Newsletter: Opinion: Iran as Munich in 1938, North Korea in 1994

Good morning. I'm Paul Thornton, The Times' letters editor, and it is Saturday, July 25, 2015, exactly half a century after Bob Dylan went electric. Here's a look back at the week in Opinion.

Munich, North Korea, Nazis, Communists, Chamberlain, Hitler, etc.: Hear these villainous buzz words thrown around, and you know a major international agreement meant to avert war has been struck. This week, two Op-Ed pieces filtered out the bombast over the recent nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers led by the United States and determined which historical comparisons were apt and which were silly.

First up were Samuel Kleiner and Tom Zoellner, who threw cold water on the overheated "Munich revisited" rhetoric coming from President Obama's critics, especially Republicans running to succeed him:

The reality is that Munich was an agreement rooted in Britain's weakness, and it bears little resemblance to the Iran nuclear deal. In 1938, Britain hadn't fully rearmed and did not have U.S. backing. Chamberlain had to bow to German military superiority without anything more than assurances in return.

That's a far cry from recent negotiations with Iran, in which Obama was driving the terms of the agreement with the massive firepower of the U.S. behind him. Economic sanctions had left the Iranians without much leverage. Plus, the deal is premised on verification as much as trust.

And yet phony Munich analogies refuse to die. The habitual Munichization of conservative foreign policy thinking long ago reached the point of self-parody, but it won't go away. "Munich" seems to touch a nerve in the limbic regions of the brain, an ancient if unrealistic and dangerous fear that a rival can never be pacified by anything other than immediate, total defeat.

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Next was Max Boot, who said you don't have to look back very far to compare Iran to another ill-fated nuclear deal:

In 1994, after threatening to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Pyongyang signed the Agreed Framework pledging to freeze the construction and operation of its plutonium reactors. In return, the United States agreed to provide North Korea with substantial aid, including fuel oil deliveries and help in constructing two light-water reactors that could be used for nuclear energy but not nuclear weapons. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, were supposed to monitor compliance.

The U.S. duly provided North Korea with $1.3 billion in food and energy assistance. In 2001, ground was broken on the first of the light-water reactors. Although it was not tied to the Agreed Framework, North Korea received even more largesse from South Korea, which, under its "sunshine policy," delivered $8 billion in economic assistance from 1996 to 2008.

We now know, however, that North Korea never had any intention of abiding by its commitments. Before and after signing the Agreed Framework, Pyongyang was secretly enriching uranium. In 2002, North Korean officials brazenly admitted as much to a visiting American delegation.

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In far more consequential news, Gawker outed a rival media company's chief accountant, and two top editors quit over it -- not because of concern about their news judgment, but in a principled stand supporting the editorial-business firewall they say was breached when the offending story was ordered removed from the site. Nevertheless, journalist Maria Bustillos says Gawker's fearlessness and unrepentant purveyance of gossip are essential. L.A. Times

Speaking of Gawker, the site posted a very not-very-Gawkeresque weather explainer about what happened in L.A. last weekend. Several of our readers also weighed in on El Niño, with reactions ranging from joy over the prospect of wet weather and mudslides to prescriptions for how Los Angeles can take advantage of the extra precipitation.

The biggest stone carving in the world isn't Mt. Rushmore; it's actually Stone Mountain in Georgia, which memorializes three Confederate figures who tried to destroy the country that the presidents on Rushmore led. The NAACP Atlanta chapter wants the carving sandblasted; Patt Morrison suggests either handing control of the monument to the NACCP or having a stonecutter alter the carvings to represent Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and Abraham Lincoln. L.A. Times

How beneficial are those annual mammograms? Not very, writes Dr. H. Gilbert Welch -- in fact, they may be bad for you. He writes: "If you haven't gotten this message already, you should heed it now: The benefits of screening for breast cancer are limited. We should be doing fewer screening mammograms, not more. The data that support this conclusion come from studying the effects of mammography across time and place." L.A. Times

Not so, says a breast cancer expert. In a letter to the editor, Dr. Sarah M. Friedewald of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago writes: "The truth is, mammography saves lives. In fact, the most lives are saved when women are screened every year beginning at age 40. There has been a 35% decrease in deaths in women who have been screened in the U.S. since the 1990s." L.A. Times

L.A. Controller Ron Galperin gets a B-, and grades for other elected leaders in City Hall and state government are forthcoming in the editorial board’s #GradeYourGov series. Responding to last week’s Opinion newsletter, which featured the editorial previewing our evaluation of government leaders, reader Albert Perdon encourages us to broaden our view and look outside the city's borders: 

There are 4 million residents in the city of Los Angeles, 10 million residents in the county of Los Angeles and more than 22 million residents in the region we call Southern California. The Los Angeles Times is more than The Times of the city of Los Angeles. It is The Times of Southern California.

I applaud you for bringing light to important issues that have, no doubt, been on the minds of millions of people throughout Southern California for many years. Please give voice to some of the "less important" local leaders who toil every day to lead the residents of the 18 million who are not L.A. residents but who nevertheless have significant influence in the many local communities that make up the region and the state. 

Local officials have more influence than many realize. They also have greater power to effect change than do regional and state representatives. Don't take them for granted.

Have feedback for us about this newsletter or something you'd like for us possibly run in the space? E-mail paul.thornton@latimes.com.