It is easy to forget how popular Neville Chamberlain was in the autumn of 1938. Proclaiming ‘peace in our time’ after signing the Munich Agreement, he was heralded as the deal-maker supreme. A leader who’d averted needless bloodshed and whose critics were merely warmongering naysayers. You don’t need me to tell you the rest of the story, but you might have thought its lessons wouldn’t be so easily forgotten.
Today it is Donald Trump casting himself as the bringer of peace to continental Europe. Posting on his Truth Social platform, the president said he’d spoken with Vladimir Putin, and that they two men had ‘agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately’ over ending the war in Ukraine. He continued ‘It is time to stop this ridiculous War, where there has been massive, and totally, unnecessary, DEATH and DESTRUCTION.’
Trump is not wrong that the death toll, on both sides, has been horrific.
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