Trump's Dilemmas, Part Two

In Part One I presented a sort of impressionistic overview of the hot spots around the world, waiting to blow up in Trump’s face—often with some unfortunate encouragement from the man himself. Now I’ll present an extensively edited transcript (the original is well over an hour) of a very stimulating discussion—mostly between John Mearsheimer and Alexander Mercouris, on Glenn Diesen’s show.

Ukraine is Now Trump's War

The overall theme is that Trump now owns the Ukraine war and finds himself in a difficult position, largely due to his own previous behavior and current unrealistic expectations. However, there’s an additional theme, which is: How did we get to this point?

The three express themselves as being baffled by it all, and yet the indicators are mostly all there in their discussion. In particular, the Europeans finally submitting to the Americans after the Gulf War—the Gulf War was the first true Neocon war, a war fought for Israel based on the political muscle of American based Jewish Nationalists. Couple that with the fact that so many are reluctant to admit—that the American war on Russia is essentially a Jewish Nationalist war on Russia: Doug Macgregor's Big Picture. From there they move on to the clear cut case of the Jewish Nationalist genocide in Palestine and lust for the destruction of Iran and the creation of a Greater Israel—Jewish Supremacy over the Middle East.

I would argue that the Gulf War marked the point at which Jewish Nationalists solidified what had been their growing control over US foreign policy. Their fanaticism, coupled with their alllied factions in London and Paris, led to the submission of the European political class. Otherwise, it’s all just a mystery.

Anyway, we begin with Alexander’s views on what went wrong with Trump’s attempt to fool Putin. I believe Alexander is giving Trump to much credit and fails to understand that the idea of a deal with Russia was simply the first step in a far more complicated series of deals that would end with the defeat of China. It is the vastness of this scheme that explains Trump’s hurry.

Alex: For Trump to have negotiated a deal with the Russians would have been incredibly difficult politically. I don't think he was prepared to take the risks and I don't think he understood that he would find the Russians so determined in their stance. I think he thought that he could provide a framework agreement, that the Russians would accept the framework agreement, that the Russians would make significant concessions as well, that they would accept some language on NATO and that they would accept part of the territories and all of those things. And I think he was disappointed and surprised that the Russians said, "No we have to have something much more concrete than that." As far as the Russians are concerned what they would probably want is some absolute guarantee that the United States will not be involved in security issues in Ukraine at all. I am sure something like that—maybe not in exactly those terms—would have come up over the course of the various discussions that took place with Witkoff, but there is no conceivable way that this could have been sold in Washington or could have been sold certainly to the Europeans or to the Ukrainians either.

So I think this was approached in the wrong way. What Trump needed to do if he was going to move forward was to put Ukraine to one side, seek a normalization of some kind with Russia--reopening embassies, getting dialogue going, discussing things with the Russians in that kind of way. And then, gradually, maybe out of that some kind of steps could have been taken that might eventually have led to peace in Ukraine--especially if the United States quietly started to stop supplying weapons. But Trump wanted to do it all very fast.

John: To say that the Americans are amateurs is a gross understatement. It's hard to believe how incompetent this administration is. I mean, Steve Witkoff--who has zero experience as a diplomat--is put in charge not only of the Russian portfolio or the Ukraine portfolio, he's in charge of the Iran portfolio and he's in charge of the Netanyahu portfolio! Furthermore, Witkoff has no staff. He goes to these meetings pretty much all alone--he's kind of the Lone Ranger. There's no question that he's close to Trump, and that is a huge advantage, but at the same time you would think for tricky negotiations like the ones involving Ukraine--and, by the way, the ones involving Iran as well--that you would have a skilled and experienced diplomat in charge. But you don't.

And then there's Marco Rubio, who's now the National Security Adviser as well as the Secretary of State as well as the head of USAID--and he has a fourth job, as well. I can't even remember what it is. But Marco Rubio has hardly any diplomatic experience and, furthermore, what he's most known for these days is he's done a 180 degree turn on all his views just to appease Donald Trump. And a person who doesn't really have firm positions that he or she is willing to stick to is not likely to prove to be a reliable advisor to Donald Trump, who has to hear some hard cold truths. But, anyway, that's what you have here in the United States.

The final point that I would make to you is that we are dealing with so many different big issues that President Trump can barely keep his eye on any one ball for very long. He's got the Iran issue, he's got the Palestinian issue, he's got the Russia issue. Now we have the India Pakistan issue, then he's got the tariff issue. And if you look at what he's doing domestically with Elon Musk and so forth--just all sorts of issues at play at the domestic level--this tells me that the chances that we're going to be smart enough to just come close to working out a deal with the Russians is not in the cards.

This next segment marks a clear break of Mearsheimer from his long held views on the war—that it would end as a frozen conflict. He also comes out in favor of simply shutting down America’s war on Russia. The reason why that can’t be done brings us back to the fanaticism of the Jewish Nationalists who control US policy and were pushing for this war for literally decades.

John: I think the Russians will end up winning a clear-cut victory. The Ukrainians will lose much more territory and it will be seen as a devastating defeat for the West. If Trump doesn't want that to happen, what's the alternative? Be Joe Biden all over again? He has no good option here. His only hope was to shut this one down, and it looks to me like he blew it. Yeah, that's a technical term. He invested so much of his political capital of being this peacemaker--cuz he's not pulling it off in the Middle East, quite obviously, and he's not able to make some good deal with the Chinese. My sense is it is starting to look more and more likely that by the autumn conditions for some kind of peace settlement--much more favorable to the Russians--might be more attractive to the Ukrainians and to the Europeans than they would be today.

