The Social World

Category: Politics

  • Why Iran needs the Maduro regime

    Why Iran needs the Maduro regime

    The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford and three warships have been sent to the Caribbean, where they are joining a dozen Navy warships already off the coast of Venezuela, in an unprecedented show of military force.

    President Trump and his administration are taking aim at the administration of Nicolas Maduro, over his alleged role in the drug trade which presents a national security threat to the United States. It’s clear that if the US succeeds in destabilizing and displacing President Maduro’s regime, it would be a blow to the region’s drug traffickers. What is less known is that it would also hit Iran.

    Venezuela has long served as a launchpad for Iranian operations to establish a foothold in South America. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), its Quds Force, and Iran’s Intelligence Ministry have all had a presence in Venezuela. The Quds Force has used economic delegations to Venezuela and other countries around the world as cover for terrorist activity. According to reports, in September 2020 an Iranian delegation landed in Caracas comprised of businessmen who acted as Quds Force facilitators.

    The Quds Force’s Unit 840, which plots terror schemes abroad, has historically been active in Venezuela. Evidence suggests the son of a senior intelligence advisor close to the supreme leader was at one point responsible for Unit 840’s Latin America operations. He has traveled to Venezuela to nurture these illicit networks. His presence shows the importance of Caracas for Iran.

    Another Quds Force group, Unit 11000, was recently implicated in a plan to assassinate Israel’s Ambassador to Mexico. Critically, a Unit 11000 operative who spearheaded the plot operated out of Iran’s embassy in Caracas. This is a strategy Tehran has employed elsewhere, particularly Europe, where IRGC Quds Force and intelligence agents are given diplomatic cover and use of Iran’s embassies worldwide as a staging ground for assassinations, bombings and surveillance.

    Another arm of the Iranian state, its intelligence ministry, also works out of Venezuela. Majid Dastjani Farahani, who is an Iranian intelligence officer, has launched operations to harm American citizens in retaliation for the killing of the late IRGC Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani. Farahani is wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and its notice indicates he has ties to Venezuela. It’s the same for Mohammad Mahdi Khanpour Ardestani, another Iranian intelligence ministry officer, who has also worked out of Venezuela.

    In a 2021 indictment concerning a plot to kidnap Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad from New York, Iranian operatives researched seizing her and transfer her to Venezuela by sea. The Quds Force has also used Venezuela to fund its campaigns, sending gold from Caracas to generate income in exchange for Iranian oil. In 2024, the US Justice Department successfully seized a former Iranian-owned Boeing aircraft. It had been transferred from the Quds Force-affiliated Mahan Air to a Venezuelan cargo airline. Its crew included a former IRGC commander.

    Iran’s proxy Hezbollah has also used Venezuela as a hub to support its own terrorism, drug trafficking and business interests. For example, Ghazi Nasr Al Din, whom the US Treasury Department sanctioned in 2008, doubled as charge d’ affaires at the Venezuelan embassy in Syria and director for political aspects at its embassy in Lebanon. At the same time, he facilitated travel for Hezbollah operatives and raised funds in Venezuela for the terrorist organization.

    A former member of the Venezuelan National Assembly and Maduro ally Adel El Zabayar was indicted in 2020, with the US government alleging he served as a go-between in recruiting terrorists from Hezbollah and Hamas to carry out terror attacks on the United States.

    Likewise, Iran’s defense ministry has maintained its own pipeline in Venezuela. Qods Aviation Industries, which is a defense ministry subsidiary, has exported drones to Caracas, including the Mohajer-2.

    The defense ministry also manages an oil venture with Venezuela to fund defense projects, according to the US Treasury. In 2023, the US government sanctioned Iran’s then-defense attaché in Caracas for facilitating these deals.

    Public reports also suggest Iran has developed a drone development base at El Libertador Air Base, where it trains Venezuelan military personnel. As the Trump administration has intensified its pressure campaign against Caracas in recent months, Venezuela has asked Iran for “passive detection equipment,” GPS scramblers, and “almost certainly drones with 1,000 km range,” according to the Washington Post.

    Over the years, Maduro has reportedly sought missiles from Iran as well. The possibility of this triggered a crisis for the Biden administration in the summer of 2021, after Iranian warships headed for the region.

    If Maduro is ousted, Iran stands to lose many of its assets in Venezuela. Venezuela, much like Syria under the Assad regime, helps further Iranian interests across the region – military, terror, economic, and political. At a time when Tehran and its proxies across the Middle East have been weakened after the war with Israel, the loss of Maduro would be another blow to the Iranian regime.

  • Zelensky risks coup or civil war

    Zelensky risks coup or civil war

    Kyiv

    When is the price of peace ever fair? War does not determine who is right, only who is left, Bertrand Russell wisely observed. Very often conflicts come down to a numbers game – and on the numbers Ukraine is losing. Despite losing more soldiers, Russia is winning on the battlefield and unlike Ukraine hasn’t even begun mass mobilization. 

    Donald Trump’s proposed peace deal won’t turn the clock back on Ukraine’s borders, or compensate Ukraine for Russian aggression and war crimes, or even punish Putin personally for starting a horrific and needless war that has claimed as many as 500,000 lives. If anything, the deal rewards him. 

    But Trump hopes his proposal will draw a line in the sand to stop the relentless bloodshed.  

