FOR how much longer will the Europeans seek to appease the Iranian regime? Appeasement is the act of pacifying or placating someone by acceding to their demands. Notoriously in 1938 the French and British governments appeased Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler, allowing him to seize first part and then all of Czechoslovakia. Then British premier Neville Chamberlain spoke of the German’s demands on the Czechs as “a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing”.

Iran is not a far away country of which Europeans know nothing. Rather the opposite. Since the overthrow of the Shah 40 years ago, the ruling ayatollahs have made no secret of their determination to throw over the principles that govern international relations. The ordinary supporters of a revolution that began in hope, quickly learned to despair. They had launched a regime that brooked no opposition at home while doing all within its power to generally stir up dissension and conflict around the world and among its neighbors in particular.

The rulers in Tehran have played the huckster trick of all regimes struggling and failing to cope with their domestic agendas; they have tried to focus the concerns of their people on alleged outside enemies. This way they can legitimize their vast overseas expenditure on military and financial aid to states no less repressive and dictatorial than their own. The Assad dictatorship in Syria is the prime example of the malign maneuverings of the ayatollahs, eager to claim they are protecting the interests and security of ordinary Iranians. Likewise the sponsoring, funding and arming of Houthi rebels in Yemen, a grievous and deadly interference in a country that has never threatened the people of Iran.

Now of course, in the name of protecting their citizens, the ayatollahs are taking their country down the deadly path of nuclear armament. Obama’s Geneva accord was a colossal betrayal, not simply of good sense, but of Washington allies in the Middle East. The Tehran regime had already demonstrated that it was no more to be trusted than Hitler and his expansionist Nazi Germany with its insane plans for world domination. Yet Obama, in concert with the Europeans, encouraged by a cynical Moscow and Beijing, sold the pass. Washington cut a deal that was no deal at all and with egregious stupidity overlooked the rampant and destructive regional interference of Tehran.

It was a given that at the earliest opportunity, the ayatollahs would welch on the agreement. President Trump was right to scrap American participation and reimpose sanctions. The European states were entirely wrong in refusing to go along with his resolute course of action.

Iran is now injecting gas into the centrifuges at its secret underground facility the Ferdow, the next stage in obtaining weapons grade uranium. Yet still the Europeans, lead by France’s Emmanuel Macron, are trying to appease Tehran and the regime is laughing in his face. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that Macron is either “naïve” or an American “accomplice” in his appeasement efforts. Hitler never went so far as to say insultingly and publicly that Chamberlain was “naïve” over Czechoslovakia. But had he done so, like Khamenei this week, he would have been completely right. Macron and his European allies have been well and truly suckered by Tehran.