To the Israeli attacks conducted as part of Operation Rising Lion, there was studied silence.  It was not a silence observed when it came to the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 by Vladimir Putin’s Russia.  Then, the law books were swiftly procured, and obligations of the United Nations Charter cited under Article 2(4): “All members shall refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of any state.”  Russia was condemned for adopting a preventive stance on Ukraine as a threat to its security: that, in Kyiv joining NATO, a formidable threat would manifest at the border.

In his statement on the unfolding conflict between Israel and Iran, France’s President Emmanuel Macron made sure to condemn “Iran’s ongoing nuclear program”, having taken “all appropriate diplomatic measures in response.”  Israel also had the “right to defend itself and ensure its security”, leaving open the suggestion that it might have been justified resorting to Article 51 of the UN Charter.  All he could offer was a call on “all parties to exercise maximum restraint and to de-escalate.”

In a most piquant response, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories stated that, “On the day Israel, unprovoked, has attacked Iran, killing 80 people, the president of a major European power, finally admits that in the Middle East, Israel, and only Israel, has the right to defend itself.”

The German Foreign Office was even bolder in accusing Iran of having engaged in its own selfish measures of self-defence (such unwarranted bravado!), something it has always been happy to afford Israel.  “We strongly condemn the indiscriminate Iranian attack on Israeli territory.”  In contrast, the foreign office also felt it appropriate to reference the illegal attack on Iran as involving “targeted strikes” against its nuclear facilities. Despite Israel having an undeclared nuclear weapons stockpile that permanently endangers security in the region, the office went on to chastise Iran for having a nuclear program that violated “the Non-Proliferation Treaty”, threatening in its nature “to the entire region – especially Israel.”  Those at fault had been found out.

The President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, could hardly improve on that apologia.  She revealed that she had been conversing with Israeli President Isaac Herzog about the “escalating situation in the Middle East.”  She also knew her priorities: reiterating Israel’s right to self- defence and refusing to mention Iran’s, while tagging on the statement a broader concern for preserving regional stability.  The rest involved a reference to diplomacy and de-escalation, toward which Israel has shown a resolute contempt with regards Iran and its nuclear program.

The assessment offered by Mohamed ElBaradei, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was forensically impressive, as well as being icily dismissive.  Not only did he reproach the German response for ignoring the importance of Article 2(4) of the Charter prohibiting the use of force subject to the right to self-defence, he brought up a reminder: targeted strikes against the nuclear facilities of any party “are prohibited under Article 56 of the additional protocol of the Geneva Conventions to which Germany is a party”.

ElBaradei also referred anyone exercised by such matters to the United Nations Security Council 487 (1981), which did not have a single demur in its adoption.  It unreservedly condemned the attack by Israel on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear research reactor in June that year as a violation of the UN Charter, recognised that Iraq was a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and had permitted the IAEA inspections of the facility, stated that Iraq had a right to establish and develop civilian nuclear programs and called on Israel to place its own nuclear facilities under the jurisdictional safeguards of the IAEA.

The calculus regarding the use of force by Israel vis-à-vis its adversaries has long been a sneaky one.  It is jigged and rigged in favour of the Jewish state. As Trita Parsi put it with unblemished accuracy, Western pundits had, for a year and a half, stated that Hamas, having started the Gaza War on October 7, 2023 bore responsibility for civilian carnage. “Western pundits for the past 1.5 days: Israel started the war with Iran, and if Iran retaliates, they bear responsibility for civilian deaths.” The perceived barbarian, when attacked by a force seen as superior and civilised, will always be condemned for having reacted most naturally, and most violently of all.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

On Monday President Donald Trump telephoned President Vladimir Putin and they talked for two hours before Trump put lunch in his mouth and Putin his dinner.

On the White House schedule, there was no advance notice of the call and no record afterwards. The White House log is blank for Trump’s entire morning while the press were told he was at lunch between 11:30 and 12:30.

Putin went public first, making a statement to the press which the Kremlin posted at 19:55 Moscow time; it was then 12:55 in Washington. Click to read.

Trump and his staff read the transcript and then composed Trump’s statement in a tweet posted at 13:33 Washington time, 20:33 Moscow time. Click to read.

If Secretary of State Marco Rubio and General Keith Kellogg, the president’s negotiator with the Ukraine and FUGUP (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine, Poland), were consulted during Trump’s prepping, sat in on the call with the President,  or were informed immediately after the call, they have remained silent.

The day before, May 18, Rubio announced that the Istanbul-II meeting had produced agreement “to exchange paper on ideas to get to a ceasefire. If those papers have ideas on them that are realistic and rational, then I think we know we’ve made progress. If those papers, on the other hand, have requirements in them that we know are unrealistic, then we’ll have a different assessment.” Rubio was hinting that the Russian formula in Istanbul, negotiations-then-ceasefire, has been accepted by the US. What the US would do after its “assessment”, Rubio didn’t say – neither walk-away nor threat of new sanctions.

Vice President JD Vance wasn’t present at the call because he was flying home from Rome where he attended Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural mass. “We’re more than open to walking away,” Vance told reporters in his aeroplane. “The United States is not going to spin its wheels here. We want to see outcomes.” Vance prompted Trump to mention the Pope as a mediator for a new round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, first to Putin and then in public.