    That is not a redline that Volodymyr Zelensky appears prepared to sign up to, though. In an urgent address to the nation on Friday night, Zelensky said this was “one of the most difficult moments in our history.” The choice was, “a life without freedom, dignity and justice, while being expected to trust someone who has already attacked us.” The current price of peace, on the terms of the 28-point plan, is too high for him. 

    Zelensky is at least engaging with the peace process and will talk with Trump later this week. Yet however tough his talks with Trump are, they will be far easier than the conversations he will have with his own countrymen and within his own parliament. It is hard if not impossible to find a single voice in Ukraine that backs the peace plan in the current form, or even in a diluted form.

    A source close to Zelensky, from his ruling Servant of the People party, said the existing plan risks fracturing the country. “It’s a stupid decision. If he doesn’t change it, he will lose the party. 

    “Local governments might say this deal is a betrayal, this is not a good deal and we do not recognize it. They could declare themselves as separate entities, while other parts might respect the deal. There will be a lot of violence during the process.”

    Others in the parliament agree.  “The lives of the people who live in the areas that we have to give away will be ruined, their culture, their religion, they face torture and deportation to Russia where they will be forced to join the military and fight against Ukraine,” Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, a deputy in the opposition European Solidarity party, told me. “This deal shows that might is right. It will be impossible to ratify.”

    Chief among concerns is how the military might react to a bad deal. It is feared that soldiers who have lost friends in hard-fought battles over land they are being told to hand back might take matters into their own hands – and could even be prepared to stage a military coup.

    “If Zelensky agrees to this deal or one like it, he’d have to worry about the more nationalistic and patriotic units,” Harry, 27, from the American Midwest, who is serving with the Ukrainian infantry told me. “I’ve served with these guys, they are elite, big dudes full of steroids who love their country. Units like Azov, the 3rd assault, they would take exception. I don’t know how far it would go, but it could be anything from a demonstration to a full coup.”

    The displeasure of soldiers and veterans could be expressed in snap elections that the peace plan states must happen within 100 days of an agreement being reached. This would effectively be a referendum on Zelensky and the deal that he has struck. It is at this moment that the entire power dynamics of the country will likely change and could see veterans enter the parliamentary system in a significant way.

    The thorniest issue of all is the proposal to surrender land, as yet unconquered by Russia, to Russia. The plan calls for Ukraine to cede the eastern Donbas region and accept Russia’s de facto control of other parts of Ukraine where the frontline would be frozen. In reality, it would mean an evacuation of these areas and be the bitterest of pills for a proud country to swallow.  

    A proposed security guarantee might be a marginally easier sell. The US has presented the Ukrainians with a draft agreement of a security guarantee modeled on NATO’s Article 5, which would commit the US and European allies to treat an attack on Ukraine as an attack on the “transatlantic community.” If formalized, the agreement would mean that if Russia were to try to repeat its attempted capture of Kyiv in 2022, this time it would be met by the armies of the US and Europe. Under the plan, Ukraine would have to give up aspirations to join NATO, but in reality they would become a de facto member. 

    NATO troops would be banned from Ukrainian soil under the plan, but they could be based on the border in Poland, armed to the teeth with modern weapons and war planes and ready to roll at a moment’s notice if Russia attacks Ukraine. An arrangement that will also help to sharpen European militaries that are rusty and reduced since the end of the Cold War. 

    And while Ukraine would have to accept a significant reduction in its army from 900,000 to 600,000, most members of society are now military trained – every citizen is supposed to be either in the military or for the military – and, like Israel, could mobilize large numbers of civilians very quickly.    

    The negative reaction to the proposal within Ukraine could, of course, just be the first stage of grief and eventually Ukrainians will come to terms with Trump’s offer, or an offer modeled on it. But if they don’t agree to his timeline, Trump has threatened to cut the supply of weapons and intelligence.  

    And in typical fashion, he also offered a financial inducement. Ukraine will get $100 billion from frozen Russian assets to help rebuild the shattered country. This will be invested in a joint fund with the US; both will share the profits. Peace is profitable.

    The biggest obstacle to this deal progressing any further is not really Zelensky but the people of Ukraine. By and large, they believe that in practice the deal would offer only a temporary ceasefire, and allow Russia to regroup before launching another effort to reunite the Russian Empire. History would tend to agree with them.  

    The staunch patriotism of Ukrainians should command the respect of the world. Ukraine is a proud nation that prioritizes nothing more than dignity. There can be defeat, they say, as long as it comes with dignity. This deal is short on dignity; it is fair to say it is dishonorable. But Ukrainians must also be aware that they are losing the war. Are they also going to lose this opportunity to at least explore peace?

  • Will Mamdani and Trump turn the volume up?

    Will Mamdani and Trump turn the volume up?

    Donald Trump is famous for being willing to meet anyone – Russia’s Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, Syria’s al-Jolani – and even New York’s Zohran Mamdani. 

    The mayor-elect of the city of Trump’s birth will travel to Washington today for an audience with the Commander in Chief, and America’s journalists are furiously tapping away in anticipation of a big “showdown.”

    The two men have spent months insulting each other. Trump calls Mamdani a “communist” (which the New York Times factchecks as false, naturally, because Zohran identifies as a “democratic socialist”) and has suggested, to much liberal apoplexy, that he “may not be here legally.” Trump also says that he is “much better looking,” which is funny, and has proposed sending in the National Guard in to Mamdani’s New York and withholding more billions in federal funding for the city. When asked about Mamdani’s defiant rhetoric against his policies on immigration, Trump replied: “Well, then, we’ll have to arrest him.”

