“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”

First originating with Oliver Cromwell in 1653, these words most famously today are tied to a 1940 debate in the British Parliament on the policies of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

Two years earlier, in September of 1938, Chamberlain had negotiated what he called a “peace for our time” agreement with Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany.  The agreement provided Hitler the right to annex the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia, which had a heavy German population. Also in on the negotiation was Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Chamberlain was convinced he had put an end to Hitler’s relentless appetite for conquering parts of Europe.

When Chamberlain flew back to London, he stepped off his plane and spoke to the waiting press, holding aloft the fluttering piece of paper on which the agreement was written, boasting that it bore the signature of “Herr Hitler.”

Later he went on to boast that he had brought “peace for our time.”

A mere one year later, in September of 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. By May 10, 1940, he was invading Holland, Belgium, and France. Eventually he invaded Russia. It was on that day in May of 1940 that reality finally dawned on the Parliament, and Chamberlain was out, replaced by longtime Chamberlain critic and first lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill.

All of this has emerged as the classic example of appeasement in world history, an eternal example of a feckless head of government whose policies lead straight to disaster.

The look back is more than relevant right now as the world under Joe Biden’s absolutely feckless leadership is literally exploding into war.

Beginning with the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which signaled the presence in the White House of a not-very-bright president, the Biden administration has proven to be an invite for bad actors on the international scene to strut their stuff.

Whether it is Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine or Hamas unleashing war on Israel, without doubt none of this would have happened in a Trump presidency. Foreign leaders may or may not have liked Donald Trump, but they damn well respected him. And they respected him to the point of being scared of him if they did anything to antagonize him. With reason.

Here’s but one headline, this one from the BBC in January of 2020:

Qasem Soleimani: US kills top Iranian general in Baghdad air strike 

The story starts this way:

Iran’s most powerful military commander, Gen Qasem Soleimani, has been killed by a US air strike in Iraq.

The 62-year-old spearheaded Iranian military operations in the Middle East as head of Iran’s elite Quds Force.

He was killed at Baghdad airport, along with other Iran-backed militia figures, early on Friday in a strike ordered by US President Donald Trump.

Mr Trump said the general was “directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions of people.”

To say the least, the message from Donald Trump was received. There was no invasion of Ukraine and no Hamas attack on Israel. On the contrary, in the latter case of Israel, Trump negotiated the Abraham Accords, which produced bilateral agreements normalizing Arab-Israeli relations with the Arab states of Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates. That is to say, Trump produced peace.

Recall as well back in 1981 when the air traffic controllers threatened to go on strike. As federal employees they were forbidden to strike. President Ronald Reagan told them quite publicly that if they went on strike, he would fire them. They — and most of Washington — didn’t believe him, and out they went.

And to their astonishment, Reagan was true to his word and fired them on the spot.

Not realized at the time was that perhaps most astonished were the Russians over there in the Communist Soviet Union. As was later revealed, they quickly understood that Reagan was as good as his word, which made them more than willing to negotiate with Reagan because they knew the man who called them “the Evil Empire” and more meant what he said. The result was a real peace — and eventually the collapse — peacefully — of the Soviet Union.

The hard fact today is that the world does not see Joe Biden this way. He is no Trump or Reagan. They clearly see him as feckless, weak, and, no small thing, close to senile.

The result is war in Ukraine or war in Israel — because those who initiate these wars think Biden is too weak, incompetent, and unable to do anything about it.

It is an old lesson that we are seeing play out. Reminiscent exactly of Neville Chamberlain producing his fluttering paper with Hitler’s signature and Chamberlain assuring all that he had brought “peace in our time.”

To say the least, Chamberlain had not brought peace. He brought World War II.

And as the events of this October have vividly shown, war can, in fact, arrive on the world’s doorstep again. In a blink.

Which tells Americans that when November of 2024 finally arrives and they go to the polls, they should look to the White House and say to President Joe Biden just as a British Parliament member said to Neville Chamberlain in 1940:

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”