It won’t, but if anything should put paid forever to the tedious Trump-Russia collusion meme that dominates our media as nothing since Monica Lewinsky, it should be the billion-dollar arms deal just brokered by our president with Saudi Arabia.
Nothing could be worse for Russia. Indeed it’s disastrous for them, but you won’t hear word one to that effect from the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, etc. They have bet their diminishing houses that Trump or one or two of his people said something equivocal on a phone call to a Russky or got paid too much for a speech. In their unresolved anger cum geriatric liberal orthodoxy, they live in an alternative universe divorced from reality.
Why? It should be obvious but I’ll state it anyway. Not very long ago Ronald Reagan built up U.S. armaments not to go to war with the Soviet Union, but to bankrupt it out of existence. It worked. The same thing is going on here, as anyone with the proverbial pulse should notice. Selling three hundred and fifty billion in advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia is not just aimed at the obvious target — Iran. It is also aimed at Iran’s big brother Russia. And there is no way that relatively impoverished oligarchy can possibly keep up, not in the long run anyway. They don’t have the rubles.
Trump is an enemy of Russia in a way that Obama and Clinton never dreamed of being. He has also countered the Iran deal and its unconscionable financial bailout to the mullahs that has enabled them to support — via cash, arms or their own troops — Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, Assad, and who knows who else.
Nevertheless, much of the media was taking the opportunity to point out that Iran had just elected a “moderate” leader. Not surprisingly, they were willfully blind to the anti-democratic rules of Iranian elections — only those approved by the mullahs’ Assembly of Experts can run — and to the fact that the supposedly moderate Rouhani had jailed (and hanged) more political opponents than Ahmadinejad and has a worse human rights record than his hardline predecessor, according even to the UN.
But that’s our media — live by the meme, die by the meme. Or shall we say — the ends justify the meme?
Turning to the positive: Trump’s well-written and delivered speech in Riyadh was a truly stirring moment. Whether it was a turning point, no one knows, but it was the first serious attempt by a free-world leader to do something of this significance, gathering together Islamic world leaders to oppose Islamic terrorism. Obama, educated in his childhood as a Muslim, never tried anything remotely similar. It’s almost impossible to imagine Hillary Clinton having done it — and not just because she is a woman. It took someone as unlikely as Trump to pull it off.
Ironically, too, it may wake Putin up. He may be a thug, but he is a pragmatic thug. He placed his bets with Iran when he saw Obama — desperate for a deal — would not object. And when Obama backed down on his Syrian gassing “red line,” Vladimir doubled down. Now, as things have changed, he may change — if not immediately, in the near future. This is especially true if Trump’s initiative catches a modicum of fire. That is why we should all support it, including those like the folks at CNN and the NYT, even though it would make their heads explode. Complaints about the Iran Deal will also become less relevant as Iran, devoid of Russian backing, becomes weaker on the global stage, its nuclear aspirations countered by a far wealthier — and now better armed — Saudi Arabia.
One more thing, as they say. It would be interesting to know how Robert Mueller reacts to all this. Investigations like his exist in a context far greater than the pros and cons of James Comey or even the FBI. They have global ramifications with implications for generations to come. He should pay attention.
Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and co-founder of PJ Media. His latest book is I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already. Follow him on Twitter @rogerlsimon.
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