I sometimes wonder if Greg Sheridan reads his own columns. In last Saturday’s Australian he has penned a jeremiad which predicts the imminent demise of France (as we know her) at the hands of leftist/Islamist extremists and their useful idiots, intimates a similar fate for the rest of the Western world, and yet laments the existence of the one man prepared to put up a fight:

‘while Rubio is a brave advocate, he works for a president, Donald Trump, who ought to be, like Ronald Reagan was, the civilisational champion, but who has just sold out Ukraine, pandered monstrously to Vladimir Putin, trashed Western alliances and acts with such self-serving greed, egomania and gross coarseness as to tarnish every cause he touches.’

I’ve got news for Sheridan. Times have changed since the golden days of Ronald Reagan. The march of the left has proceeded unchecked and with predictable results. And a series of US Presidents since Reagan have done nothing to push back the tide.

Trump has been prepared to take up the fight and for that we need a brawler, not a statesman. To begin with, he is prepared to spit on the United Nations and other sacred cows. Being a ‘civilisational champion’ – whatever that is – which is what got us into this mess in the first place, is not high on his agenda. Being a champion of Western civilisation is. And that doesn’t mean promoting it – telling us how good it is. It means defending it – and defending it by whatever means come to hand.

Marco Rubio is an estimable politician, and he would (maybe will) make an excellent President. But only because he has been hardened under Donald Trump’s tutelage and encouraged, by his example, to attempt the difficult and unpopular (that is unpopular with the media). And he will have the benefit of the groundwork Trump has already laid. Where do I start?

Setting aside the inexorable rise of a China seeking world hegemony, the biggest and most imminent threats we face are a) the rent-seeking, blood-sucking proponents of the climate change hoax, starting with the United Nations, who are destroying Western economies b) the rise and tacit acceptance of Islamic extremism, c) the undermining of Western values in our education systems, and d) unchecked mass migration.

On the domestic front, Trump’s achievements include getting out of Paris and deep-sixing the climate change boondoggle. Eliminating DEI from schools and government institutions (or at least making a start). Making women’s sport safe. Closing the border. Deporting illegals.  Reducing violent crime. Internally the USA is now a more robust nation. The last great hope of the Western world is a strong USA.

Over and above the domestic agenda, it is Trump who is leading the charge. Trump could have chosen the easy path and devoted his second term to domestic issues only. He could have kicked the can of intractable international issues (such as Iran) down the road, as all his predecessors did and not risk a lame duck second half of his last term. And he could have done this with impunity because that is what the world expected him to do. Remember Taco (Trump always chickens out)?

To my mind, Trump has a troubling tendency to accommodate Putin, possibly because he sees an independent Ukraine as a ‘nice to have’ rather than a vital Western interest – at least at this time while he’s got other fish to fry. He may see this as essentially a European issue and would probably rationalize his pragmatic approach on the basis that Ukraine was Russian for most of the past 300 years.

However, he has been steadfast in his support of Israel and in his determination to rid the world of the Iran terrorist regime with or without a nuclear weapon. Despite the political pain it is causing him at home and the reputational pain it is causing him abroad, Trump is doing the world a favour. The Iranian regime has been assaulting the West with impunity – causing innumerable deaths – for nearly 50 years. They are no less evil and dangerous than Hitler was. They deserve to be rubbed out on that basis alone. A nuclear-armed Iran is unthinkable, but only Trump was prepared to act decisively on that.

The damage he has already inflicted on Iran is worth the minuscule pain we in Australia, and the rest of the world, have endured over only six months. It took six years and many miscalculations to eliminate Hitler. And please keep in mind that, to secure that victory, Roosevelt and Churchill had to sup with the devil – you guessed it Communist Russia. Sheridan, and Trump’s other critics, were not around to see what our parents went through during the second world war, but a little introspection might serve them well here. We should not judge Trump on the missteps he may have made in his conduct of the war so far. Let’s judge him when the final siren blows. So far, the cost has been overwhelmingly economic. Very few US lives have been lost. If Trump prevails, the world will be an immensely safer place and we will all benefit.

And let’s not rush to condemn him for the lavish welcome he recently bestowed upon China’s President Xi. I doubt Xi interpreted this as a blank cheque. He would know that Trump is playing for time. And his willingness to stay the course in Iran should suggest to Xi that Trump is no pushover. He cannot fight on all fronts at once.

Trump is fighting, in his own pugnacious way, the fight that Sheridan tells us needs fighting. He deserves great credit for that. Not carping criticism for his mannerisms.