President Donald Trump is stuck in a game of chess.
On the one hand, the American leader wants to negotiate with the Russians and the Iranians, but neither the Russians nor the Iranians have anything relevant to bring for the the table.
- For the criminal regimes in Moscow and Tehran, holding on to the maxialist claims they have made from the very beginning is vital. The slightest indication that they are abdicating from them can rattle the foundations of these regimes, and in such conditions the risk of the entire regime collapsing could quickly become overwhelming.
- Putin cannot give up the territorial claims he has in Ukraine or the idea of reducing NATO’s footprint in Europe.
- The new supreme leader and the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards cannot give up the prospect of nuclear weapons, nor control over the Strait of Hormuz or the lifting of sanctions.
On the other hand, the US president needs concessions made by Ukraine to Russia and some “understanding” from the Israelis towards Iran, especially on the anti-Hezbollah front.
- But neither one nor the other can afford such a thing, regardless of what Donald Trump thinks or wants. Moreover, neither the U.S. president has the ability to impose his will on the Ukrainians nor Israelis today – on the contrary, both Ukraine and Israel have now acquired a relatively comfortable level of autonomy from the U.S. leadership in pursuit of their own interests.
- However, there is a remarkable difference between the Ukrainian and Israeli case, from the perspective of how their autonomy has evolved in relation to the Trump administration: Ukraine’s is rooted in the irrational support offered by the current White House, while Israe’s comes from the irrationally generous support offered by the White House.
- The irony of fate is that: Trump’s diametrically opposed approaches to Ukraine and Israel have brought the US leader to the same point – the dramatic loss of leverage, in both cases.
The situation on the ground, both in Ukraine-Russia area and the Middle East, faithfully reflects the dramatic situation Donald Trump is trapped in.
As they get more bogged down in Ukraine and see their own territory being penetrated by Ukraine’s drones, the Russians are trying to complicate the war by injecting aggression into the wider region, increasing the threat to other countries. So, where Trump has so far been unable to stop the war in Ukraine, his bankrupt policy risks from now on to fuel even an eventual expansion of it.
As they manage to keep traffic blocked through the Strait of Hormuz and still have access to a significant portion of their military arsenal, the Iranians are expanding the war throughout the Middle East and fueling a global and unprecedented distrust of the U.S. word and military-political capability.
For their part, the Ukrainians are becoming more and more effective in the fight against the Russians, no thanks to Trump, but in spite of the brakes put on Kiev by Trumpist Washington.
And the Israelis are showing more and more signs that, not infrequently, they act without bothering to consult their American ally. The recent incendiary dialogue between Trump and Netanyahu particularly illustrates this.
Basically, after a year and a half of peace negotiations on the Russian-Ukrainian war and after two months of negotiations with Iran, the US president is showing the world only one thing: that he is incapable.
Donald Trump is unable to move anything through negotiations on either front, at least not on his own. And as for the Middle East, Donald Trump can no longer move anything even through war.
And at home… well, at home Donald Trump can no longer move anything on any level; except for the electoral one, where he set off a formidable force to set voters in motion – but not the candidates in his own camp, but in the opposite camp.
UN reiterates warnings over ‘potential spillover’ of Ukraine war after drone incident in Romania
