I’m going to make a point about Senator Charles Schumer and the Iran deal, but, to do so, I’m going to quote a fair chunk of the piece I wrote about Robert Conquest in 2002. (We republished it a few days ago, when the great man passed on.) What I have to say in the Conquest piece is a bit of a stretch to Schu — but bear with me, if you would:

Currently, Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens both have books out. Who are they? They’re two of the jazziest British writers of their generation, and they’re great friends of each other, as well as great rivals. Amis’s book is called Koba the Dread: It’s about Stalin (Koba was a nickname) and the failure of Western intellectuals to come to grips with Communism. It also touches on several personal matters. Amis addresses Hitchens directly in the book: “Comrade Hitchens!”
The latter’s book is on Orwell: Why Orwell Matters. Part of Hitchens’s project is to claim the great man for the Left, or for some sort of Left, in any case.
Other than being popular, probing, and stylish, these books have one thing in common: They’re dedicated to Robert Conquest. . . .
Martin Amis begins Koba the Dread by quoting from Conquest’s 1986 book The Harvest of Sorrow, which documents the Soviets’ terror-famine in the Ukraine. As he comments on Conquest’s findings, Amis is in a kind of shocked awe. He is also gloriously, almost sputteringly, indignant, wondering how the Communists got away with it. Later in the book — taking up an old theme — Amis writes, “Everybody knows of the 6 million of the Holocaust. Nobody knows of the 6 million of the Terror-Famine” (get those capital letters).
. . . Amis seems to have come rather late to a realization of the horrors of Communism, and of the horrible Western tolerance of it, even celebration of it. This has caused some veteran anti-Communists to guffaw. But a writer of Martin Amis’s skill and influence should be welcomed into this company, rather than scorned. He might be thanked for joining. A great many people in the Free West were raised on lies, or half-truths, or apologias — and when they encountered Conquest or Solzhenitsyn or somebody else, they saw.

Now, the connection between Martin Amis and Chuck Schumer is tenuous. Schu has always been relatively sound on foreign policy and national security. But consider: There has been a great deal of churlishness on the right over Schumer’s decision to come out against the Iran deal. (First of all, everyone said he wouldn’t. Maybe these confident predictors are a little miffed.) The decision has cost Schu something. The White House is furious, and has the daggers out for him. Democratic political groups are furious, vowing revenge. Some say that Schumer’s succession to the job of Democratic leader in the Senate is in jeopardy.

I think that when someone like Schumer declares for your side — particularly when he incurs a political risk — what you really say is something like, Thank you.

Iran is an extremely important issue. We need all the help we can get. One who recognized the need for help, wherever it came from, was Ronald Reagan. Another was Bill Buckley. They made common cause whenever they could, for the advancement or protection of man.

I’ll say again what I said a couple of days ago: Nice goin’, Schu. Hats off.

P.S. Congressman Eliot Engel, another New York Democrat, is the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He, too, has come out against the Iran deal. He has always been sensible on foreign policy — a defender of American interests, a foe of tyranny, an advocate of human rights. I’ve written about him a couple of times. He once told me that his party had a “blind spot” on Cuba. I thought that was well put. (Barack Obama, I’m afraid, has his eyes wide open. I believe he admires the Castros, to a degree — as men on what he could call “the right side of history.”)

P.P.S. Several years ago, I wrote an essay on the speciousness of that phrase, “the right side of history” — here.