The Oval Office bust up: there are no words
The behaviour of the Trump-Vance tag team was inexcusable - what now for Starmer’s peacemaking?
This is not a daily Substack - I aim for two a week max. But I don’t think it is possible to ignore what happened in the Oval Office yesterday. I was the most vile display of diplomatic bullying any of us have ever seen from political leaders, certainly before the world’s media. Perhaps politicians talk like this in private, but not in full public view.
The treatment of Zelensky, who is by no means perfect but is a brave man fighting a war to save his country against foreign aggression, was inexcusable. He may have been a tad forthright in his demands for a US military backstop to secure a peace deal - I know opposition leaders in Ukraine are saying that. But there can be no justification for the Trump-Vance tag team going at him with such evident loathing.
That scene will be repeated and repeated and remain a stain on America’s reputation for many years. We now see exactly what the world faces for as long as Trump remains the leader of what we used to call the Free World. It isn’t pretty. We were all hoping that the meeting with Zelensky, though tricky, would succeed at least as far as the peace-for-minerals deal is concerned Even that seems off the table now.
What will Starmer do? Well he has to keep his nerve. The calls for him to cancel the “unprecedented” second state visit are wrong-headed. That would only make the situation worse. So long as the Prime Minister has a line open to the White House he has to use it to calm tempers and try to resurrect the peace process. The one thing Trump is right about is that the killing has to stop, not least because Ukraine is running out of young men after 100,000 casualties.
What does Europe do? Well a lot more than passing empty resolutions and firing off angry tweets. Europe has to become a military force in its own right. Not an easy thing for the European Union to do since the EU is not a state. It does not have a command structure and an army having relied always off NATO. But that’s a busted flush also
The worst thing would be to send lots of ill-equipped soldiers to act as peacekeepers when there is no peace to keep. Yet as Russia tries to exploit this diplomatic disaster on the battlefield, and if America ceases military aid, the pressure will be immense on European counties to ‘do something’.
But what? All comments welcome!
Zelensky is not a native speaker of English and was at a disadvantage in a discussion with two native speakers. Whose decision was it to dispense with interpreters?
It was a shameful display and I agree that Zelensky was at a disadvantage not being a native English speaker. In future he might be better speaking through and interpreter. It would make the sort of verbal assault we saw more difficult because you cannot escalate your insults as JD Vance did fast enough to keep the arguement going.
Angela Merkel(whose mother taught English) and who spoke good English always had an interpreter and answered all questions in German.
What should Europe do? well as the Irishman famously said I wouldn't start from here. I would ideally have started form 2014 when Crimea was invaded. Even then Obama was saying the US was pivoting to the Pacific Rim and we needed to spend more.
Sadly I don't hold out much hope for a united European force.The best we can hope for is that the UK, France and Germany get their individual acts together and build large enough armies to work in coalition. We also need to give the Poles all the help we can.