RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.thefp.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

On Friday the world witnessed one of the most astonishing spectacles in White House history.

American presidents have surely dressed down besieged allies behind closed doors; never before has it happened on live television. This break with any prior presidential diplomacy must be seen to be believed.

What unfolded between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance turned into a political Rorschach test.

For Trump’s base, the 50-minute exchange was proof positive of America First foreign policy—an ungrateful freeloader gets upbraided by the populist tribune.

For Americans who still cling to the now unfashionable notion that the international system should be ruled by rules and not might, Friday’s incident was a horror.

From the perspective of Europe, it’s the beginning of the end of the Trans-Atlantic alliance.

To recap, after agreeing under pressure from the White House to sign a rare earth mineral deal, Zelensky came to Washington with the intention of repairing his strained relationship with Trump, inking the deal, and convincing the U.S. to keep the weapons flowing to his war effort.

The meeting was intended to be a photo-op before the real discussions behind closed doors—and it began on a cordial note. Trump praised Ukraine’s soldiers. Zelensky politely showed Trump photographs of Russian atrocities.

But then Vance laid a trap. Or at least deviated from the diplomatic niceties. He explained that Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, thumped his chest and talked tough but never engaged in diplomacy with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. “The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy,” he said.

Vance, in this case, was not a reliable narrator of recent history. Biden hosted a virtual summit with the Russian leader at the end of 2021. Biden also waived sanctions on the construction of a second gas pipeline between Russia and Europe in the months leading up to the war. Before Putin invaded, Biden tried for nearly a year to dissuade him from doing it.

Nevertheless, the smart thing to do at this point would have been for Zelensky—who desperately needs America’s military support—to nod politely and let it go.

https://www.commentary.org/issues/march-2025/

I was three-quarters done with today’s newsletter when an unprecedented disaster at the White House made my day’s work superfluous. So we recorded an emergency podcast (link below), and I’ll just say a few things about the president’s and vice president’s treatment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy a few hours ago.

This public ambush of America’s ally was truly unprecedented and truly disastrous. Trump invited Zelenskyy to the White House for…well, for what? 

If it was to bring Ukraine closer to some sort of cease-fire deal with Russia, why blow it up (or let your vice president blow it up) by provoking a fight about Zelenskyy’s invented ingratitude toward the U.S.? If it was to just get Zelenskyy to sign the mineral-rights deal, the same applies. Why let him leave without a guarantee of signing, to say nothing of kicking him out of the White House?

The only thing that’s clear about Trump’s supposed peace plan is that he doesn’t care at all about Ukraine’s position after the missiles and rockets cease. He wants to end the war and end it quickly. The quickest route to doing that is ending it on Vladimir Putin’s terms, without any pushback on Ukraine’s behalf. If that’s clear to me, it’s a lot clearer to Zelenskyy. 

So while Zelenskyy didn’t help his cause by being goaded into a yelling match, what difference would it have made if he responded differently to Vance’s instigation? Had he just sucked it up and endured the abuse with a polite smile or some form of assuagement, would Trump be less inclined to come to a deal on Putin’s terms? Doubt it. Trump’s made up his mind about what he wants. Zelenskyy would have looked, before the whole world—including Ukraine and Russia, obsequious in accepting his country’s defeat. No one can say how best to handle an unprecedented disaster.

The unprecedented nature of the meeting is self-evident. The disaster part is manifold. Before long, Ukraine will have to keep fighting without any U.S. assistance. U.S.-Europe relations might be strained to the breaking point as Ukraine’s neighbors deal with an advancing Putin’s increasing good fortune. To the U.S.’s friends, we look unreliable, immoral, and weak. To its enemies, we look like dupes. They won’t miss the opportunity to take further advantage. Zelenskyy was right in saying that if Putin is left unchecked, even Americans would feel the consequences. That feeling of shame is the first one.  

https://www.frontpagemag.com/trump-vance-berate-zelensky-in-jaw-dropping-white-house-confrontation/

In an astounding public exchange between world leaders in the White House, President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance gave Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky a dressing-down that demonstrated American resolve to end business-as-usual for the Ukraine money pit and bring the war with Russia to an end.

Things got off to an awkward start from the very moment Zelensky arrived dressed in his usual  performative, combat-ready green sweatshirt, cargo pants and boots, as if he might have to rush back to the front lines against Russia at any moment. As the Ukrainian leader exited his motorcade, Trump shook his hand and wise-cracked to the press, “He’s all dressed up today.”

