Chamberlain's appeasement is certainly not the model I am presenting.
I was referring to Iran, specifically. The current administration, and the greater Mullah network that has run the country for 30 years is not representative of the greater Iranian people. I know a few, they're good people. They say "I love my country, but those stupid fucking politicians have fucked it up", to which I reply that there "seems to be a lot of that going around, lately."
The Iranian people have been hijacked by ideologues, but there is nowhere near the entrenchment or general acceptance of the situation as there was in Nazi Germany.
Their economy is crap, heroin and prostitution are rampant, and their state owned oil company is hemorrhaging money through corruption and sloth.
They're up against it. Ahmadenijad and his gang are pretenders, looking to save the face of their ass-backward regime by presenting themselves as the stalwarts of Shiite Islam, and more specifically the "protector" of that Islam against the West and the duplicitous (their perspective) Sauds. The current Iraq incursion afforded them a great chance to get their cracks at the U.S., and they rationalize this hatred as payback for American meddling involving the Shah and his hated Savak security goons. This cannot be overlooked as an avenue for the U.S. to make amends to the greater population.
Their nuclear ambitions are a last resort. They get good press thumbing their noses at the West, pumping up nationalist pride with defiance and the always fashionable tossing of Israel under the bus.
The nuclear matter is overblown, for once a nation joins the club they fall under the nuclear gun sights of every other armed nation. Frankly, the U.S. may find solace in a nuclear arms race of the Middle East, because their hatred for the West is exceeded only by that of the Sunnis, Israelis, Kurds, Hindus, Buddhists, shellfish, swine, Elvis, their own brothers in law, the girlfriend who hated their mom's hummus, etc. That's beyond the point.
Iran is where it's at. Iran has it's hand and money in any and every dirty deed against anyone who is not a Shiite or loyal to their ideals. Iran is the axis of evil, but the government is faltering, weak, and ready to tumble by the hands of it's own people. This is where I see our opportunity to make hay without sending in the troops, we could kill them with kindness.