Michael Brandon McClellan fears we may be facing Our Rhineland Moment:
There are indeed many similarities between the sad plight of France during the Rhineland crisis and the ominous situation facing the United States in regard to preventing a nuclear Iran today. Similar to the Germans occupying the German Rhineland, the Iranians are violating international mandates, but they are doing so within their own territory. While in 1936 many did not consider the German actions to be aggression, asking “how can a nation illegally occupy its own territory”, so too do many today question the right of the US to militarily invade to prevent a nuclear Iran.Also like the Rhineland occupation, a nuclear-armed Iran would substantially alter an already precarious strategic paradigm. Nukes in the hands of Ahmadinejad and the mullahs would run the risk of undermining nearly every major American foreign policy goal in the Middle East — be it stabilizing and democratizing Iraq, rolling back the tide of Jihadist terrorism, or securing global energy resources. Just as the mandated demilitarization of the Rhineland was strategically well founded, so too are there sound reasons why the international community has forbidden the development of Iranian nuclear weapons.