Maduro’s arrival is the first domino to fall — as – Latest News
Think of it as the domino concept in reverse.
The initial Cold War model featured the American worry that if a nation fell below communist control, its neighbor is also swallowed up.
In the present swirl of occasions, the concept envisions a related sample — however this time it’s freedom that is being unfold, making for more optimistic outcomes.
Case in level, what began in Venezuela won’t stop there.
Just as the Trump administration supplied indicted drug trafficker Nicolás Maduro a free trip to New York he couldn’t refuse, stories are rising that one other despot below American strain is packing his baggage for a one-way highway journey.
As vital and dramatic as the Maduro exit from Caracas was, an even greater geopolitical bombshell is on standby in Tehran.
More From Michael Goodwin
Eye on secure haven
Iran’s beleaguered Supreme Leader reportedly has turned bitter on his prospects of staying alive there, and is eyeing secure haven in Russia.
That’s the gist of an account in the Times of London, which cites an intelligence source as saying Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is prepared to flee if his security forces start to desert or can’t suppress growing civilian protests.
Khamenei, 86, supposedly plans to hit the airport and flee with up to 20 close aides and members of the family.
None of this surprises the Trump White House, which is utilizing the snatching of Maduro to strain Khamenei to hit the highway earlier than the American army makes the alternative for him.
The Jerusalem Post stories that on Sunday, after the Maduro caper, the Farsi account of the State Department printed a image of Trump and the message: “President Trump is a man of action. If you didn’t know, now you know.”
Meanwhile, Trump informed reporters that very same day on Air Force One that if the Iranians kill protesters “as they have done in the past, they will be hit hard by the United States.”
All of which represents a clear incentive for Khamenei to flee to Russia, the place he may save his life and pal round not solely with Vladimir Putin and his cruel band, but in addition with Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian butcher whose regime fell in late 2024.
The Assad clan and Iran have been longtime companions in homicide and sabotage towards Israel, however have been practically as savage towards Syrian rivals, with the Iranians supplying money and troops.
Assad’s collapse was a main setback to the Iranian purpose of regional dominance and placing armed strain on Israel from all sides.
When Assad misplaced his grip, the ayatollah withdrew his Hezbollah brigades, which had concerned as many as 9,000 fighters.
As Assad sat remoted in his palace and had no place to run, Putin granted the butcher and his household asylum.
They fled to Moscow, and are stated to reside in luxurious — and strict isolation.
No doubt Assad and the ayatollah would have a lot to speak about whereas they depend their pilfered fortunes and lament the passing of the good outdated days once they have been masters of their sick and bloody universe.
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‘Soleimani’ anniversary
Writing in The Post, Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state in his first time period, presents a a lot more upbeat perspective.
He notes that the army’s grab-and-go Maduro mission got here “exactly six years to the day after we took out Iranian Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani.”
Soleimani was the architect and chief of Iranian militia forces in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere, and performed a main position in killing and maiming American troopers in Iraq, particularly with the use
of IEDs.
Trump gave the order to have him droned on Jan. 3, 2020, at Baghdad airport.
Ever since, Iran has tried to assassinate Trump, Pompeo, John Bolton and others who served below Trump at the time.
It’s additionally planted Hezbollah varieties in Caracas, together with Cuban mercenaries.
In his essay, Pompeo notes that each the Soleimani and Maduro operations neutralized main threats to the US.
He calls Maduro “a narco terrorist” and a fugitive who stole two elections.
Removing him, Pompeo writes, “will get Venezuelan drugs off American streets, create the conditions for a safer, more prosperous Western Hemisphere, and advance core American interests.”
All true, and he provides that the disintegration of the two regimes “is a welcome development not just for the Venezuelan and Iranian people, but for America and the entire world.”
That’s the huge image, and he convincingly argues that “if we get this right, we have the potential to initiate a truly historic moment of positive change in our world.”
His view retains religion with those that nonetheless consider in American exceptionalism and see our nation as “the shining city upon a hill,” as Ronald Reagan put it in his farewell deal with to the nation in 1989.
Unfortunately, that perspective is not to be discovered on the American left.
Instead, there is solely widespread condemnation of the takeout of Soleimani and the seize of Maduro, as if each males have been good-hearted freedom-fighters unfairly handled by Trump bullies and fascists.
Sickening view
Such response is in keeping with the sickening view that Trump and America, and never terrorists and brutal dictators, are the largest issues in the world.
Those who see it that manner are silly and ignorant, of course, and thanks to our freedoms are free to go away.
But as long as they’re right here, they need to have the decency to strive to perceive why so many people from round the world risk the whole lot they’ve to come right here.
Indeed, in case you hate America and all it stands for, as a lot of the left does, you have a tendency to see immigrants as victims of Western imperialism.
Yet once they get right here, even illegally, you incoherently demand they be handled as invited friends and given a welcome wagon full of handouts from taxpayers.
The New York Times, which too usually celebrates hate-America tradition, has quickly damaged the mould of its own biased reporting.
In an article about how Venezuelans listed here are reacting to the Maduro arrest, it famous that many who got here to New York illegally during Joe Biden’s open-border catastrophe are nonetheless dwelling at taxpayer expense in public shelters and inns.
Additionally, reporters Ana Ley and Stefano Montali included this paragraph of their Tuesday story.
They quoted a lady who is right here legally as saying that though they got here right here to flee political oppression at home and are delighted to see Maduro below arrest and out of energy, “many Venezuelans in liberal New York have been afraid to celebrate publicly or share candid opinions for
fear of being cast as Trump supporters.”
Imagine that.
You are pressured to flee your home, the place most elections are rigged, solely to discover that many New Yorkers so hate their freely elected president that you’ve to worry being seen as a Trump supporter.
The anti-Trump bigotry in New York helps clarify how it is that grateful immigrants, such as some of these Venezuelans, will change into higher Americans than some native-born residents.
