because he is running candidates in Ontario and Quebec who are closely identified with the push for Sharia law.
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