(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) While little progress appears to have been made on the deterrence front, rhetoric from our elected leaders over the Russia—Ukraine crisis grows more alarming each day.
That, paired with a barrage of disinformation, presents the growing probability that a single misstep could draw in NATO forces and result in a devastating world war between nuclear superpowers.
The Biden administration seems now to be stuck in a holding pattern, with President Joe Biden having announced that he would give it a month to see if sanctions were having any sort of effect.
Meanwhile, calls for drastic action such as the establishment of a no-fly zone or US-backed effort to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin threaten to escalate tensions.
But there is one bold—and, yes, drastic—solution that has not yet been put on the table and could be the magic bullet, so to speak, that turns a political liability into a win–win.
Naming former President Donald Trump to oversee a delegation that might broker peace between the combattant forces might even offer Biden some benefits in his Dumpster-fire of a domestic agenda.
1) It could unite Americans around a common objective.
While some in the media already have tried to claim that rallying around Ukraine has been a uniting factor, deep-seated skepticism remains about the underlying objectives of globalist leaders who are pushing us to the brink of war while already facing severe economic hardships and a pandemic that eroded trust in our global institutions.
With Putin being the clear-cut aggressor, many support Ukraine’s scrappy fight for its independence. Yet, the moral argument for active intervention in such a cause is far more ambiguous.
Ukraine’s corruption and links to globalist institutions like the World Economic Forum and George Soros suggest that its current polity falls well short of the expectations for Western democracy.
If the push to maintain the country’s independence stems instead from a strategic geopolitical interest, American deep-statists have yet to acknowledge their true purpose. What is clear, however, is that the country has been masterfully pushing propaganda to curry Western favor.
Thus, while many Americans would passively agree that a Ukrainian win would be nice, a Pyrrhic victory costing US blood and treasure on the heels of its 20-year war in Afghanistan is likely to pull less support.
The only US-led outcome that could truly unite the country under one banner would be to intervene diplomatically to help broker a resolution that could end the violence altogether.
What other statesman is capable like the 45th president of bringing Russia to the table while still refusing to be cowed by its militant threats?
2) It could heal the bipartisan rift caused by Biden’s divisive rhetoric.
The Biden administration’s efforts to scapegoat unvaccinated citizens for the spread of COVID, to liken common-sense election integrity measures to “Jim Crow on steroids” and to declare peaceful protestors as domestic terrorists have all undermined the pledge he made to heal the country. In fact, they have driven a wedge deeper into the bitter partisan divide.
Conservatives see political victory ahead in November, and many would welcome the opportunity to settle a few scores after the abuses of four years under the divisive reign of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
If Biden—who recently paid lip service to pivoting toward the center—would truly like to redeem the goodwill of Republicans, then showing a modicum of respect for the leader of the opposition party would be a wise start.
Whatever personal qualities they may fault him for, even Democrats are forced to admit that Trump’s approach to foreign policy kept America’s foreign adversaries largely at bay.
3) It would give Democrats an opportunity to deflect criticism.
One likely argument that NeverTrumpists might make is that Trump could not possibly succeed in such a complex affair. Well then, what have they got to lose?
The status quo is not working, and the blame for any failure now would fall squarely on Biden’s shoulders for projecting American weakness and indecision. No doubt they will attempt to point fingers at Trump, but nobody buys those farcical deflections.
Putting Trump on the line in the high-stakes gambit would be exactly the sort of pressure he would relish, and likely find a pathway to success. But in the off chance he were to fail, it would show that Democrats made a good-faith attempt to put country before party.
4) It would take a GOP heavy-hitter off the 2022 campaign trail.
In addition to the regular stream of emailed statements via Trump’s Save America PAC, his recent flurry of high profile speeches, including a headlining appearance at last week’s CPAC, show that he has no plans to retire.
Trump has said, in fact, that he is waiting for the outcome of the 2022 midterm election to determine whether he will launch his 2024 re-election campaign for president. And his odds are looking strong by all accounts.
Sending him to Warsaw or Helsinki for a couple weeks to help hammer out a peace accord would give Democrats the opportunity to put their best foot forward in the upcoming primary races and give a fighting chance to weaker RINO candidates in the GOP primaries. In a way, it would be just as devious as their other election-meddling schemes, but also totally legitimate.
5) It would help both parties play to their favored narratives.
If there is one talking point that the Left simply cannot quit, it’s that Trump is a Putin stooge. By putting him forth as the only person capable of talking Vlad down from a ledge, they could milk that tired trope for infinitely more mileage through the next election cycle.
