—and why American conservatives should, too.
Italy’s new conservative Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has much to teach American conservatives—especially so-called nationalist conservatives, who too often have been hostile or indifferent toward Ukraine.
Not Ms. Meloni. She is, reports the Wall Street Journal, “robustly pro-Ukraine.”
“We are fully committed to supporting Ukraine and condemning Russia,” said Raffaele Fitto, a senior member of the Brothers of Italy party, which leads a right-wing alliance that polls suggest could win around 60% of the seats in Parliament.
“Sanctions must be supported,” he said, “no ifs or buts.”
Western Civilization. Amen. Ukraine today is at the epicenter of the fight for Western Civilization; and Italy, of course, is one of the cradles of this civilizational inheritance. Our civilizational inheritance.
Indeed, the rule of law, the Judeo-Christian moral code, market-based commerce, and representative democracy all owe a debt of gratitude to the Romans who pioneered these concepts in the Italian peninsula and beyond in the millennium before Christ.
So it is perhaps not surprising that modern-day Italians are among the strongest supporters of Ukraine in its fight for independence against an alien and countervailing political tradition manifest in 21st Century Russia.
As Ms. Meloni explains:
We did not fight against and defeat Communism in order to replace it with a new international regime, but to permit independent nation-states once again to defend the freedom, identity, and sovereignty of their peoples.
Ms. Meloni’s remarks were not directed toward Ukraine specifically, but they apply there nonetheless. To translate:
the West did not defeat the Soviet Union in order to replace it with an imperial Russia that tramples upon the rights and liberties of free and sovereign nation-states like Ukraine.
America Conservatives. Yet a disconcerting number of American conservatives, especially so-called nationalist conservatives, are soft on Putin’s Russia and antagonistic toward Ukraine. Bizarrely and perversely, some so-called conservatives even hold up Putin as a sort of model leader. Why?
Part of this is simple ignorance and a lack of education. Generations of dismal public schooling have taken their toll. Consequently, too many Americans are ignorant of the origins of Western Civilization and the struggles of our ancestors as they attempted to form a more perfect union in these United States. Novus ordo seclorum.
This lack of historical understanding and appreciation is overlaid with an obsession over current events and the very recent past, which, together, distort our understanding and confuse matters.
Iraq and Afghanistan. For Americans, especially younger Americans, the very recent past is Iraq and Afghanistan. All conflict is viewed the prism of these two wars. And so, the fear all along has been that Ukraine might become yet another “endless war” that consumes our time and our resources at the expense of other, more pressing issues like China.
But of course, as we’ve noted, Ukraine is neither Iraq nor Afghanistan. It is a very different country in a very different time and place. And the war in Ukraine is orders of magnitude more important to the United States than the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan ever were.
A Taliban-run Afghanistan overrun with jihadists who seek to do us harm is a problem, to be sure. But terrorists in caves do not pose the same level of threat as a Russia, nuclear-armed and China-aligned, that is intent on expanding westward to gobble-up Eastern Europe.
The Italians, fortunately, are not burdened with the legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus they are able to see Ukraine for what it is: a war the West must win.
Grazie a Dio per l’Italia.
Feature photo credit: Italy’a new Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, courtesy of Wikipedia.