Chamberlain knew perfectly well that Europe was sliding into war; that Britain could not hope to stay out of it. And in his defence, he was buying time for the rearmament of Britain, when he cynically affixed his signature at Munich.

And Obama knows, if less perfectly than Chamberlain, that he has a problem negotiations can’t solve, only delay (at terrible cost over the longer term). But he is, nevertheless, trying to delay the fireworks until after his own November re-election.

So I don’t think the comparison to Chamberlain is quite fair. The British prime minister was consciously playing for higher stakes than his own political survival.