Standing Tall

On Friday, as Ukraine was on the brink of signing a long-awaited peace deal in their war with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky engaged in a shouting match with President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. Trump called Zelensky “disrespectful” and said he was “gambling with World War III”. He subsequently threw Zelensky out of the Oval Office, and Zelensky left the White House without a deal. Trump said afterwards, “President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.” 

The usual suspects chimed in on the events. Adam Schiff defended Zelensky, saying that “he stood up to bullies”, proving once again that there has never been an issue that Schiff hasn’t been on the wrong side of. CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour said that Russian President Vladimir Putin was the “only winner.” Zelensky subsequently flew to London to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer who told him, “And as you heard from the cheers on the street outside, you have full backing across the United Kingdom. We stand with you, with Ukraine, for as long as it may take.” And what does “for as long as it may take” look like?

Does Zelensky and Starmer want to continue to fight? There is no scenario that Ukraine pushes Russia out of Ukraine without US military troops on the ground. Do we, the United States, want to put our troops on the frontlines of Ukraine and spend another $100 billion on that war? Do we want to lose thousands of our soldiers’ lives? I don’t. So, we can give them more money and weapons, and what will that do? Extend the war another 2-3 years, tens of thousands of more Ukrainian soldiers will be killed, tens of thousands of more Ukrainian civilians will be killed, more of Ukraine’s buildings and infrastructure will be destroyed that will need to be rebuilt, and we will end up in the exact same place where we are today, having to cut a peace deal with Russia where Ukraine concedes some of the disputed land – Crimea and the Donbas region – and a guarantee that Ukraine doesn’t join NATO. But some people in our country want Ukraine to continue to fight an unwinnable war.

Juxtapose the willingness of the left and the neo-cons to continue the war in Ukraine, to the same people who were screeching for a ceasefire in Gaza as Israel was on the brink of defeating Hamas. I find it quite telling that there was so much coverage of the civilian loss of life in Gaza, but essentially no coverage of the tens of thousands of civilians who have been killed or displaced throughout Ukraine. And one could make the argument that the Palestinian people who have been killed were to a certain extent complicit in that war which killed them because they were the ones who elected the terrorist organization Hamas – which started the war – to be their leaders, whereas, the innocent citizens in Ukraine who have been killed, had nothing to do with electing Russia President Vladimir Putin, who called for the invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian people are truly the innocent civilians, but no one says a word about them. The peace deal in Russia makes sense. A cease-fire with Hamas never made sense.

It seems that the left and the neo-cons want to continue the unwinnable wars and call for a truce on the winnable wars. As evil as I believe Vladamir Putin to be, Hamas is ten times worse. But the left and the neo-cons were willing to cut deals with Hamas but want to extinguish Putin. Why? Because a ceasefire in Gaza continues that war. A ceasefire with Hamas just gives Hamas a chance to reorganize and reload. Hamas will attack Israel again, like they always do, probably two to three years from now, and we will be at war in the Middle East again, just like the neo-cons like it. The neo-cons do not want a peace deal in Russia because that will end that war once and for all. Regardless of what you think of Vladimir Putin, he is a rational actor while Hamas consists entirely of irrational actors. You make deals with rational actors; you destroy irrational actors. But the left and the neo-cons want to do the exact opposite. Why? Because they want war. They want endless war. You can’t have peace deals when people want endless wars.

It was a brilliant deal put together by Trump and it is amazing that Zelensky could not or chose not to see it. The mineral rights deal gives the United States a vested interest in protecting Ukraine against Russia’s further expansion into that region while also preventing those minerals from going to Russia or China. And Russia will be less likely to try to expand west with the United States presence there. It is a win all the way around, except for maybe Zelensky himself.

To a certain extent, Zelensky wants war unless he gets an unconditional surrender from Vladimir Putin which he will never get. Remember, Zelensky canceled the Presidential election in Ukraine because of the war. Does anyone believe he would have canceled the election if he knew he would have been reelected? Of course not. He would have wanted to hold the election if he knew he would have won because that would have solidified his power and unified his country during wartime. Zelensky knows that if the war ends with this peace deal where they concede some of the disputed lands that would be viewed by many in Ukraine as a defeat and help ensure that he loses the next Presidential election. So Zelensky is extending this war to hold onto power. He only wants a resolution to this war that would ensure his re-election, and the sad part is that he will never get it, and some delusional people in this country think he can.

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Mr. Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.