Whether “Armageddon” is coming or just a lot more death and destruction in Ukraine, the war there creates dangers for the whole world. What should — and can — Joe Biden and the West do to either contain this or bring it to an end? I asked former US ambassador and Congressman Francis Rooney that question, while noting that Biden’s “Armageddon” comment had raised the stakes … somewhat, anyway.
“We heard Biden talking about this,” I said to Ambassador Rooney, “right before he decided to take a vacation in Delaware again. We’re on the edge of Armageddon, and by the way, I’m taking the weekend off,” I quipped.
“I think it’s good that Biden takes vacations,” Rooney retorted. “He can’t do any harm up there.”
More seriously, though, Rooney would advise a president in this situation to flex diplomatic muscle to impose parameters for negotiations, and make it clear both sides would have to give up something. “I would call for some type of peace conference maybe like the North Korea one,” Rooney replied, “and I would make sure that Germany, France and England are all there with us. It just can’t be Zelensky because he’s not going to give. We’re going to have to have the Western Powers get with Russia and solve this thing. And Russia is going to have to get something.”
That raises problems of its own, we discuss, if Russia gets anything that incentivizes more wars of territorial aggression. At this point, though, Rooney thinks a status quo ante proposal might work — especially if Ukraine makes more advances on Crimea, which would be an ultimate humiliation to Putin.
“Right now he’s at risk of losing what he controlled before the war,” Rooney points out. Perhaps it’s “a good thing that Zelinsky is turning our mid range missiles on Crimea. Maybe the answer is to let Zelinsky beat up Crimea a little bit,” he suggests, “then have a peace conference and say okay, well, let’s keep Crimea.”
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Would that sell in Kyiv, however? “I don’t know if you get Zelinsky to do that without the Western powers enforcing it,” Rooney concedes, and I posit that Zelensky would then want full NATO status in return to guarantee Ukrainian sovereignty. Plus, as I point, out, Zelensky has another conundrum regarding any peace talks at this point.
“Ukrainians are very well aware of all these atrocities in the liberated areas, and that creates two problems. One is,” I say, “what’s going on in the areas that they haven’t been able to liberate yet? And how do you stop atrocities from taking place in those areas? And two, you still have the Michael Collins issue,” where Zelensky might be seen as a traitor for any outcome other than total ejection of all Russians.
True enough, Rooney replies, but we shouldn’t allow that to keep us from trying to get talks going. “At the end of the day,” Rooney tells me, “we’ve got to somehow figure out framework for discussing how to end this thing. And it can’t just Zelensky and the Russians. I don’t think it can be,” he emphasizes. “It is going to require, probably, China on Russia’s side, and then the EU and the US on Zelensky’s side.”
We go into much more in our conversation, part of today’s The Ed Morrissey Show podcast that also includes our weekly chat with Red State VIP contributor Andrew Malcolm. It’s up and ready for you now, and here are a few other topics:
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