The Trump regime’s 28–point Ukraine peace plan accepts Moscow’s core concerns as legitimate. That’s essential for any possible settlement of the war, or the broader crisis between Russia and the West.
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in a joint press conference after meeting in Anchorage, Alaska on Aug. 15. (White House /Daniel Torok)
There are any number of reasons you may not like, or may even condemn, the 28–point peace plan the Trump regime has drafted to advance toward a settlement of the war in Ukraine.
You may be among those many all across the Western capitals who simply cannot accept defeat on the reasoning — is this my word? — that the West never loses anything, and it certainly cannot lose anything to “Putin’s Russia.”
You may think that President Donald Trump and those who produced this interesting document, which leaked out in the course of some days last week, have once again “caved” to the Kremlin.
The outstanding contribution in this line comes from the ever-mixed-up Tom Friedman, who argued in last Sunday’s editions of The New York Times that Trump is to be compared with Neville Chamberlain and Trump’s plan with the much-reviled British prime minister’s “appeasement” of Hitler via the Munich Agreement of September 1938.
I cannot think of a klutzier interpretation of history or a more useless comparison, given it sheds not one sliver of light on what the document to hand is about.
Or you may stand on principle and attempt the well-worn case that Ukraine is a liberal democracy — let me write that phrase again just for fun — Ukraine is a liberal democracy, altogether “just like us,” and must be defended at all costs in the name of freedom, the rights of the individual, free markets, etc.
Or you may think this is no time for the United States and its European clients to relent in their unceasing effort to destabilize the Russian Federation. Those of this persuasion cannot, of course, acknowledge that Ukraine is nothing more than a battering ram in this dreadful cause, at this point much-bloodied. This dodge tends to swell the ranks of those professing the defense of democracy against autocracy as their creed.
Anyone paying attention to the reactions to the Trump plan among the trans–Atlantic policy cliques and the media that serve them has heard all of this and more these past few days. I find it all somewhere between pitiful and amusing.
Pitiful because those who so wildly overinvested in the corrupt, Nazi-infested
regime in Kiev prove incapable of acknowledging that Ukraine lost its war with Russia long ago, and this attempt to subvert Russia now proves a bust.
Amusing because those who so wildly over-invested in the corrupt, Nazi-infested regime in Kiev now squirm at the thought that the victor will have more to say about the terms of peace than the vanquished.
Whad’ya mean we don’t get to dictate a settlement just because we’re the losers?
This, in a single sentence, is the position shared across the West and in Kiev. Trump’s latest sin — and this plan counts as another in many quarters — is that what he and his people now propose favors simple realities over elaborate illusions.
Those asserting that the Trump plan caters to the Kremlin are not altogether wrong, to put this point another way. They are merely wrong in their objections. These 28 points, with many elaborations —No. 12 is followed by 12a, 12b, 12c and so on — indeed give Russia a lot — but not all — of what it has spent years attempting to negotiate.
The missed point is plainly stated: It is a very wise and fine thing finally to recognize the legitimacy of Russia’s perspective. At this point what will serve Russia’s interests will also serve Ukraine’s and the interests of anyone who thinks an orderly world is a good idea.
A couple of things to note before briefly considering the contents of the Trump plan. I am working from a copy of the text apparently leaked to the Financial Times last Thursday.
You may be among those many all across the Western capitals who simply cannot accept defeat on the reasoning — is this my word? — that the West never loses anything, and it certainly cannot lose anything to “Putin’s Russia.”
You may think that President Donald Trump and those who produced this interesting document, which leaked out in the course of some days last week, have once again “caved” to the Kremlin.
The outstanding contribution in this line comes from the ever-mixed-up Tom Friedman, who argued in last Sunday’s editions of The New York Times that Trump is to be compared with Neville Chamberlain and Trump’s plan with the much-reviled British prime minister’s “appeasement” of Hitler via the Munich Agreement of September 1938.
I cannot think of a klutzier interpretation of history or a more useless comparison, given it sheds not one sliver of light on what the document to hand is about.
Or you may stand on principle and attempt the well-worn case that Ukraine is a liberal democracy — let me write that phrase again just for fun — Ukraine is a liberal democracy, altogether “just like us,” and must be defended at all costs in the name of freedom, the rights of the individual, free markets, etc.
Or you may think this is no time for the United States and its European clients to relent in their unceasing effort to destabilize the Russian Federation. Those of this persuasion cannot, of course, acknowledge that Ukraine is nothing more than a battering ram in this dreadful cause, at this point much-bloodied. This dodge tends to swell the ranks of those professing the defense of democracy against autocracy as their creed.
Anyone paying attention to the reactions to the Trump plan among the trans–Atlantic policy cliques and the media that serve them has heard all of this and more these past few days. I find it all somewhere between pitiful and amusing.
Pitiful because those who so wildly overinvested in the corrupt, Nazi-infested
regime in Kiev prove incapable of acknowledging that Ukraine lost its war with Russia long ago, and this attempt to subvert Russia now proves a bust.
Amusing because those who so wildly over-invested in the corrupt, Nazi-infested regime in Kiev now squirm at the thought that the victor will have more to say about the terms of peace than the vanquished.
Whad’ya mean we don’t get to dictate a settlement just because we’re the losers?
This, in a single sentence, is the position shared across the West and in Kiev. Trump’s latest sin — and this plan counts as another in many quarters — is that what he and his people now propose favors simple realities over elaborate illusions.
Those asserting that the Trump plan caters to the Kremlin are not altogether wrong, to put this point another way. They are merely wrong in their objections. These 28 points, with many elaborations —No. 12 is followed by 12a, 12b, 12c and so on — indeed give Russia a lot — but not all — of what it has spent years attempting to negotiate.
The missed point is plainly stated: It is a very wise and fine thing finally to recognize the legitimacy of Russia’s perspective. At this point what will serve Russia’s interests will also serve Ukraine’s and the interests of anyone who thinks an orderly world is a good idea.
A couple of things to note before briefly considering the contents of the Trump plan. I am working from a copy of the text apparently leaked to the Financial Times last Thursday.
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