(LifeSiteNews) — How can Donald Trump make a deal with Russia for a lasting peace in Ukraine? Two experienced commentators give a sobering verdict: Trump is out of touch with reality.
In separate interviews this week, retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor and former ambassador Chas Freeman gave a sobering assessment of Donald Trump’s grasp of the facts on the ground.
Both men reacted to President Donald Trump’s remarks on January 23 – on the promise of a peace deal for Ukraine:
“Zelensky wants to make a deal. I don’t know if Putin does. He might not.”
Speaking whilst signing executive orders on January 20, Trump explained, “I think [Putin is] destroying Russia by not making a deal. I think Russia’s going to be in big trouble. You take a look at their economy, you take a look at the inflation in Russia. So … I would hope he wants to make a deal.”
Macgregor’s response was blunt: “Everything he just said is completely false.”
Colonel Douglas Macgregor’s analysis appears to match the facts. Speaking of the Trump administration’s policy towards a postwar settlement in Ukraine, he said, “They seem to think that they’ve got the ability to shape the outcome from Washington, and I don’t think they do.”
Macgregor was speaking to Daniel Davis on his “Deep Dive” channel on Tuesday, January 29.
His view of the situation is realistic. It also one shared by Chas Freeman: the Russians have won and hold all the cards.
Yet as former ambassador Chas Freeman pointed out to Judge Andrew Napolitano, “Zelensky is the one who refused to negotiate – not Putin.”
Freeman is right. Zelensky has said since 2022 there can be no negotiations with the Russian president, with regime change in Russia presented as the reasonable alternative to reality. In 2022, then-President Joe Biden also said Putin must go.
Zelensky signed a decree in October 2022 declaring negotiations with Putin “impossible.”
Freeman remarked that “Mr. Trump to his credit has suggested that Mr. Zelensky … should scrap that order.”
Yet the Russian president has correctly stated that Zelensky is not actually the president and cannot sign any agreement on behalf of Ukraine – though Putin is willing to speak to Zelensky to reach a deal.
What hope is there for peace in this stark reality – and why is Trump seemingly demanding the impossible?
Macgregor: ‘Tragedy’ of misled Trump
According to Macgregor, we may be seeing a “tragedy” unfolding, with the president of the United States being fed lies to lead the U.S. back into war.
Macgregor says Trump’s assessment of a weak and “hurting” Russia “is just utter and complete nonsense.”
Macgregor says that in contrast to President Trump’s remarks that “some of his close advisers seem to be telling Trump that Russia is in need of a negotiated settlement. That they’re hurting, that they’re losing large numbers of people. What’s very frightening is that he actually thinks what he’s saying is accurate.”
Is President Trump in touch with reality on Russia? Macgregor suggests he is not.
“We know in the world today that everything he just said is completely false. The Russian economy is not on the verge of collapse. The Russian military is stronger and more capable than it’s ever been. Russian society is cohesive and resilient.”
Macgregor, a former adviser to Trump, warned viewers of a “hijack” of the U.S. government: “The tragedy is that [Trump] has surrounded himself with people who are trying to hijack this administration the way they hijacked the first one.”
Macgregor explained how this may happen: “That means – convince him of something that’s not true, then push him in a direction that results inevitably in confrontation and failure.”
Such a plan, he says, would align with the old strategy of permanent war.
“I think [this] is what the people around Trump want: they want confrontation with Russia, confrontation with Iran – confrontation with virtually everyone everywhere.”
Drawing on his diplomatic experience, Freeman offers a nuanced view:
“When you enter a negotiation as Mr Trump knows … you have to consider who’s got the cards who’s got the leverage.”
“We don’t have any leverage.”
Freeman – a realist himself – explains the Russians “are winning this war on an accelerated basis” and that “Mr. Putin knows that.”
“His economy has not been gutted. It has some problems – inflation in particular – but it is now larger than the economies of both of Germany and Japan.”
Trump has also threatened to increase sanctions on Russia in the absence of a deal, which Freeman pointed out would have little to no effect.
“Russia is is not isolated internationally as we are on this issue. So I don’t know why Mr Trump thinks it’s important to begin a negotiation by exaggerating our leverage. That doesn’t cut any water in Moscow.”
Reality enters the chat
Freeman’s remark suggests that Donald Trump’s comments are for domestic consumption. The Russians are well aware of the reality facing Russia, as they live in it.
Another view is that Trump is pitching Americans a deal that has already been made – and the terms have been set by hard reality.
In this reality, the Russians have won, and the Trump administration has already recognized that Russian security demands no NATO in Ukraine – and that Russia will keep the territory it has taken.
The Russian Foreign Ministry announced this positive development on January 21.
💬 Russia’s FM Sergey #Lavrov:
We are open to contacts.
Unofficially, members of @POTUS team & he, himself, have repeatedly made it clear they understand Russian position, for example, regarding the unacceptability of Ukraine’s @NATO membership.