Once inside the White House room packed with reporters and cameras, there were 40 minutes of reasonable, calm discussion before Zelensky made what former US ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker called a “terrible, unforced error” by demanding security assurances before agreeing to a minerals deal with the U.S. He also argued that previous American Presidents including Trump 1.0 did nothing to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression against his country, and therefore the kind of diplomacy with Putin that Vance was urging was pointless.

This prompted an immediate and sharp rebuke from Vance, who upbraided him for “litigating” the war in front of the cameras: “Do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?”

The conversation went off a cliff from there, as Zelensky went on to employ the blackmail tactic of claiming that the U.S. has the privilege of “nice oceans” between us and Russia, but that if we don’t help him defeat Putin now, Americans will “feel it in the future.”

Trump then sternly interjected, “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel, because you’re in no position to dictate that.”

An increasingly angry Zelensky tried to talk over Trump, who continued, “You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War Three. And what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country – this country – that’s backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21433/neutralize-hamas-qatar-houthis-iran

“[Iran’s] Operation True Promise 3 will be carried out at the right time, with precision, and in a scale sufficient to destroy Israel and raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground.” — Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Major General Ibrahim Jabbari, February 2025.

A Trump decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization would go a long way toward making it difficult for its many offshoots to continue supporting it.

Even more urgent is for the Trump administration to neutralize Hamas, Qatar, Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis — to limit their ability to keep on destabilizing the entire region, as well as to curtail the Houthis’ stranglehold on global shipping. The policy is certainly congruent with the long-held American principle of maintaining the international freedom of navigation.

The move would also send a warning to China not to continue its aggressive effort to gain control of the world’s critical sea lines near Taiwan, Australia, the Philippines and Japan.

Iran, reportedly weeks away from a nuclear weapons breakout, is still threatening the “total annihilation of Israel.” To that end, the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has announced “Operation True Promise 3” – another rocket and ballistic missile air assault on Israel. IRGC Major General Ibrahim Jabbari, according to Iranian media, stated that, “Operation True Promise 3 will be carried out at the right time, with precision, and in a scale sufficient to destroy Israel and raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground.”

Meanwhile, Qatar, possibly capitalizing on the reluctance of Egypt and Jordan to receive Gazans, seems to be trying to come up with its own peace plan to derail President Donald Trump’s. It most likely designed to keep its client, beneficiary and Muslim Brotherhood cohort, Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip. The invaluable website MEMRI reports:

“After World War II, tens of millions of refugees and displaced persons in Europe needed to be resettled, among them Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. The UN and the international community rushed to help them.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/whats-the-alternative-to-negotiating-with-putin/

Donald Trump’s bilateral effort to put an end to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has incited the usual NeverTrump Dems, along with other foreign policy commentators not necessarily hostile to the president. Some are criticizing Trump for freezing Ukraine and the NATO nations out of the negotiations, insulting Ukraine’s government as corrupt, and denigrating Zelensky. But the real issue is, so far, that there’s been no other plausible plan for ending the bloody meatgrinder stalemate.

The NATO West has not come off well in this crisis. First, the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borderlands after the collapse of the Soviet Union was ill advised, given that Putin as early as 2007 had called European NATO nations’ expansion to Russia’s near abroad a “serious provocation.” Even worse, many NATO members’ feckless neglect of their defense spending, and the sorry state of NATO’s military preparedness, meant that NATO was a paper tiger that couldn’t and wouldn’t backup its challenge to Russia’s ambitions.

Nor was the Biden puppeteers’ criminal negligence in their shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan helpful in concentrating Putin’s mind. Was there any reason why Vlad wouldn’t think it was a good time to start restoring the Soviet empire?

Putin’s confidence was also strengthened by the mostly performative assertions of NATO nations that they would not let his adventurism stand. But what credibility could NATO summon, given that his initial aggression against Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014 was met with blustering rhetoric and flabby sanctions?

And hadn’t Barack Obama also encouraged Putin with his talk of a “reset” with Russia, promise of “flexibility” after his reelection, and cancellation of antimissile batteries for Russia’s Eastern European nations? There’s also Obama’s earlier flip mockery of Mitt Romney’s warning about Putin’s ambitions during the 2012 presidential debate––“the Eighties called, and they want their foreign policy back.” A mere two years later Putin took Crimea, and was met only with sanctions and a school-marmish scolding from Secretary of State John Kerry.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/24/trumps-ukrainian-tightrope/

To find an impossible peace between Ukraine and Russia we must understand the recent history of the war and the European and American roles in it. So, Americans should revisit some fundamental realities and questions from which to remember before going forward:

Why Did Putin Invade Ukraine in 2022?