    Mamdani, for his part, presented his successful election campaign as an explicit rebuke of Trumpism. In a belligerent victory speech on November 4, he declared: “Donald Trump, since I know you are watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up.”

    “If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him,” he added, “it is the city that gave rise to him.” He’s also suggested making New York a “sanctuary city” for an “LGBTQ community” that loathes Trump and has proposed hiring 200 lawyers to stand up to “presidential excess.”

    White House officials have not clarified whether reporters and cameras will be invited in to see the two men interact, so we won’t know until later if the world is about to witness another Oval Office bust-up, similar to the now infamous scenes with Zelensky and Cyril Ramaphosa. Trump, with his penchant for ratings, may well be keen to engineer one. 

    That said, Trump has a strange habit of playing nice when expected to be nasty, and he has reportedly said in private that he admires Zohran’s political talents. He’s winner, after all. On Wednesday, apparently at the behest of some of his closest New York friends, Trump said he would be “willing to help him a little bit maybe.”

    Mamdani has this week been doing his best to sound civil, too. “I will work with the President if he wants to work together on his campaign promises of cheaper groceries or a lower cost of living,” he said this week. Mamdani also this week pointed out that tens of thousands of Trump voters also supported him because they both pledged to tackle “affordability.” And that’s the point about voters in this so-called age of populism: many are quite happy to switch from a so-called “fascist” to a so-called “communist” if they think it might make life less expensive.

    Mamdani should want to find some accommodation with Trump over federal funding, of course. But he may want to give his fans the exciting public clash which everyone seems so eager for. As Mamdani said yesterday, “If the president looks to come after the people of this city, then I will be there standing up for them every step of the way.” He appears to have a talent for turning up the volume, as well as muddled metaphors.

  • Will the Russia peace deal backfire on Trump?

    Will the Russia peace deal backfire on Trump?

    Kyiv

    The rumor reverberating around Kyiv is that the FBI has been leaning on Ukrainian anti-corruption police to investigate Zelensky’s inner circle in order to force him to swallow the bitter US peace deal. Trump, as they say, has put the screws, or the feds, on Zelensky.

    The National Anti-Corruption Bureau – which is unravelling a $100 million war-profiteering scandal that has implicated many of Zelensky’s closest political allies – has denied the accusation point blank, and there’s not a single shred of evidence that it is true.

    Nevertheless, Mykola Kniazhytskyi, a member of the opposition in the Ukrainian parliament and hardly a friend of Zelensky, told me, “A lot of people are saying anti-corruption bodies are taking orders from the United States to undermine Zelensky, to make him do the deal.”

    That the rumor exists and has gained currency within the country crystallizes how Ukrainians have come to view their relationship with America: where once they looked east to find a belligerent state using its secret police to try to control their country, now they look west. 

    The rumor also reveals how Ukrainians regard democracy and its guardian institutions: they don’t much care for them right now. In a time of war, the fight against corruption is subordinate to survival. It’s heretical in Ukraine to suggest that the country might benefit from elections to give its leader a democratic mandate and a stronger arm to bargain with. Elections would be complicated to stage during, no doubt, but they were managed during the US Civil War in 1864, so why not now? Ukrainians – even those who despise Zelensky – shrug at the suggestion and say, first, defeat the existential threat.    

    However, the rumor does convey one probable truth: that Trump is desperate to make a peace deal happen at almost any cost, as he has been promising the world he would end the war for years. 

    The proposed deal, which in its current state would codify Putin’s maximalist demands, would be a political death sentence if Zelensky were to accept it. Russian would become an official state language, the Ukrainian army (already too small to fend off Russian aggression) would be slashed by 60 percent, land in the Donbas – as yet unconquered – would be given away and many foreign weapons and all foreign troops would be banned from holding the peace. 

    “It is a plan for the capitulation of Ukraine, agreed by the US,” a Ukrainian party leader told me. There is neither a majority in the parliament for the deal, nor in the country.  

    Yet there are some who are cautiously optimistic. They dare to think that politics is back. First, the anti-corruption investigation has applied defibrillator paddles to the moribund parliament, shocking it back into life. Deputies are demanding the head of Andriy Yermak – Zelensky’s chief of staff who is accused of siphoning off funds earmarked for building defenses to protect Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. If he goes, it is hoped a full-scale clean-out of dead wood will follow. Not exactly a general election, but at least a political change. So far Zelensky is refusing to bow to pressure and fire Yermak. This has only increased speculation that Zelensky himself may have something to hide. 

    There would be necessary compromises on both sides, but the 28-point plan might actually work. It is a starting point for serious negotiations.

    A senior source close to Zelensky, who worked on the failed Russian-Ukraine peace deal in 2022 told me, “Trump is the only person in the world right now who wants to end the war. We choose to fight rather than surrender. Putin has his own plans to continue. China wants to supply both sides. Europe wants us to fight the Russians so they don’t have to. Only Trump is serious about peace.”

    But how much is the famously conciliatory Vladimir Putin really willing to compromise on? He has the whip hand. His troops are on the march, slowly taking land in the Donbas and the southern flank Zaporizhzhia. He is paralyzing the Ukrainian energy grid with strikes, plunging the country into cold and darkness as winter bites. (As I write this, my Kyiv hotel is briefly hit by a blackout before the backup generator kicks in. Across the city people access an app to find out their daily allowance of electricity, usually three hours in the morning, three at lunch and three in the evening.)

