[This commentary was published in the 10mar26 edition of The Union.]
George Rebane
Our worthy warriors of the Left continue to bombard us with various messages assembled under the theme of America, the evil racially-drenched imperialist warmonger that seeks to beggar the world to the benefit of its capitalist overlords. Today TDS is their most effective weapon in the public arena where ideologies contend. Most recently many of our prominent local leftists – e.g. Daryl Grigsby, Richard Howell, et al – have issued challenges to continue opposing the Trump administration and to gather us in the streets to show our displeasure. Given his intellectual bent, Mr Grigsby has composed a distinctly historically one-sided missive – ‘When will we wake up?’ (7mar26) – intended to convince readers of the wrong-headed evil currently perpetrated by our administration in Iran, Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba, … .
Grigsby’s argument hews to the Democratic Party line that totally omits the historical foundations of America’s foreign policy and its implementation since WW2. The better-read student is aware of The Long Telegram, an 8,000-word cable, sent on 22 February 1946 by George F. Kennan, the American chargé d’affaires in Moscow. It is widely considered one of the most influential documents in American diplomatic history, as it provided the intellectual foundation for the U.S. Cold War policy of containment.
Kennan’s analysis was divided into five parts, covering international communism’s (a la USSR) worldview, its historical roots, and subsequent recommendations for U.S. policy.
- Inherent Hostility: Kennan argued that the Soviet leadership viewed the world as divided into “capitalist” and “socialist” camps that could never peacefully coexist.
- Insecurity and Neurosis: He asserted that Soviet aggression was not based on objective reality but on a “traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity” and a need for an external enemy to justify internal autocratic rule.
- Expansionist Nature: The Soviet regime was “inherently expansionist” and would relentlessly seek to spread its influence wherever it encountered “diseased tissue” or weakness in the West.
- Logic of Force: Kennan noted that the Soviet Union, unlike Nazi Germany, was “highly sensitive to the logic of force” and would withdraw if it encountered sufficient resistance.
- Containment Policy: The telegram argued that the U.S. should pursue a “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies”.
Kennan’s bottom line was that until communism (now abetted by Islam) changed its raison d’etre, the US, as the only viable opposing hegemon, should be prepared to fight small wars in perpetuity against communism where and whenever it rose to challenge the west. As is evident, we have pursued that world order with various levels of success. To wit, our 1950 entry into the Korean War to oppose the communist north’s invasion of the south, and the CIA’s subversion of Iran’s democratically elected Mossadegh who used the communist Tudeh Party as his “foot soldiers”.
And today the beat goes on with conflicts in Ukraine, Mid-east, Iran, and preparations for the promised invasion of Taiwan. Within this background our domestic Left successfully refocuses America’s attention on the bombastic and auto-promoting nature of our fearless leader, President Trump. Despite his many domestic and foreign policy successes, with more to come, Mr Trump is not a naturally lovable character. Instead, he’s the champion of how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, providing the leftwing media a constant flow of ample material that distracts main street from learning of or understanding his abundant successes.
In sum, today’s Iran conflict is not a “forever war” as its critics describe it. It is just the latest effort by the US to push back the most current attack on western culture, and the forms of beneficent governance and economies it has promoted in the world. There is no mistaking that America intends to maintain its position as the free-world’s hegemon, and to do that with a strong leader like Trump through policies and uses of force that satisfy ‘America first’ interests. The sad conflict we have internally is that today half of us no longer share these sentiments – according to a recent Gallup poll, two of three Democrats view socialism more favorably than capitalism – and are actively working for the best interests of our declared enemies.
rebanesruminations.com 
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