I Wouldn’t Wish This Wishlist on Anyone
“Ukraine has significantly amended the US “peace plan” to end the conflict, removing some of Russia’s maximalist demands, people familiar with the negotiations said, as European leaders warned on Monday that no deal could be reached quickly.” The Guardian chose to put the phrase “peace plan” in quotes because, by many accounts, it seemed to be more of a Russian wishlist than a negotiated deal. (Which sort of makes sense since Trump’s entire presidency has been a Russian wishlist.)
+ “The plan was negotiated by Steve Witkoff, a real-estate developer with no historical, geographical, or cultural knowledge of Russia or Ukraine, and Kirill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund and spends most of his time making business deals. The revelation of their plan this week shocked European leaders, who are now paying almost all of the military costs of the war, as well as the Ukrainians, who were not sure whether to take this latest plan seriously until they were told to agree to it by Thanksgiving or lose all further U.S. support. Even if the plan falls apart, this arrogant and confusing ultimatum, coming only days after the State Department authorized the sale of anti-missile technology to Ukraine, will do permanent damage to America’s reputation as a reliable ally, not only in Europe but around the world.” Anne Applebaum: The Murky Plan That Ensures a Future War.
+ “It looks a lot like that Russians are seeking to bribe Americans to allow Russia to win a war it would otherwise lose. Having allowed Russians in this instance to design our policy, we then rely on our European and Ukrainian allies to serve as a check on us. We (or rather some powerful Americans) scold them for doing what they have to do.” Timothy Snyder: Russian Unreality and American Weakness.
+ Thomas Friedman in the NYT (Gift Article): “Finally, finally, President Trump just might get a peace prize that would secure his place in history. Unfortunately, though, it is not that Nobel peace prize he so covets. It is the ‘Neville Chamberlain Peace Prize‘ … This prize richly deserves to be shared by Trump’s many ‘secretaries of state’ — Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio and Dan Driscoll — who together negotiated the surrender of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin’s demands without consulting Ukraine or our European allies in advance — and then told Ukraine it had to accept the plan by Thanksgiving.” (It’s looking less and less like the original plan will be forced on Ukraine and Europe, but it’s impossible to undo the fact that America is negotiating against its allies.)