    Trump hopes that his new sanctions will help bring Putin to heel, even though the old ones didn’t really bite and history tells us that Russians are no strangers to suffering and dying for their country – and now they have state propaganda telling them they are fighting a just war against a Nazi threat.

    Zelensky has cautiously welcomed the plan, saying he is ready for “honest work” with the US to “bring about a just end to the war.” He said he will speak to Trump soon to discuss it. 

    The devil, as always, is in the detail. The document states that Ukraine will be given “reliable security guarantees,” but some commentators have questioned if that is possible if NATO troops are banned from Ukrainian soil, certain classifications of weapons are forfeited and the Ukrainian army is effectively neutered. Sources close to the president’s office, however, believe this issue can be circumvented by having rapid reaction NATO forces stationed in Poland and also by building large arms warehouse in Poland with vast stores of weapons that can be accessed in an emergency. If similar creative solutions can be found for other issues there is a glimmer of hope.

    However, if a good deal cannot be struck there may be danger for Trump. So far, many Americans have ignored the media’s attempts to characterize his high-risk strategy of engaging with both sides as appeasement, or that he is in the pocket of Putin. They understand that you don’t make peace with your enemies – and that sometimes heads need to be knocked together. The process is infinitesimally less important than the outcome. Yet the benefit of the doubt they have afforded Trump may be withdrawn if it appears that he is trying to ram a capitulation deal down the neck of the plucky Ukrainian nation standing up to the world’s number one bully.

    Zelensky can’t sell the current proposal to his nation, nor can Trump sell it to his. Of course, Trump can always simply walk away if it falls apart and blame everyone else, which is possibly the most likely outcome at this stage. Yet it may yet turn out that in even brokering this proposed pact, Trump has become party to a Faustian bargain.

  • Was the BBC’s Trump edit outrageously wrong?

    Was the BBC’s Trump edit outrageously wrong?

    I should begin by making something clear. Splicing together two parts of a speech to give the impression they were one unbroken excerpt is a grave professional error, and would be viewed as such by any broadcaster in the business. The error would be egregious even if there were no suggestion it reinforced the accusation that Donald Trump was inciting riotous behavior, simply because what viewers thought they witnessed did not occur. There is no excusing what the BBC did to Donald Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech.

    Nobody in the senior ranks of the BBC is to blame for not knowing about this at the time; but once it did become known, an immediate and unconditional apology should have been made. Crisply and severely dealt with, the story could have been contained, and it’s for their failure to get on the front foot after a bad mistake that the Corporation has deserved censure. Please, therefore, do not think me an apologist either for misconduct in the making of the Panorama program, or for the BBC’s handling of the scandal.

    But about the effect in practice of this splicing, I’m less sure. I’ve read verbatim the entire speech. It’s peppered with the imagery of battle. “Fight,” “fighting” etc occur throughout, and though the combative language may have been used metaphorically, the effect of the repetition is undoubtedly to stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood. Though Trump did once (and only once) tell the crowd they were going “to peacefully and patriotically” protest, the violence of his language all through the speech, and his repeated suggestion that America itself was under attack and his and the crowd’s mission was to “save” the country – along with sentences like “We fight like hell! And if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country any more!” – can plausibly be interpreted as being calculated (in the legal sense of the word) to inflame the marchers. His later urging of his supporters to “remain peaceful” could equally be interpreted as implicit recognition that he had started a riot.

    I do not myself believe that Trump had a plan to provoke violence, but I do suspect he was careless whether he had that effect. I think too that, on the evidence, the accusation that he did know what he was doing would be fair comment on a matter of intense public interest.

    That, presumably, was the argument Panorama were rehearsing, and entitled to rehearse. And in doing so by splicing, they fell into a type of self-justification that does not infect the BBC alone but can be encountered everywhere in the media – though notably less in newspapers than the audiovisual media.

    Are you familiar with the word “truthiness?” The expression (I read) was invented by Stephen Colbert in The Colbert Report 20 years ago. He was making fun of media professionals who justify the purveying of untruths by explaining that if the purpose of journalism is to reveal a greater truth, then we may deploy a degree of artifice in our methods. If it feels true, if it conveys a truth without being itself literally true, then never mind the absolute truth: it has truthiness.

    Despicable? Do not imagine that the pursuit of truth through truthiness always feels outrageously wrong. Let me give you the most anodyne of examples, employed by the closest we have in Britain to a television saint: David Attenborough. Sir David once told me that, in a TV sequence showing reindeer migrating across snowfields in Lapland, long-lens cameras were used to zoom in on the herd from a considerable distance. Viewers would be able to see the reindeer close up. No problem with that. But if they were to be seen close up, viewers would expect to hear them close up too. For this, Sir David confided, dry custard powder and a pestle and mortar did the trick wonderfully. The sound, being almost indistinguishable from the real thing, had truthiness.

