Roger Gale MP: Appeasement only emboldens Iran

Roger Gale is Conservative MP for North Thanet.

US President George W Bush has condemned critics of the US administration who advocate direct talks with Tehran, stating that such a policy was equivalent to the ‘appeasement’ of Adolf Hitler before the Second World War.

'As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history,' Bush said in his address to Israel’s Parliament.

Bush’s statements could easily describe the policy adopted by the European Union throughout recent years.

The EU has for many years adopted a policy of appeasement towards Iran, most significantly through 'incentives packages' as well as through continuous 'negotiations' over Iran’s nuclear program. This approach has taken many forms, but ultimately the policy has failed in its objectives.