President Donald J. Trump was especially vocal last week about how other countries did not come to the assistance of the U.S. in his military pursuit of Iran. He is, of course, correct in expecting assistance since a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to anyone it took exception to, and we all know that Iran thinks it should rule the world.
Although very late to the nuclear group of nations, it would have been much quicker to press the nuclear button to get its way when pressed by other countries. And any country that would execute 30,000 of its own people, only because they were protesting, would have little compunction against wiping out other countries if they could. Every freedom-loving country should have joined Trump’s struggle.
Including Canada.
But this isn’t that story.
This story is that he wanted help, he asked for help, but didn’t get it.
And while I think he should have gotten help, I can’t help but be reminded of the time when the shoe was on the other foot, when Britain asked the United States for help, and an earlier president similarly said no. The Americans wouldn’t help Britain in the early years of World War II when Britain was standing up to Adolph Hitler. Winston Churchill came over to the US in May of 1940, almost on his knees, but it didn’t help.
You’ll recall that this was after World War II was underway, France had fallen to Hitler, and Britain found itself alone in the fight against one of the world’s most imperialistic terrors. The theory of appeasement that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had erroneously employed against Hitler hadn’t worked, just as it wouldn’t work now against Iran. Churchill wasn’t totally alone; he had some little countries like Canada, South Africa, Australia and India, spots on the globe that, for the most part, had never been in a war of any note before.
Chamberlain resigned, as he should have done earlier, and left it to Churchill to pick up the pieces, knowing full well that the world’s freedom lay in the balance.
Churchill knew that the little countries with him, while gallant in spirit, were not even close to being up to the task and so he went looking for help to the only place where he knew he could possibly get a winning difference. To the United States.
And the US showed him the door.
Until.
Yes, until Pearl Harbour.
Until Pearl Harbour, when 2400 United States Navy servicemen went to a watery grave with the Japanese bombing of the ships tied up in the Hawaiian port on December 7, 1941. Then, and only then, did the American interest in the war change, and they declared war on Germany and Japan on December 8, 1941.
So Trump is right, he asked for help and should have gotten it.
Just as Churchill asked for help and should have gotten it in 1940.
So Pearl Harbour, always looked upon by the US as a great military disaster, which it was, certainly did a great deal to bring about world peace in the decades after WWII, by forcing the US into it.
History may be repeating itself now. It may take something like Pearl Harbour to get the rest of the world off its duffs to help Trump when he needs it. And just like Churchill, almost alone, could see the danger in the last century, it may be that Trump, almost alone, can see the danger now.
It is not entirely correct to say that the US had not helped at all prior to its entry into the war late in ’39, because it had helped with supplying military munitions and advice. But compare that to what it did after it declared war; the previous help was rather small. When Japan poked the bear, it never knew what the result would be. And a lot of that, similar to today, had to do with the race for the atomic bomb, which the US won, although Germany and Japan were working on atomic bombs as well, exactly just as Iran has been doing now.
Iran is a very small country, but very large in its opinion of itself. But even with its small size, it is proving that a small country that has concentrated on building up its military arsenal can be a formidable foe.
Formidable may not be the right word since the Americans and Israelis have now largely reduced its capability to fight, but just imagine what it could do if it had nuclear weapons.
Small town newspapers should possibly mind their own business and deal only with issues that are taking place in their area. But World Wars I and II, and Korea, and the names on the cenotaphs in those towns, prove beyond any doubt that the effects of world affairs have a greater effect on life in those small towns than whether or not all the potholes are filled on every road in every town.
So Britain, France, Canada and all the rest of the countries that would feel it if Iran were allowed to have a nuclear bomb, should get on board and help Trump finish the job over there. They probably won’t, and Trump will probably do it by himself, and history will judge them all by the stands they took.
Just as we today judge Neville Chamberlain, the spineless appeaser, and Winston Churchill, the one who said, ‘never give up.’
Someday, maybe ten years, maybe fifty, Trump’s name may be on the same list.
Beside Churchill’s.