Putin did start the war. Trump’s trolling aside, he knows that because he correctly pointed out that Putin invaded his neighbors in three of the last four administrations—but not his own, given Trump’s deterrence.

The most obvious answer why Putin did is that he thought he easily could. But why in 2022—as he had in 2008 and 2014?

Putin has nonending opportunistic desires to recombobulate what he thinks properly is and will always be Russian—whether territories to be formally absorbed or as coerced satellite states. But he moves on them only whenever he thinks the benefits outweigh the costs.

And by February 2022, he certainly felt they did.

The U.S. and NATO had lost all appearances of deterrence vis-à-vis Russia. Joe Biden had been part of the Obama-Biden administration that had naively appeased Putin for some eight years. Remember their 2009 reset by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that was based on numerous flawed and disastrous assumptions:

The prior Bush sanctions against Putin for invading Georgia and grabbing parts of South Ossetia were overly harsh, reflective of his supposed cowboyism evident in Iraq.
The Obama mystique, coupled with criticism of the prior Bush administration, would win over Putin. Remember Obama’s 2012 hot mic appeasement in Seoul, when Obama promised Putin “flexibility” (i.e., cancellation of Eastern European defense, if Putin gave Obama “space” for his “last election” (i.e., please don’t invade and embarrass Obama until after he was reelected in 2012).
The U.S. thought it could act unilaterally in Libya and Syria, talk of expanding NATO in Europe, and expect a humiliated Russia to keep silent and distant.
Once rebuffed by Putin, who took Obama’s measure, an angry and rejected U.S. would cajole, beg, and finally try to force European Union democratic values onto the Putin regime—by sanctions, by aiding Russian dissident groups, and by claiming Putin was America’s archenemy.

The flawed working theory was that an either compliant or defiant Putin could acquiesce and begin liberalizing Russia, in emulation of EU and US democracy.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/rubio-exempts-taiwan-and-philippines-security-programs-from-aid-freeze/

Secretary of State Marco Rubio exempted from his department’s ongoing aid freeze over $1 billion in foreign security assistance for Taiwan and the Philippines.

“The Secretary approved exemptions for defense aide to the Philippines and Taiwan, which is a strong message for China deterrence in the region,” a senior State Department official told National Review. The exemption covers $870 million for Taiwan and $336 for the Philippines, the official said.

Reuters first reported on the exemptions, which the outlet said were part of a broader tranche of $5 billion worth of State Department programs that received exemptions.

China’s military intimidation targeting these U.S. partners — both major recipients of U.S. security assistance programs — has continued, even as Beijing signals that it wants to enter into trade talks with the Trump administration.

Last week, Manila lodged a diplomatic complaint with Beijing after a Chinese helicopter engaged in “unprofessional” maneuvers near a Philippines jet over the Scarborough Shoal. Meanwhile, Chinese military aircraft and vessels continue to swarm near Taiwan every day, per daily updates published by Taipei’s ministry of defense.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/__trashed-3/

JD Vance was about to say “European Commissioners,” but he stopped himself, and instead said “European Commissars.” This was no slip of the tongue. Vance clearly had in mind the commissars of the old Soviet Union, and as he was addressing, at the Munich Security Conference, a roomful of their intellectual children and heirs, his choice of words was entirely apt. Vance was there to call out these cosseted elites, who aren’t used to being called out, and the predictable rage has ensued. But the vice president’s message was prophetic. If European leaders were interested in maintaining their countries as free societies, they would heed him.

“Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today,” Vance said, “it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners. I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be, quote, ‘hateful content.’ I look to my own country, where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of, quote, ‘combating misogyny on the internet, a day of action.’”

Vance continued by referring to the flashpoint for the freedom of speech today, the point at which it is most heatedly disputed: the burning of the Qur’an. “I look to Sweden,” he said, “where two weeks ago the government convicted a Christian activist for participating in Koran burnings that resulted in his friend’s murder. As the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden’s laws to supposedly protect free expression do not, in fact, grant, and I’m quoting, ‘a free pass to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief.’”