    I find it hard to get indignant about that. But this is a slippery slope. Attenborough had been criticized for taking us, his viewers, into a snow tunnel to see a baby polar bear nurtured by its mother. Well, mother polar bears do nurture baby bears in tunnels in the snow. But in the arctic, how would you get a camera in to capture the scene? So the program used a constructed maternal scene, viewed through a glass panel in a Dutch zoo, while Attenborough talked about the wild, which viewers thought they were seeing. I feel uncomfortable about this, but I reckon (and TV professionals reckon) most viewers would be fairly relaxed about not being told. The bear nursery we saw had truthiness.

    During the last century, in the depth of John Major’s troubles as Britain’s prime minister, the news media started using a photograph of him, head sunk in his hands. Sir John has told me he was in fact bored, and shielding his eyes from the lights while attempting a limerick on a notepad beneath the desktop. So the image’s implication was false. But it had truthiness.

    Down the slippery slope we go, until we reach Trump in that Save America speech. Its effect was incendiary: to inflame his roaring crowd of supporters (“We love you! We love you!”) they kept chanting. I’d submit that there was nothing dishonest about a documentary arguing that Trump was whipping his supporters into a riotous mood. That is believed by many. And he did shout: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you.” And then at another point in his speech he did shout: “And we fight! We fight like hell!” And if run together, you do get the impression he was at the very least careless about what he was starting. And if that is what the program–makers were arguing in good faith, then to them the splicing had truthiness. I too find the possibility truthy. But beware of that innocent-looking little y.

  • Witkoff’s Ukraine peace proposal is unworkable

    Witkoff’s Ukraine peace proposal is unworkable

    With Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s political authority already under grave assault in the wake of a major corruption scandal, he now faces a new challenge – this time from his erstwhile ally, the United States. A high-level US delegation led by army secretary Daniel Driscoll is meeting Zelensky in Kyiv today to present the latest version of a peace plan aimed at ending the war.

    The contents of the plan have not been officially revealed and so far it has not been publicly endorsed by Donald Trump. But two things are already clear. One is that there’s nothing new in it. And two, there’s nothing good in it for Zelensky.

    The latest plan was thrashed out during a series of secret meetings between Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev and his US counterpart Steve Witkoff in Florida earlier this month. The details of the 28-point proposal were leaked yesterday to Axios, apparently by the Russian side, and accidentally confirmed by Witkoff himself who tweeted that the reporter “must have got this from K.” Presumably, Kirill Dmitriev himself.

    The plan differs little from previous proposals already rejected by the Ukrainians and is, in essence, a restatement of the maximalist demands with which Vladimir Putin began the war. One clause demands that Ukraine cede the remainder of the Donbas region that Russia has so far failed to occupy, another calls for Kyiv to cut its armed forces by half and reduce or altogether abandon certain types of weaponry, particularly long-range missiles that could hit targets in Russia. Kyiv would also have to agree to reduce or halt Nato military assistance and ban Nato boots on the ground in any form – thus scuppering any chance of a peacekeeping force envisioned by the Franco-British-led “coalition of the willing.” In terms of domestic policy Ukraine would be required to recognize Russian as an official state language – in fact something supported by Zelensky when he was first voted into power in 2019 as a candidate who could reach a compromise with Moscow. The deal also demands that Kyiv grants formal status to the Russian Orthodox church, which the Zelensky government had targeted as an agent of Kremlin influence.

    The deal is “exactly what Putin has always demanded – de-Nazification, demilitarization and partition,” says a former senior member of the Zelensky administration who is currently in Kyiv. “What did we fight for, if only to arrive back where we were at the beginning… People will ask, who made us spill our blood?”

    The proposals on the table today in Kyiv are, without a doubt, far worse for Ukraine than any of the Minsk accords signed in 2014-15 but rejected by many Ukrainian nationalists. Indeed, when Zelensky came close to doing a deal on the breakaway republics of Donbas in October 2019 and again in 2021-22, an active and aggressive “Resistance to Capitulation Movement” linked to the Security Service of Ukraine threatened Zelensky with a “veterans’ Maidan” if he “capitulated” to Russia.

    The terms are also harsher than the draft peace deal discussed in Istanbul in March and April 2022 but abandoned by Ukraine as being too punitive.

    Even in the extremely unlikely event that Zelensky were forced into signing away the Ukrainian-held part of the Donbas, the moment he did so Ukraine would become instantly ungovernable. Frontline Ukrainian units who have fought for years to hold the so-called “fortress belt” of cities from Sloviansk to Kramatorsk would likely refuse orders to withdraw. “This [deal] demands that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians be forcibly evacuated from their homes or handed into Russian captivity,” says the Ukrainian official, who spent two years as a member of Zelensky’s cabinet. “There is no way our forces would abandon these people… and government that signed such a deal would be treated as traitors and overthrown.”

    The demand for a pull-back in Donbas makes the Witkoff-Dmitriyev plan, as it stands, politically and militarily impossible to implement. Which raises crucial questions: is Putin deliberately insisting on an unworkable deal because he does not want peace? Or are some parts of his demands, for instance the remainder of Donbas, a negotiating position he is prepared to abandon?

    Another question is why the US is pushing for this deal in the full knowledge that neither Zelensky nor any other Ukrainian president could ever agree to it. Acquiescing to the partition along the line of control is already politically painful and perilous enough – but demanding a voluntary withdrawal from lands successfully defended by the blood of thousands of young Ukrainians is a deal-breaker. It’s possible that Trump wants to wash his hands of the whole Ukrainian mess and walk away, blaming Zelensky’s supposed intransigence. It’s also possible this is just another zig-zag in Trump’s diplomatic slalom over Ukraine, sliding back and forth between threats to Zelensky and threats to Putin. It’s not even clear whether Trump or Secretary of State Marco Rubio even fully endorse the latest plan, with their respective spokesmen remaining resolutely tight lipped.

