Not Quite Peacemaking

Spectator

Our president continues to insist he is deserving of some sort of peace prize and claims he’s stopped eight wars in his 11 months in office. Now might be a good time to check up on all of that as we enter the season celebrating the actual Prince of Peace.

Let’s start with the plan for “peace” in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Or, as President Trump calls it, “Ukraine’s war with Russia.” The U.S. proposal, all 28 points of it, reads as if it had been written by Vladimir Putin himself. (Never mind that Trump’s peace delusions include the claims the war would have never happened had he been in office.)

Just four of the highlights paint an accurate picture of how remarkably one-sided our proposal is. Ukraine would be required to reduce the size of their military, give up any and all long-range weapons and neither manufacture nor import such additional weapons, abandon the idea of joining NATO, and surrender the Donbas region to the invading Russians.

The last point is especially offensive. The Donbas region is an industrialized chunk of what is now eastern Ukraine. At 20,500 square miles—about the size of West Virginia—it is not a tiny dot, and Ukraine would like to keep it, despite some occupying Russian troops.

In exchange for giving up their means of self-defense despite a belligerent and apparently imperialistic neighbor, and surrendering land stolen by that neighbor, we have given them vague assurances of protective security. Given this so-called peace plan, there is no reason for Ukraine to believe or trust us. And our complete acquiescence to Russia is outrageous and embarrassing.

President Trump now claims this proposal is a “work in progress,” but any negotiations outlined include the U.S. and Russia but not Ukraine. Negotiations that exclude the country being invaded? Posting on X, GOP Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska said, “In the war between Ukraine and Russia, the first to surrender was America.”

Okay, Trump clearly has chosen the wrong side in that war, but maybe he’s done better with the Israel/Hamas mess.

There was supposedly an agreement to end hostilities and things would wind down in three 42-day time periods until there was no war. Hamas would agree to return all Israeli hostages, alive or dead; Israel would agree to release and return an as yet undetermined number of Gaza prisoners; and Israel would end their occupation of the Gaza strip. Israel is additionally demanding Hamas permanently end their political control of Gaza. (The U.S. has designated Hamas as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997, but they were openly elected as the political leaders of Gaza.)

There is no reason to ever believe any kind of lasting peace will exist in that part of the world. Hostilities have existed there for millennia, and both sides already claim the other has violated the ceasefire agreement multiple times. Israel says Hamas has not returned all the hostages and has again launched rocket attacks, and Hamas says Israel continues military operations. (Amnesty International says Israel has undertaken military actions on 35 of the the first 42 day ceasefire period.)

It was a nice try by the president, making him the last of every president since Truman to try and bring some calm to an area dominated by violent chaos.

What about his other peacemaking claims? With help from Axios, Vox, and the BBC, here are Trump’s claims starting with two wars that never happened.

Ethiopia and Egypt are arguing about an Ethiopian dam project, and Serbia and Kosovo are trading insults because they can, but neither situation involves anything resembling a military conflict we stopped.

We claimed we ended a border war between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and they did sign an agreement, but neither side abides by it and hostilities continue to exist, so peace it is not. And we claim we ended the Armenia/Azerbaijan 40-year spat with an agreement signed at the White House in August, but the fighting had already stopped in April of 2023.

Trump is taking credit for an end to the 12-day conflict between Iran and Israel because we bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. Our claim that we “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program was a gross exaggeration, but we did slow them down. There is no ongoing agreement between Iran and Israel, though.

Another in the traditional clashes between bad neighbors India and Pakistan ended in four days. Pakistan says Trump was instrumental in stopping the hostilities and nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize, but India says he was not really involved. Likewise, when we intervened in a border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand, both highly dependent on exports to the U.S., both praised Trump’s involvement.

Talking peace is an honorable thing. Bragging about peacemaking that doesn’t exist, and begging for awards, not so much.

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