👉 https://t.co/6zgH3bQXXz pic.twitter.com/oynvoigRXC
— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) January 21, 2025
A dramatic shift is underway in U.S. foreign policy. After years of Zelensky presented as Churchill, and honored by Biden as the defender of democracy, Trump has blamed the unelected leader of Ukraine for the war.
Though the Trump administration is indeed full of appointees who appear to be diehard neocons and Zionists, the advisers you do not see on television are not. Power is always part performance. Realist diplomacy isn’t.
The realist turn
For the last few decades, the U.S.-led model of European security architecture has framed the Russians as the enemy, making peace impossible.
The U.K.’s Financial Times reported on January 6 that “Putin plus Trump spell trouble for European security,” calling for massive rearmament to fight a war with Russia.
This policy of war is what was formerly called “European security,” and it is true that this model is threatened by Trump. In fact, it is extinct.
U.S. foreign policy is now realist. Realism recognizes the importance of everyone’s national interest and strategic considerations in international relations. The old global domination system did not.
The realists, whether left-wing like Jeffrey Sachs, “aggressive” like John Mearsheimer, or national-populist like the man behind Trump’s “Dormant NATO” policy, Sumantra Maitra, all agree that peace in Europe is impossible without good relations between Russia and Germany.
NATO is essentially funded by the U.S. unilaterally. It cannot survive as a war machine absent U.S. support. The United States is committed to “drawing down” from its European security guarantees – which means Trump is no longer going to finance a political and military strategy which inevitably leads to World War Three.
In July 2024 Rep. Warren Davidson said a “rebalancing of NATO” was required. He said a clean break with its globalist agenda was what people wanted.
“It is time we stopped using NATO and other supporting organizations to wage a radical progressive culture war on values around the world. People don’t want what the globalists are selling. They also don’t want their own countries flooded with illegal immigrants who have no desire to integrate with the culture.”
A few days ago Trump asked whether the U.S. “should be spending anything on NATO.” He demanded E.U. nations spend 5 percent of their budgets on their own defense – a demand which he is aware cannot be met. Europe’s economy has not recovered from the sanctions on Russia and from the loss of its cheap Russian energy – secured along with the detonation of Germany’s Nord Stream pipeline.
What is happening behind the scenes is a strategic rebalancing of international relations. Trump also knows that to appear weak when renegotiating matters of global security would be catastrophic for the U.S. – and for his domestic image.
This is the reason for the hard talk. It is also the reason we witness the remarkable sight of lifelong neocon Marco Rubio proclaiming, as secretary of state, that the United States will promote world peace as a matter of national security.
It is the reason the Vice President JD Vance announced last May that the past four decades of “boomer neocon” regime change wars have been a “disaster.” He described the foreign policy of “forever war” as immoral, as well as costly in human lives and in financial terms.
Asking the remarkable question “why can’t we stop genociding Christians?” Vance’s epochal speech was titled “What a Foreign Policy For the Middle Class Looks Like: Realism and Restraint Amid Global Conflict.”
This is a policy of peace and security sold to Americans in terms they understand. It is the bottom line, and the strength of America.
Reality-based politics is a novelty to Americans, and it is being marketed in familiar terms to produce the results the voters desire. It is presented as “peace through strength,” but the cost-benefit analysis is no mere sales tactic.
Permanent war has bankrupted the West. The new international relations are not only a moral imperative, nor even simply a return to sanity – this is an emergency exit from otherwise certain disaster in financial and military terms. Whether at home or abroad, it is war or peace, conflict or resolution, anarchy or order.
Something had to be done.
It is reality itself which has made this argument. Neither Trump nor Vance – nor anyone in Washington – can dictate terms beyond capability. The old model simply exceeded its limits, leaving a world in chaos – at home and abroad. Balance is returning, with the customary sales pitch of a beloved American huckster.
There will be peace in Ukraine and there will be a new order in Europe to secure it. Another view from former British diplomat Alastair Crooke made for startling news yesterday – the Trump administration wants “regime change” in Britain and in Germany:
“It seems as if they’re intent on regime change in Germany and Britain.”
Crooke explained, “It looks very much as if the Trump team is going to engineer a change in both those countries to be more closely aligned with the Trump vision of the future.”
“Many Europeans welcome” this, said Crooke, “including me.”
With elections in Germany next month, a Trump-friendly AfD is far ahead of all three former parties of government. Germany’s government spokesman has struck out at Elon Musk, saying his declaration that “only the AfD can save Germany” amounts to “election interference.”
The AfD has pledged to renegotiate energy deals with the Russians and has been strictly opposed to the Ukraine war. Though “no party will work with it” in government, these parties are the warmongers of the old insecurity order.
I think this should be kind of a big deal: @elonmusk tweeting at 1:03am, “Only the AfD can save Germany.”
The AfD is Germany’s neo-Nazi party.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 20, 2024
There is no future for their politics, and no power structure to project it under the new realism.
For the time being, we shall have to put up with the sales talk, but the product this time is life, not death – peace, not war, and sanity in place of the politics of fantasy.
What you are witnessing is regime change. For the West.
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