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Think of it as the domino theory in reverse.
The initial Cold War version featured the American fear that if a country fell under communist control, its neighbor could also be swallowed up.
In the current swirl of events, the theory envisions a similar pattern — but this time it’s freedom that is being spread, making for more positive outcomes.
Case in point, what started in Venezuela might not stop there.
Just as the Trump administration offered indicted drug trafficker Nicolás Maduro a free ride to New York he couldn’t refuse, reports are emerging that another despot under American pressure is packing his bags for a one-way road trip.
As significant and dramatic as the Maduro exit from Caracas was, an even bigger geopolitical bombshell is on standby in Tehran.
Eye on safe haven
Iran’s beleaguered Supreme Leader reportedly has turned sour on his prospects of staying alive there, and is eyeing safe 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 ready to flee if his security forces begin 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 family members.
None of this surprises the Trump White House, which is using the snatching of Maduro to pressure Khamenei to hit the road before the American military makes the choice for him.
The Jerusalem Post reports that on Sunday, after the Maduro caper, the Farsi account of the State Department published a picture of Trump and the message: “President Trump is a man of action. If you didn’t know, now you know.”
Meanwhile, Trump told reporters that 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, where he could save his life and pal around not only with Vladimir Putin and his merciless band, but also with Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian butcher whose regime fell in late 2024.
The Assad clan and Iran were longtime partners in murder and sabotage against Israel, but were nearly as savage against Syrian rivals, with the Iranians supplying cash and troops.
Assad’s collapse was a major setback to the Iranian aim of regional dominance and putting armed pressure on Israel from all sides.
When Assad lost his grip, the ayatollah withdrew his Hezbollah brigades, which had involved as many as 9,000 fighters.
As Assad sat isolated in his palace and had no place to run, Putin granted the butcher and his family asylum.
They fled to Moscow, and are said to live in luxury — and strict isolation.
No doubt Assad and the ayatollah would have a lot to talk about while they count their pilfered fortunes and lament the passing of the good old days when they were masters of their sick and bloody universe.
‘Soleimani’ anniversary
Writing in The Post, Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state in his first term, offers a much more upbeat perspective.
He notes that the military’s grab-and-go Maduro mission came “exactly six years to the day after we took out Iranian Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani.”
Soleimani was the architect and leader of Iranian militia forces in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere, and played a major role in killing and maiming American soldiers in Iraq, especially 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 under Trump at the time.
It’s also planted Hezbollah types in Caracas, along with Cuban mercenaries.
In his essay, Pompeo notes that both the Soleimani and Maduro operations neutralized major 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 adds 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 big picture, 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 keeps faith with those who still believe in American exceptionalism and see our nation as “the shining city upon a hill,” as Ronald Reagan put it in his farewell address to the nation in 1989.
Unfortunately, that perspective is not to be found on the American left.
Instead, there is only widespread condemnation of the takeout of Soleimani and the capture of Maduro, as if both men were good-hearted freedom-fighters unfairly treated by Trump bullies and fascists.
Sickening view
Such reaction is consistent with the sickening view that Trump and America, and not terrorists and brutal dictators, are the biggest problems in the world.
Those who see it that way are foolish and ignorant, of course, and thanks to our freedoms are free to leave.
But as long as they are here, they should have the decency to try to understand why so many people from around the world risk everything they have to come here.
Indeed, if you hate America and all it stands for, as much of the left does, you tend to see immigrants as victims of Western imperialism.
Yet when they get here, even illegally, you incoherently demand they be treated as invited guests and given a welcome wagon full of handouts from taxpayers.
The New York Times, which too often celebrates hate-America culture, has temporarily broken the mold of its own biased reporting.
In an article about how Venezuelans here are reacting to the Maduro arrest, it noted that many who came to New York illegally during Joe Biden’s open-border disaster are still living at taxpayer expense in public shelters and hotels.
Additionally, reporters Ana Ley and Stefano Montali included this paragraph in their Tuesday story.
They quoted a woman who is here legally as saying that although they came here to flee political oppression at home and are delighted to see Maduro under arrest and out of power, “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 forced to flee your home, where most elections are rigged, only to find that many New Yorkers so hate their freely elected president that you have to fear being seen as a Trump supporter.
The anti-Trump bigotry in New York helps explain how it is that grateful immigrants, such as some of those Venezuelans, will become better Americans than some native-born citizens.