I think the monumental statue of St. Vladimir will be formally unveiled near the Kremlin soon, and Donald Trump will be there for the occasion. Vladimir the Great founded Russia, and converted it to Orthodox Christianity a thousand years ago. The statue will depict him as a religious figure, thrusting a giant cross aloft in his right hand. Putin will be there to honor his namesake, and possible forebear, and Trump will be an honored guest. They’ll emerge from their private consultations with a simple message. We understand one another, and we can do business. Russia and America will try to work together to solve the problem of Islamic terror, and, when practicable, cooperate around the globe. There may be some sort of statement about the ridiculousness of Russia and America ever unleashing nuclear terror against one another. An entente cordiale in the making. Assuming Trump gets elected.
We’ve forgiven the Japanese and the Germans, and count them among our closest friends. If the Japanese can be forgiven their racist imperialism, and the Germans their foul Nazism, can we forgive the Russians, a quarter century later, for being Communists?
When he met Mao tse Tung in 1972, Richard Nixon said, “What is important is not a nation’s internal political philosophy. What is important is its policy toward the rest of the world, and to us.” This is realpolitik, the flip side of Wilsonian idealism and interventionism. It is, I believe, Trump’s philosophy of foreign affairs, as it is mine. This is the kind of thinking that you can afford when you’re on a continental island, thousands of sea miles from any potential enemy. We don’t need to get into anybody else’s business. You don’t run my country, and I won’t try to run yours. I’ll mind my business and you mind yours.
Putin wants Trump to win, and then enter into a new era of Russian-American relations, one based on comity and respect for one anther’s interests. Can you blame him? In his shoes, wouldn’t you do the same?
The fear is that Putin will get a lot from us, and we get nothing from him. What we could get is a unified front in the Middle East, with an ironclad commitment to the security of Israel as part of the deal. We could even get a role as an arbiter in disputes between Russia and its westernizing neighbors in the Baltic and the Ukraine. I don’t know if it’s possible for the U.S. and Russia to cooperate on oil exports, but it’s worth thinking about. There are a lot of possibilities, and I suppose Trump could be taken for a ride. But I doubt it. I just hope he doesn’t get a deal for a Moscow casino out of it.
Everybody’s pissed off at Edrogan in Turkey. He’s taking Turkey into sharia, and it’s sad to watch, but that’s what the Turkish people seem to want, and we can’t stop them. So you learn to live with the guy. We’re not going to be part of any effort to take him out, so we’ll just keep our noses out of there. What’s his policy towards the rest of the world, and to us?
We had a guy a little like Edrogan in charge of Iran, the Shah. But he violated the human rights of people like the Ayotollah Khomeini, so Jimmy Carter ditched him, and the country was given over to Moslem fanatics. All in the name of human rights. Saddam Hussein was a genocidal maniac, so we got rid of him, at great cost, and there’s been hell to pay ever since. All for human rights.
The great crusade of my youth, the Vietnam War, was a case of Wilsonian idealism run amok, combined with the venality and cowardice of Lyndon Johnson. All for a good cause, and all for naught.
I think my piece on the Entente will be up at American Thinker tomorrow. All you can do is run it up the flag pole, and see if anybody salutes. I remember back in college at Cal, with all the protesters yelling, “Hell no, we won’t go.” I thought they were cowards. Maybe I was wrong.
reaganproject.com 