White House foreign policy is an ad hoc operation. Steve Witkoff creates problems, and Marco Rubio cleans them up.
From what I can gather, Witkoff called Trump several weeks ago and said, “Hey Donald, I am going to talk to the Russians and get a peace deal done.” Trump, eager for a deal, replied, “Go get ‘em!”
Then Witkoff headed to Miami for pina coladas with Dmitriev.
What gives Witkoff such freedom to operate with Trump? The two men met at a Manhattan deli counter in 1986 and have been friends since. Trump sees Washington experience as a liability, and he sees Witkoff as someone whose deal-making skills rival his own.
Rubio is a smart foreign policy pro. While Witkoff is deal-making, Rubio provides a rudder through the constant European foreign policy storm in the White House.
Imagine the White House with no counterbalance to Witkoff
The intelligence community has a saying: “We’ve stopped many attacks you’ll never hear about.” We may never know how many foreign policy disasters Rubio has prevented.
Witkoff, in contrast, lacks the ability to critically analyze anything that comes out of the mouth of any Russian he just met.
He thinks Putin is a nice guy who wants peace so all of us can get back to doing business together. What is all the fuss about?
In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Witkoff could not remember the names of three of the Ukrainian regions he wanted to give to the Russians.
In another meeting, he forgot to bring his pencil, a trustworthy translator, or anything else that might help him understand what was going on. Witkoff emerged saying Putin was willing to withdraw from two Ukrainian regions he occupied.
Putin was not willing.
A dramatic shift towards peace turned out to be one of history’s great diplomatic screw-ups. Trump paused Russian sanctions and rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Anchorage only to be subjected to a long lecture by Putin on Yaroslav the Wise and Kyivan Rus. Turns out Putin was not offering to withdraw, but saying Kyiv should withdraw. Oops.
Witkoff is obsessed with giving away the “Russian-speaking” parts of Ukraine. He has said it many times. Ukraine Freedom Project polling shows that 99.2% of Ukrainians, regardless of what language they speak, said something other than “I’d really like to live under Russian rule.”
That 0.8 percent is about a quarter of a million people. How about we just send them to Russia rather than have Putin take over defensively crucial strips of Donbas? Witkoff should bounce that off Dmitriev next time they are lounging by a rooftop pool in Miami.
These blunders are a short list.
Despite his comical shortcomings, Witkoff remains a force in these negotiations.
The Ukrainian negotiating team is led by Andriy Yermak – probably the least-liked Ukrainian in Washington DC.
Politico wrote a story with 14 bipartisan sources saying unflattering things about Yermak. Hit pieces are frequent in DC but you have to work hard to get one as widely sourced with skewering anecdotes like this.
From the article: “But many in Washington have found Yermak to be uninformed about US politics, abrasive and overly demanding with US officials – and generally unable to navigate the inner workings of the Washington establishment on Capitol Hill.” Yermak was called a “bipartisan irritator” by an American source and an “existential liability” by a Ukrainian source.
Yeah, let’s send that guy back to meet the Americans.
As I help build support for Ukraine among American conservatives, I frequently refer back to Winston Churchill. Churchill employed thousands of people to persuade Roosevelt to send weapons to England.
Yermak’s statement in response to the Politico article was “I have no ambition to fully grasp how American politics works – I come to speak about the country I know best: Ukraine.”
Someone on Zelensky’s team needs to have that ambition. Yermak’s lack of ambition is costing Ukraine dearly.
Churchill was so committed to getting American weapons to England that he encouraged his 20-year-old daughter-in-law Pamela to pursue affairs with American generals and diplomats while his son Randolph was in North Africa. Pamela would get up out of bed with an American diplomat, take a taxi to Number 10 Downing Street and tell Churchill everything she learned. Her biographer said, “She was [Churchill’s] secret weapon.”
It forever changed Churchill’s relationship with his son, but his devotion to England was greater than his devotion to Randolph.
In Ukraine, Yermak can’t figure out how to get one of his closest friends to stop stealing funds meant to protect Ukraine’s power grid. Or, less charitably, he couldn’t figure out how to keep one of his closest friends from getting caught.
Zelensky places a lot of trust in Yermak, not unlike Trump’s trust in Witkoff.
Some think that the release of this plan was a Russian info-op timed to coincide with the Energoatom scandal. A belief which I find plausible.
The scandal was a sledgehammer Yermak handed to the Russians to use against Ukraine at the time of their choosing. This was the time. There may be more sledgehammers.
Currently, Ukraine is facing a $53 billion budget shortfall and is running low on anti-aircraft weapons. Both of these are existential crises.
You can’t win a war with one hand out asking for money and the other hand in the bank till.
The Witkoff peace plan has $100 billion of Russia’s frozen assets being used to fund Ukraine’s rebuilding, with the US getting 50% of the profits. Europeans are outraged, and as usual their outrage is selective.
Belgium could immediately change the course of the war with the ~ $200 billion assets they hold, but so far all the Belgians have done with the money is tax it for about $3.2 billion. The US need not profit from the frozen Russian assets, but the Belgians are making out rather well.
On Dec. 19, European officials will meet in Belgium to discuss a $163-billion loan based on frozen Russian assets. With a multi-billion dollar cash cow on one side of the equation and an angry Russian dictator on the other, the Belgians have little incentive to give up the Russian assets they hold. The Energoatom scandal takes the moral higher ground from Ukraine.
Trump is swimming upstream against his base
Until recently, beating up on Ukraine energized the Republican base. No longer. Putin has shown himself a threat to Republicans.
According to Ukraine Freedom Project polling, 92% of Republicans are concerned about Russian drone incursions into Europe. Additionally, 76% are concerned that Russia or China may attack the US with drones.
With Putin’s help, support for military aid to Ukraine is currently at a three year high among Trump’s voters.
Contrary to Witkoff’s plan, Vandenberg Coalition polling shows only 16% of Republicans think that Ukraine should give up territory. More broadly, America has just spent more than $100 billion building Ukraine’s Armed Forces (AFU) into the largest in Europe. Witkoff’s plan wants to sign it away.
Congressional Republicans need Ukraine to go well. Foreign policy rarely turns elections, but an Afghanistan-like disaster in Ukraine next will not help the Republicans keep Congress.
The success of any peace agreement relies on Putin keeping his word. Putin is in violation of 46 international agreements, including at least 26 ceasefires with Ukraine between 2014 and 2021. Most were violated by the Russians within a day or two. The longest ceasefire before a civilian was killed was the 27 July 2020 ceasefire – about three months.
Regardless of how any peace plan is written, Putin will not stop fighting unless someone makes him stop.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.