Our great president who claims to be a great dealmaker got taken again by Putin in Alaska last Friday. He gave Putin, an indicted war criminal, the appearance of legitimacy by hosting him in a major ceremony at an air base in Alaska. It was like the civilized western world had accepted Putin again as a normal leader. Then in the meeting with Putin, the Russian dictator ate Trump’s lunch.
Trump had come to Alaska to meet with Putin with the idea of arranging an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine to end all of the killing. Putin wanted to continue the war while trying to negotiate a permanent peace treaty, which could take an indefinite amount of time while the war and the killing continued. During this time, Rusia could make more territorial gains in Ukraine. Guess who got what he wanted. Trump acceded to Putin’s wishes, and the war will continue with Putin attempting to gobble up more territory in Ukraine with negotiations supposedly going on. To agree to peace, Putin wants Ukraine to give up the entire Donbas region, where Ukrainian forces hold at least a third and perhaps more.
Putin obviously knows that Zelensky and the Ukrainians will not surrender territory that they control and feels that if the war continues, Russian forces will eventually wear down the Ukrainians and take over the entire Donbas or even more territory. Putin wants the war to go on so he can achieve his aims. What is so dispiriting is that Trump abandoned his initial stance and agreed with Putin’s ideas about the conflict.
Before the meeting, Trump had spoken of placing harsh sanctions on Russia and its trading partners if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire. But there was no mention of sanctions or of punishing Russia in any way after Trump’s meeting with Putin concluded and there was no ceasefire. It was as if Putin had completely mesmerized Trump and got him to drop all the positions he had previously held. This supposed deal is not going to please the Ukrainians or the Europeans. But Trump claimed his meeting with Putin was excellent and was a 10 out of 10. I hope he doesn’t make any more great deals for the U.S. with Putin, or we may have to give Alaska back to the Russians. It’s amazing that Trump can consider himself a terrific dealmaker when he melts away in the face of Putin’s entreaties. Trump is a marsh mellow in a suit jacket.
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Posted at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: ceasefire, dealmaker, Putin, Russia, sanctions, Trump, Ukraine, war
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020