Every self-proclaimed Russia-expert in America — including the collective mainstream media whose finger in the wind on such questions has proven bent more than once — seemed to be tripping over one another in the immediate aftermath of Friday’s Alaska meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to call the high-stakes encounter a bust.
“Give me my show,” CNN’s Jake Tapper demanded in an embarrassing hot mic moment captured during a momentary broadcasting glitch from Alaska on Friday, just before turning to an inaudible feed from inveterate liar and once-censored congressman/now U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) for what would have likely been uninformed commentary had the network’s tech actually worked instead of misfiring twice in as many minutes.
Three days before the meeting actually happened, The New York Times panned it as a “Half-Baked Alaska Summit,” and then on Friday itself was the first out of the gate to denounce the meeting for not delivering an immediate ceasefire to the three and a half year old war.
And Maine’s own First District Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME) was similarly quick to denounce the Alaska rendezvous as resulting in “no progress” — which was rich for a career politician whose foreign policy chops consist largely of praising Cuba’s repressive dictatorship for its sustainable farming practices.
It seemed almost everyone had something nasty to say, and the majority of comments seemed to dwell on such substantial issues as State Department staff leaving OBE logistical notes on a hotel printer, the optics of U.S. servicemen adjusting the red carpet on which Putin would de-plane, or the fact that the Beltway’s ‘expert’ class of Russia pros was notably absent (and entirely unmissed) from all aspects of planning or pulling off the first meeting of American and Russian presidents in over six years.
Yet if Friday’s Alaska meeting was such a disaster, then why is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy en route to Washington right now, and why did British Prime Minister Keir Starmer say on Saturday that the talks there have “brought us closer than ever to ending the war”? Probably because neither statesman listens carefully enough to America’s chattering class.
While it is true that no immediate ceasefire was announced after the meeting, the otherwise cryptic statements the two presidents made were nonetheless interesting. Putin played toastmaster in a more edited and syrupy version of his thirty-minute history lecture that opened his interview with Tucker Carlson last year. Clearly, he relished being hosted like a head of state by someone other than his Chinese suzerain. But he said almost nothing about how a peace agreement might look other than affirming he ultimately wanted one. It was as if summit planners had read “Let Them.”
In contrast, Trump was remarkably measured — sure he let slip on the “Russia, Russia, Russia” rant and allowed a few words of typical overstatement about how great a future peace might be — but he seemed uncharacteristically restrained, as a New York real estate developer might be about a casino deal not yet sealed. All of this signaled that what was not said might be significant.
Sources say that Putin has backed off maximalist territory demands and is not wholly opposed to a “NATO-like” security guarantee for Ukraine. Those same sources suggest the prospect of, yes you read that right, some American troop presence was also discussed. He wants the Ukrainian government to lay off the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which it has all but outlawed in the last year, which could give him a moral victory at home. And the two presidents talked about the architecture of who is at the time for the next round of talks. But none of this can confirmed until, well, soon.
On the wall in my study hangs a White House photo no one else wanted in early 2009 when Bush relics were being purged for the glorious arrival of Obama. It depicts W and Putin standing on the lawn at Walker’s Point in Kennebunkport, soon after the president I served said something unfortunate about “look(ing) into Putin’s eyes and seeing his soul.” We don’t have a great track record of getting Russia right.
“So here’s the bottom line,” U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Mraco Rubio told NBC on Sunday, “We all know what the elements of such a deal – there has to be talk about what the territories are going to look like and what border lines are going to look like at the end of the conflict. There has to be talk about Ukraine’s legitimate desire for security in the long term to make sure they don’t get invaded again. There has to be talk about how Ukraine is rebuilt … These are the elements of any agreement.”
As Rubio stressed yesterday, actions matter here more than words. Peace is not a My Pretty Pony pageant and the concessions both sides will have to make are not going to be pretty, amenable to photo-ops or feel-good declarations. But, as the Gospel of Matthew suggests, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
If this war can be brought to and end, it is that which will matter most. Hope, the old saying goes, dies last.