John: I want to make another point about the whole Russian Ukraine case. I think it's important that we don't look at it in isolation because there are other balls in the air--there could be big trouble on other fronts that limit what Trump can do in the late summer or in the fall regarding what's happening in Ukraine. The best example here is Iran. I don't think you're going to get a deal on Iran. I think the same sort of foolishness on the Americans' part regarding Russia is playing out with regard to Iran, and if you don't get a deal Trump has said that we will use military force against Iran. I find it hard to believe he would do that but he may have no choice, given the power of the Israel Lobby in the United States and just given the power of the right in the United States--all the hawks that we have in the administration and outside the administration all the Lindsey Grahams running around. If Trump attacks Iran with military force we all know the Iranians are going to counterattack, and where that all leads will be to a disaster. And if he also has a disaster over Ukraine that's going to really complicate what he can do with regard to Ukraine. So the Iran business and the Ukraine business go together. And, by the way, if we don't work out a deal with the Russians over Ukraine and relations between Russia and the United States deteriorate in the months ahead, that will give the Russians an even greater incentive to cooperate with the Iranians against us--which further complicates things.

Then there are the tariffs. Almost everybody believes that there's a tsunami coming at us, that we're going to get hit really hard by these tariffs. Even Trump himself admits we're going to suffer some significant pain. He argues it's in the short term and in the long term we'll be better off, but that short term is going to include a good year or two, and in that short term when we're suffering here in the United States from tariffs, that will have an effect on what kind of maneuver room Trump has with regard to Iran and with regard to Russia. So you can tell a plausible story where Trump is in big trouble on a lot of fronts come the late summer, fall, and 2026, and this could really complicate matters.

Alex: That we Europeans have allowed ourselves to get into this situation is incredible. I mean, the decision in April 2008 that John was alluding to, about Ukraine joining NATO one day--it was a catastrophic mistake of American foreign policy. It was an even more catastrophic mistake of European foreign policy to accept that. The extraordinary thing is Merkel herself--who was, of course, there and who ultimately went along with the decision--knew it at the time and she didn't find a way to say, No, which does seem extraordinary. We see this pattern of failure, of inability to think beyond our own visceral feelings and to look at the long term.

John: If you look at how the Europeans acted during the cold war--for maybe the first 15 years after the cold war ended [sic]--the Europeans acted in a very hard-nosed way when it came to dealing with the United States. I mean, people like Helmut Schmidt, Konrad Adenauer (d. 1963), Charles de Gaulle (d. 1970), these were toughminded individuals who stood up to the United States when they thought the United States was pursuing foolish policies, and you really had a sort of dialectical process taking place inside NATO between Europeans on one side and the Americans on the other side, which I think was quite healthy. In 2008 Merkel was opposed to NATO expansion into Ukraine--and, by the way, so was Nicholas Sarkozy, the French leader, who was also there in Bucharest--and before that, in 2003, there was significant opposition in Europe to the Iraq war. Both the Germans and the French thought the Iraq war was a really foolish idea, but something happened after 2008 where the Europeans evolved in a way where you ended up with leaders like Keith Starmer and Macron who go along with almost everything the Americans want.

John: The Russians hold all the cards here. The idea that the French and the British are going to serve as the cavalry and come to Ukraine's rescue is laughable. The Russians raise more troops in three months than are in either the French, the German, or the British army. You wonder what's happened here? Why aren't the Europeans thinking in a cold and calculating way? Why aren't they behaving strategically? Because it's certainly in their interest to do so. You're getting exactly the opposite from Macron and from Starmer and from other European leaders as well. It really is puzzling.

Could it be that the European political class is obeying its masters? The Jewish financier class is behind the war on Russia and they also choose the political leaders in London and Paris. Oh, and Washington.

Glenn: It's not just Russia. We have a similar collapse in morality or strategic thinking in other parts of the world, too. Look at what's happening in Gaza. In Germany they openly support Israel's genocide. If you protest it they will send the police and crack your heads. In Syria the person Jolani who was previously recognized as a jihadist--you know, we had bounties on his head--now when he's massacring the Alawites the EU posted out tweets where they condemned the Alawites for provoking the massacre, coming to the defense of their jihadi friends in Syria. And, of course, Iran. The possibility now of an Israeli American attack on Iran, which would make the world unrecognizable--shut down global trade, set the whole Middle East on fire--and the Europeans don't seem to have anything they want to say.

John: I think your point about what's happening to bedrock liberal values--especially because of European and especially American support for the Gaza genocide--is right on the money. I don't think most people understand the damage that is being done here to the bedrock liberal foundation that has been so important in the West for so long. It's just absolutely horrible what's happening in Gaza, and the Americans and the Europeans not only don't say anything they throw people in jail or they send them to El Salvador or what have you if you protest. It's truly remarkable. The consequences of this for the future of liberalism are not to be underestimated.

But Jewish Nationalists are single minded. They don’t care about any of this damage. It’s not their civilization. Well, truth be told, the liberal West isn’t my civilization, either.