    One thing is clear – this is not a proposal that Zelensky can sign. But with the front lines slowly advancing westward, his own political credibility crumbling under allegations of outrageous war profiteering against his closest allies, money running out, and Russian assaults on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure increasing in accuracy and impact, Zelensky is also running out of options.

  • Marjorie Taylor Greene: anti-Trump resistance hero?

    Marjorie Taylor Greene: anti-Trump resistance hero?

    It is always interesting to see who the American left claims are the leaders of the American right.

    There was a time during President Trump’s first term when Steve Bannon fit the role – and relished playing it. Back then most days brought another media profile of the dark genius of the MAGA movement. The Guardian, New York Times and others were obsessed. Vanity Fair would send reporters to follow Bannon as he conquered America and, er, Europe. Documentary crews were perennially in tow. Indeed one documentary following Bannon around included a scene in which they followed him to the showing of another documentary about him from a crew who had similarly followed him around. At which point you felt that we might fall into some kind of vortex.

    The point is that Bannon was useful for the left. And he in turn found the left useful.

    Around the same time there was a less savory figure called Richard Spencer. The self-professed white nationalist was portrayed as being close to the center of power on the right. After he led a motley band of supporters in a farcical “Hail Trump” session, the left became especially obsessed. But Spencer was never important on the American right, let alone anywhere close to power. It merely suited a section of the media to present him as a bigger presence than he was.

    In the recent furore over the avowedly racist and Holocaust-denying podcaster Nick Fuentes, a similar process seems to be taking place. Fuentes does in fact have some purchase on parts of the young American right – mainly, it seems, because of his delight in never seeing a taboo he does not wish to trample on. Still, it was striking that when the New York Times ran a piece about him earlier this month, it led with a black and white photograph that made him look positively James Dean-esque. Needless to say, Fuentes does not in any way resemble the late film heartthrob. But for some reason the Times decided to portray him in this light. While the American right is fighting to keep Fuentes out of their ranks, the Times seems keen on slipping him right in there.

    The latest person to enjoy a similar transmogrification is Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Until recently you would have been hard-pushed to find a kind word said on the American left about the blonde MAGA Congresswoman. Even most of the American right found her an embarrassment for her behavior on committees and on the floor of the House, as well as for some of her outlandish past social media posts. The kindest thing I ever heard a MAGA figure say about her was that she had a tendency “to get a little too far over her skis.”

    Now she is suddenly acceptable. She is on all the left-wing talk shows. CNN has interviewed MTG (as she is sometimes known) sympathetically, and listened with sincerity as she has decried the use of “toxic” rhetoric in politics. The fact that “toxic” was practically MTG’s only brand until yesterday would ordinarily lead to an outburst of skepticism on the US left. But MTG has become “acceptable” because of one thing and one thing alone – which is that the American left sees that she might just have become useful in their war to bring down President Trump.

    MTG has recently turned against Trump and the two have traded barbs. Which is quite the turnaround for MTG, who had previously been one of those MAGA loyalists who seemed to discern no clear water between Trump and their Lord and Savior.

    The apparent cause of MTG’s turn on the President is the Jeffrey Epstein case. Far be it from me to accuse MTG of being conspiracy-minded, but she is one of those people who believe that absent the release of every file and email that has ever existed relating to Epstein, we are all being lied to about some very major scandals.

    The whole Epstein thing is murky as hell, but it is a scandal which promises to deliver more than it actually does. The problem at the moment is that the controversy has once again focused on Trump. The President’s own friendship with Epstein pretty clearly ended some 20 years ago – long before Epstein’s criminal activity became fully known about. They mixed in the same circles, not least because Epstein mixed in just about every circle of the rich and famous.

    But ever since Trump returned to office a portion of the left and some Trump-haters on the right seem to have decided that Epstein is the most viable tool to take out the President. You might say that Epstein is for Trump’s second term what fake claims of Russian collusion were to his first.

    Yet in order to believe that the Epstein Files contain some smoking gun against the President, you have to believe a number of things. Not least that the Biden administration sat on the Epstein files for four years but didn’t bother to search the material for compromising material on Trump, or that they did search them, found compromising material and chose not to use it – none of which sounds remotely plausible.

    Facing a backlash from Greene and others, Trump has now turned from dismissing the whole Epstein furor as a “hoax” to urging Republicans to get behind calls for full transparency. Which they duly did: on Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted 427-1 to compel the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. Trump must be pretty confident that there is nothing especially compromising about him, and that other people will come out of the information worse.

    To some extent that is already happening. The latest release of emails include a number between Epstein and the Trump-hating author Michael Wolff. In the run-up to the 2016 election (years after Epstein’s conviction), Wolff offered Epstein PR advice and seemed to be trying to collude with him to take down Trump. Not that Wolff has faced much censure for this. It seems it is OK to offer PR advice to a convicted sex offender so long as the cause is a noble, anti-Trump one.

