On Wednesday the Wall Street Journal carried a piece by one of my favorites, Holman Jenkins Jr (and isn't that a perfect name for a WSJ op-ed writer). The title was "Trump's Trumpy Ukraine Gambit". While rightfully excoriating the Biden Administration's incoherent and ineffectual approach to the Ukraine war, his focus is on the current president. Referencing Trump's calling Zelensky a "dictator" he writes:
Mr Trump's all-purpose strategy when frustrated is tit-for-tat. It fills his need to dominate the news constantly while he fumbles around for a laurel to award himself in place of the one that got away. . . . A Trump blather blaming Ukraine for not negotiating segued into something he clearly didn't mean, yet now his team must mumblingly agree Ukraine started the war.
And concludes:
So here we are. In most instances, Mr Trump flops around noisily (and offensively) and then lands on the path of least resistance. He wants a win and doesn't care how. The U.S. clearly has a lot of turmoil to go through before it surfaces a leadership cadre to handle the moment we're actually living in. But we still have to live in the moment and the best of realistic possible outcomes, perhaps surprisingly, remains on the cards in the next year or so: Turn a hot war into a cold one. Build up Ukraine's military to outwait the Putin regime on its path to atrophy and decay.
Since the Jenkins column we've now had further developments. On Thursday, while meeting with British Prime Minister Starmer, a reported asked Trump about the "dictator" remark. Trump's response; "Did I say that? I can't believe I said that. Next question."
And then we had today's debacle. Whether it was Zelensky's lack of self-control or bad advice (1), he made a fatal mistake in confronting the president. It is not a matter of who is right and who is wrong. You just do not try, particularly if you are in Zelensky's position, to argue with Donald Trump in public. I am not sure Zelensky's position is recoverable short of a groveling humiliating apology and even that may not work as, in the end, I believe Trump prefers a deal with Russia.
The proposed, and now dead, minerals deal with Ukraine did not contain an American security guarantee. I was okay with that from my perspective, but I think Trump's idea was to leave things open so if he got a better deal with Putin he would just walk away from any Ukraine deal. After all, it's just a piece of paper to him. We just saw the same thing in play regarding the 25% tariffs being imposed on Mexico and Canada. Trump loudly complained about those who entered into the stupid trade deals we now have. Well the last person to enter into one of those "stupid" deals was Donald Trump in 2019. He demanded that NAFTA be revised with terms more favorable to the U.S. and Canada and Mexico ultimately agreed. Now he denounces his own agreement. His word cannot be relied upon and other foreign leaders will take note.
Given Trump's reckless and contradictory statements it is often difficult to figure out what he really believes and what his ultimate goals are. Are tariffs "wonderful" and a mechanism to balance the budget and eliminate the personal income tax or are they bargaining chips to get better trade deals? I have no idea and it may be that Trump doesn't either.
Trump talks about annexing Canada, or part of it, and imposing tariffs while at the same time demanding it restart its part of the Keystone Pipeline, even as he denounces Canada for stealing in its trade relations, and claiming that country sells nothing we need. At the same time, he has undercut the conservative candidate for prime minister in this summer's election. Prior to Trump's bombastic statements, the conservative was handily leading Trudeau's party. Polling currently now shows a dead heat. What's the goal here? Or is Trump just improvising like he usually does? (2)
With regards to Russia, Trump seems to be making the same mistake with Putin that FDR made with Stalin and the old USSR. a total miscalculation as to Putin's goals.(3) Much of the Trump crowd blames NATO and Ukraine for the war. But while Russian propaganda plays on this theme, Putin himself has stated the war is about something else, as his lengthy interview with Tucker Carlson made clear. Despite Tucker's frantic efforts to get Putin to talk about NATO expansion as the cause, Putin delivered a lengthy lecture on Russian and Ukraine history, starting in the 9th century. In Putin's view Ukraine has no right to exist as an independent state as it is inherently Russian. Putin, both in the interview, and as shown in Russian actions in the occupied Ukrainian territories, is determined to wipe out the country, and crush Ukrainian culture and language.
I oppose NATO expansion but the idea that the decrepit armed forces of our NATO allies were actually capable of threatening Russia is laughable and everything since the start of the war in 2022 only underlines the lack of collective NATO capabilities (in that respect Trump and Vance are correct). On the other hand, Putin's attack on Ukraine precipitated two long time neutral countries, Sweden and Finland, to join NATO and they actually have decent military establishments.
The idea by the Trump administration that it can persuade Putin to loosen his ties to China is not going to work. Putin is not a communist but he believes the failure of the USSR was a disaster for Russia as it lost its empire, an empire that he wants to reconstitute. Reuniting the empire is his version of Make Russia Great Again. The Europeans and Americans are the biggest obstacles to that goal, while China is his biggest ally in fulfilling his aspirations since it also accomplishes Xi's goals.
Even with all this, it is hard to have any sympathy for the Democrats in light of the Obama and Biden administrations inept policies regarding Russia and the mythology about Trump and Russia created by the Democrats and their media allies during President Trump's first administration (for more read Ukraine Blues). Let's not forget that in the run up to the Russian invasion in February 2022, the Biden administration was sending clear signals that if Putin agreed to just "wetting his beak" by taking the rest of the Donbas, the U.S. would be okay with that. And during the first 48 hours of the invasion Biden and European leaders were telling Zelensky he needed, for his own safety, to leave Ukraine. I've always admired Zelensky's courage in staying at Ukraine's darkest hour. It was a shame to watch him today fumble the deal inches from the goal line.
-----------------------------------
(1) Were these the same people who advised him to essentially endorse Harris in the election? At best, Harris would have been a weak reed to rely upon. A little sucking up to Trump would not have hurt - he loves that stuff.
(2) Let's contrast Trump and the Democrats. The Democrats consistently lie about their policies. One need go no further than to look at the Harris campaign. Trump has two different modes. The first is when he is absolutely clear about his policies (for instance, immigration) but lies and exaggerates about the facts supporting his case. The second is when you can't make sense of his policies - as with Ukraine, tariffs, and Canada - possibly because he doesn't know, but he lies and exaggerates about whatever he is saying about those issues at that particular moment.
(3) And just as Obama did with Iran.
No comments:
Post a Comment