Meanwhile, for Trumpians it would help to justify the doctrine of peace through strength and mutual respect. Cozying up to brutal dictators may not always be good for optics, but the results speak for themselves.
6) Trump has a strong rapport with both leaders…
While his remarks were egregiously distorted and taken out of context Trump did call Putin a “very savvy” “genius” for how he had outmaneuvered NATO.
But Trump’s past relationship with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy must still resonate as well. In the notorious phone call that Democrats used as pretense for impeachment, the two were clearly cordial, and their subsequent in-person meeting likewise showed a strong bond forged by their shared circumstances.
That puts him in a good position to arbitrate the impasse without facing accusations of bias in a way that few others could.
7) … And proven diplomatic experience.
By bringing together feuding Arab countries with Israel, Trump achieved a breakthrough that many have attempted without success. It was legitimately the stuff of which Nobel Peace Prizes are made—and had Trump been a Democrat, that would have been a guarantee.
Sadly, Biden’s support for Iran—which sees him coming to the table with top adversaries Russia and China in spite of everything—has undermined the Middle Eastern stability that Trump achieved, just as his reversion back to oil dependency has given rogue Islamists the upper hand.
Still, Trump’s active role in the Abraham Accords, and his successful renegotiations of trade agreements like the USMCA deal, reveal a diplomatic acumen for which he too often is uncredited.
8) It would help restore the Office of the Presidency.
Biden’s presidency has been unusual, to say the least. He is, for example, the first president believed to have defecated himself in front of the pope. The damage—if it is reparable—will take years to undo.
The way his presidency began—from his basement candidacy to the grand-scale public effort to prevent certification that, in turn, led to a locked-down Capitol, to Trump himself boycotting the inauguration—resonated symbolically with what many feel about the institution of the presidency having strayed from its democratic roots.
If past presidents continue to count Trump as a populist pariah in their midst, it does more to reflect on their own insularity than on his.
Former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton—none of whom left office on the best of terms—have all been tasked in recent memory as diplomatic envoys in bipartisan humanitarian missions. Even Richard Nixon was allowed to rehab his public image after resigning the presidency under the disgrace of the Watergate scandal.
If Democrats are lucky, Trump might even decide he prefers the plaudits of his post-presidency better than the incessant attacks that come with holding office.
9) It would prevent China from moving in.
Early on in the Russia–Ukraine standoff, China made clear that its top priority was whatever might undermine Western/US interests and perhaps lay the stage for its own takeover of Taiwan.
Putin solidified his bond with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a pre-Olympics summit, and the China even passed along to the Kremlin top-secret military intelligence that the Biden administation had shared, ostensibly in hopes of pressuring it to repudiate its Russia alliance.
But China has changed its tune recently, signaling an interest in assuming a more intermediary role and saying it was “gravely concerned” about the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear plants.
It would be in keeping with China’s growing imperialist ambitions for the country to preempt Western attempts at brokering a peace deal, becoming in its own eyes and those of the world the very sort of global policemen that once was, for better or worse, the hallmark of US foreign policy.
10) It would allow Biden to focus on fulfilling his domestic promises.
Much of the opposition to US involvement stems from the fact that we have an array of problems of our own to deal with. Why bother enforcing Ukraine’s borders when we cannot enforce our own?
During his State of the Union speech, Biden made overtures of pivoting back toward the center, trying to appease moderates by fixing the border crisis, inflation and the scourge of violent crime that Democrats have created.
Delegating foreign policy to his top political rival would allow Biden to put his money where his mouth is, showing that he is genuinely concerned with repairing his domestic damage and not just speaking random words that pop across the teleprompter.
Conclusion
Of course, the fault in all of these arguments is their assuption that Democrats, Establishment neocons and their globalist counterparts actually wish to see the Russia conflict resolved.
History suggests otherwise. The same moneyed special interests that profited from every war since the 20th century are at it again, playing both sides against the other in their Hegalian ruse.
Geopolitical brinksmanship aside, they have everything to gain from putting forth a shiny object to shift public focus away from the flagrant power grabs they audaciously attempted under the guise of pandemic emergency orders and to reframe themselves as the good guys in the global narrative.
In all likelihood, Putin, Zelenskyy, Biden and Soros will share a good laugh about it at the next Davos retreat. But the last laugh will be for Trump and his freedom-loving supporters who see past this Potemkin village of a crisis.
