Last week, polymath Mike Benz described a decisive moment early in the Cold War when the fledgling CIA covertly intervened to ensure the election of a pro-Western government in Italy. The rest is history.

By preventing Communists from using ballots rather than bullets to take over a key Western European nation, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s bid to conquer the entire continent was confined to the enslavement of just its eastern half. 

Unfortunately, in the election this week in South Korea, it has been the Chinese Communist Party assiduously intervening, using democracy to destroy it in South Korea. While the final results are not yet in hand, the absence of countervailing efforts by the United States, let alone the decisive ones we mounted in Italy nearly 80 years ago, may thrust a key ally behind an ominous CCP Iron Curtain in Asia.

This is Frank Gaffney.