  • Stacey Plaskett avoids Epstein Files repercussions… for now

    Stacey Plaskett avoids Epstein Files repercussions… for now

    Anyone who hopes that the forthcoming Epstein Files will mean the end of Donald Trump’s political career is sure to experience extreme disappointment in the weeks ahead. But The Files have a life of their own, and we’re still not yet entirely sure what story they’re telling us. Former Treasury secretary and Harvard president Larry Summers has already lost his New York Times column-writing gig, and just about everything else, as the Files revealed he texted Jeffrey Epstein, of all people, for dating advice. No one rushed to Summers’s side, as he’s basically out of active political life. You can’t say the same for Delegate Stacey Plaskett, who represents the US Virgin Islands in the House, who the Files have implicated…in something.  

    Epstein lived in The Virgin Islands, or at least had his primary residence there, so Plaskett was his congressperson. Documents from Epstein’s estate show that he and Plaskett exchanged text messages during a 2019 congressional hearing. Epstein actively coached her on how to question Michael Cohen, even sending the message “good work” when she asked a question he suggested.  

    To be clear: this had nothing to do with sex trafficking. But Republicans still introduced a resolution this week to censure Plaskett, saying she and Epstein had engaged in “inappropriate coordination.” In retaliation, Democrats threatened to censure Republican Cory Mills, currently accused of domestic violence and subject to a restraining order.  

    Republican Ralph Norman said Plaskett’s conduct “reflects discreditably on the House of Representatives,” which feels somewhat hard to do given how little credit people give the House, and that the censure would give the House Ethics Committee authority to investigate “the extent of Plaskett’s ties to Epstein and any potential further improprieties.” The measure failed, with three Republicans voting with Democrats, and three voting “present.”  

    Maryland’s Jamie Raskin, one of Trump’s most fervent opponents, said Plaskett merely “took a phone call from one of her constituents,” somehow neglecting to mention that said constituent was Jeffrey Epstein. But then he invoked the unholy name after all. “I don’t think it is the position of [Norman] that if we find Jeffrey Epstein on the phone with Donald Trump, that he should be impeached for it. That sounds like guilt by association.” 

    For her part, Plaskett said, “I don’t need to get advice on how to question anybody from any individual. I have been a lawyer for 30 years,” which in itself should be grounds for censure.  

    So if Trump isn’t going down with the Epstein Files ship, and Democrats refuse to turn on one of their own, who, exactly, will end up making the sacrifice, other than Larry Summers? Florida’s Anna Paulina Luna, a major backer of the Epstein Files release, asked, on the House floor, “why leadership on both sides, Democrat and Republican, are cutting back-end deals to cover up public corruption in the House of Representatives.” Good question. Colorado’s Lauren Boebert told her fellow Republicans, according to the Wall Street Journal, “This is why America hates us.” That’s not the only reason; there’s a reason why congressional approval is at an all-time low. Still, rats do have an uncommon ability to survive.  

  • America needs an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach to energy

    America needs an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach to energy

    While the House of Representatives has understandably been quiet during the government shutdown, not everyone has been idle.

    While most members of Congress were home in their districts, Representative Troy Balderson, an Ohio Republican, quietly introduced a short, potentially consequential piece of energy legislation called “The Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act.”

    “We the People” will celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday next Independence Day. And truth be told, we are crossing this milestone birthday showing our age. We are politically bipolar. We are in debt. Our infrastructure is crumbling and our schools are a mess. We are in need of several new leases on life.

    For starters, if America is to be made great again – by anyone’s definition – it will require a commonsense reordering of our approach to energy and electricity generation. Troy Balderson’s approach offers the kind of clear-eyed vision we need.

    Aimed as a corrective to the “Green New Deal” priorities that took hold during the Biden administration, the ARC would direct federal agencies to reorder their policies with attainable objectives aimed at increasing attainable and cost-effective domestic energy production – and providing benchmarks allowing for effective congressional oversight.

    The bill would formally require government regulators to prioritize these three words when evaluating energy projects: is it affordable? Is it reliable? Is it clean? Most politicians give lip-service to these concepts, but under current law they are left open to interpretation by the executive branch and they shift from one administration to the next, Balderson points out. His bill would essentially codify a true “all of the above” energy approach – and would benefit all Americans regardless of their ideological leanings.

    If enacted by Congress and signed by the President, his legislation would require the Department of Energy, Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency to submit a report to Congress within 180 days documenting what they are doing to incorporate all-of-the-above into our national energy strategy. Windmills and solar farms wouldn’t be suddenly sidelined. (On the other end of the energy scale, neither would coal.) But this bill would virtually assure that all viable, affordable, and reliable energy sources – including nuclear power and natural gas – remain in the nation’s energy mix. In other words, it replaces old habits and ideological fads with practicality as a way of supporting American families and businesses.

    I don’t question liberals’ commitment to a cleaner environment. But Democrats campaigned this fall on the need for “affordability” – and found a receptive electorate. This legislation would turn that rhetoric into action. And just as important to poor and middle-class families, it fuels our nation’s efforts to rebuild and onshore the energy sector that fuels economic growth.

    Greater reliance on natural gas and nuclear power will deliver green and clean dividends. ARC is a win, win, win. The status quo is a lose, lose, lose.

    Mine is a nonpartisan appeal for making this bill law. Legislators of America, let’s meet in the middle of the aisle. Without the re-ordering of energy interests in this bill – affordability first, reliability second, and clean third – our rate cards are going to go through the roof. The economy, the hopes of the American people, and their pursuit of happiness are predicated on considerably lower rates.

    The American ratepayer is the American family. And “We the People” – the payers – are suffering unnecessarily, and it is not by the hand of foreign actors beyond our democratic reach and control. It is being done by those who are supposed to represent us.

    My fellow Americans, lend me your ears for an ADHD minute. In the recent past, we have been governed by a shackling set of priorities. Clean energy has been in the driver’s seat, followed by affordability, and then reliability. This “CAR” approach has not delivered on its promises. And it is structurally incapable of getting us over the fast-approaching AI demand hill.

    The status quo CAR approach and mindset can’t even service the status quo. Look no further than New Jersey, which is having a voter revolt partly because of rising electricity costs. This is not a only a blue state problem. Georgia sent an affordability message on November 4 that should be a wake-up call for all red states, which like Texas have chased green subsidies. The rate increases are coming due for all.

    If we continue to follow our current energy priorities, brown-outs, economic stagnation and out-migration to energy-rich states will follow. “We the People” will all benefit from the passage of ARC Energy Security. Democrats, Republicans and independent voters will all benefit.

    What is our short-term future if we do nothing new? Take your present energy bill and multiply it by 2.3, which is the variance between American and British ratepayers in the business sector.

    New Jersey, what’s the midterm future of sticking with CAR? Give your present rate card woes about a 100 percent increase. This is what German ratepayers are gouged for – around 40 cents per kilowatt hour – to underwrite their country’s march towards deindustrialization.

    Texas and Florida – states with lower energy costs and the beneficiaries of out-migration from blue states that have gone green crazy – deduct money from your energy bill and think about what that money can do in the hands of citizens spending it in your state, and investing for retirement.

    AI’s appetite for reliable energy will require an energy-capacity building boom. The ARC approach will get us there; CAR will not. John Fetterman, Congressman Balderson needs a co-sponsor in the Senate. Senate Republicans will likely support this approach, but energy affordability and reliability should not be partisan concerns.

    In the second Trump administration, the President has issued various executive orders, and cabinet secretaries have put out their directives while incoming Democratic governor Mikie Sherrill has vowed to freeze utility costs. There’s a better way to govern – a better way to promote the general welfare and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

    Affordable, reliable and clean energy should be an issue that unites us at a time when unity is in short supply.

    David DesRosiers is the publisher of RealClear. This article is derived from a salon with Representative Balderson and a diverse group of reporters and energy experts.

  • Trump bromances MbS as Epstein Files loom

    Trump bromances MbS as Epstein Files loom

    The contrast could hardly have been starker. As Donald Trump palled around with Mohammed bin Salman in the newly gilded Oval Office, Congress was voting on a transparency act that would further expose Jeffrey Epstein’s grave misdeeds. Trump, who had worked overtime to try and quash the vote, was in his element with the Saudi crown prince. Transparency? Not a bit of it. Trump proclaimed that the crown prince “knew nothing” about the death of Jamal Khashoggi who was, after all, “extremely controversial,” the term that he often deploys to describe anyone he dislikes or finds nettlesome. 

    The hero, or, to put it more precisely, heroine, of the day was Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene is a profile in courage. She stood up for Epstein’s victims in an honorable and upright fashion that underscored the sordid nature of Trump’s attempt to suppress the release of the files in possession of the Justice Department. What those files will reveal is an open question. The likelihood that they will divulge anything incriminating about Trump seems slender – other than the fact that he has battled so ardently to prevent them from seeing the light of day.  

    In seeking to bury the files, Trump has been defending the very establishment that he professes to despise. Greene, in battling to ensure the release of the files, has revealed the rampant corruption in elite America, including the escapades of former Harvard president Larry Summers. Trump has referred to Greene as Marjorie “Traitor” Greene. She hit back today outside the US Capitol in the presence of Epstein’s victims, one of whom eloquently demanded that Trump stop seeking to politicize the brouhaha over the files.  

    According to Greene, “I fought for him for the policies and for America First. And he called me a traitor for standing with these women and refusing to take my name off the discharge petition. Let me tell you what a traitor is. A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves. A patriot is an American that serves the United States of Americans and Americans like the women standing behind me.” Strong words. 

    If Greene has been on something of a tear lately, she’s not the only one that has administered a shellacking to Trump. He has been suffering a number of defeats in other arenas. The latest arrived this afternoon when a Texas federal court struck down the state’s redistricting map that was designed to ensure an additional five Republican seats in Congress. The worst blow is that Trump originally appointed the judge who wrote the decision, Jeffrey V. Brown.  

    Trump’s remedy has been to retreat to foreign policy, where he effectively enjoys a form of suzerainty, at least for now. He’s been making noises about attacking Nigeria and Venezuela. For the next day or so, he will enjoy his bromance with the crown prince, escorting him to a grand dinner tonight. Meanwhile, he’s planning to sell him F-35 fighter jets, a move that Congress may seek to block, particularly since Israel is opposed to the deal. A lucrative real-estate deal also appears to be in the offing, no matter the public outcry. 

    Trump himself could not appear to be more blasé. MAGA, as Marjorie Taylor Greene put it, is being “ripped apart.” Trump, though, is enjoying hanging out with his new pal from Riyadh. “We talk at night. We can talk, I can call him almost any time,” Trump said. “He goes, ‘Hi, how are you doing.’ It’s like, the craziest times.” It is indeed.