Kellogg is refusing to go along. He tweeted on Sunday: “In Istanbul @SecRubio  made it clear that we have presented ‘a strong peace plan’. Coming out of the London meetings we (US) came up with a comprehensive 22 point plan that is a framework for peace. The first point is a comprehensive cease fire that stops the killing now.”

FUGUP issued their own statement after Trump’s call. “The US President and the European partners have agreed on the next steps. They agreed to closely coordinate the negotiation process and to seek another technical meeting. All sides reaffirmed their willingness to closely accompany Ukraine on the path to a ceasefire. The European participants announced that they would increase pressure on the Russian side through sanctions.”

This signalled acceptance with Trump of the Russian formula, negotiations-then-ceasefire, and time to continue negotiating at the “technical” level. The sanction threat was added. But this statement was no longer FUGUP. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was omitted; so too Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The Italian, the Finn and the European Commission President were substituted. They make FUGIFEC.

Late in the Paris evening of Sunday French President Emmanuel Macron attempted to keep Starmer in Trump’s good books and preserve the ceasefire-first formula. “I spoke tonight,” Macron tweeted, “with @POTUS @Keir_Starmer @Bundeskanzler  and @GiorgiaMeloni  after our talks in Kyiv and Tirana. Tomorrow, President Putin must show he wants peace by accepting the 30-day unconditional ceasefire proposed by President Trump and backed by Ukraine and Europe.” By the time on Monday that Macron realized he had been trumped, the Elysée had nothing to say.

By contrast, Italian Prime Minister Meloni signalled she was happy to line up with Trump and accept Putin’s negotiations-then-ceasefire. “Efforts are being made,” Meloni’s office announced, “for an immediate start to negotiations between the parties that can lead as soon as possible to a ceasefire and create the conditions for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”  Meloni claimed she would assure that Pope Leo XIV would fall into line. “In this regard, the willingness of the Holy Father to host the talks in the Vatican was welcomed. Italy is ready to do its part to facilitate contacts and work for peace.”

For the time being, Putin’s and Trump’s statements have put Rubio, Kellogg and the Europeans offside. Decoding the two president’s statements shows how and why.

President Putin’s Statement

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76953 

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good evening.

Our colleagues asked me to briefly comment on the outcome of my telephone conversation with the President of the United States.This conversation has effectively taken place and lasted more than two hours. I would like to emphasise that it was both substantive and quite candid. Overall, [1] I believe it was a very productive exchange.

First and foremost [2], I expressed my gratitude to the President of the United States for the support provided by the United States in facilitating the resumption of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine aimed at potentially reaching a peace agreement and resuming the talks which, as we know, were thwarted by the Ukrainian side in 2022 [3].

The President of the United States shared his position [4] on the cessation of hostilities and the prospects for a ceasefire. For my part, I noted that Russia also supports a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis as well. What we need now is to identify the most effective [5] ways towards achieving peace.

We agreed with the President of the United States that Russia would propose and is ready to engage with the Ukrainian side on drafting a memorandum [6] regarding a potential future peace agreement. This would include outlining a range of provisions, such as the principles for settlement, the timeframe for a possible peace deal, and other matters, including a potential temporary ceasefire, should the necessary agreements [7] be reached.

Contacts among participants of the Istanbul meeting and talks have resumed, which gives reason to believe that we are on the right track overall [8].

I would like to reiterate that the conversation was highly constructive, and I assess it positively. The key issue, of course, is now for the Russian side and the Ukrainian side to show their firm commitment to peace and to forge a compromise that would be acceptable to all parties.

Notably, Russia’s position is clear. Eliminating the root causes [9] of this crisis is what matters most to us.

Should any clarifications be necessary, Press Secretary [Dmitry] Peskov and my aide, Mr Ushakov [10], will provide further details on today’s telephone talks with President Trump.

Keys to Decode

1. This is a qualifier, meaning there are serious differences on the details — Putin asked Trump to pause, halt or cease all arms deliveries to the Ukraine, including US arms shipped through Israel, Germany, and Poland. This is a bullet Trump hasn’t bitten, yet.

2. Putin has made a firm decision to give Trump the “peace deal” he has asked for and wishes to announce at a summit meeting. In their call Putin was mollifying Trump’s disappointment at the failure of their plan to meet when Trump was in the Middle East. A Russian source comments: “Whatever concessions have to be made will be made only by Putin and only to Trump. The Europeans are trying to hog the headlines and turn their defeat into some sort of victory – Trump won’t let them have it and Putin won’t either.”

3. Putin does not publicly admit the mistakes he made with Roman Abramovich and Vladimir Medinsky in March 2022 at Istanbul-I. They have now been corrected at the  consensus decision-making session with the military and intelligence chiefs (May 14 Kremlin session) and then on May 16 in Istanbul with Admiral Igor Kostyukov of the GRU seated on Medinsky’s right with General Alexander Fomin, Deputy Minister of Defence. For more details, click to listen.

Source: https://ria.ru/20250516/peregovory-2017151081.html
At top left, 2nd from left, Fomin, then Kostyukov (obscured) and then Medinsky.

4. Soft qualifier. This means Putin did not agree with several of Trump’s points relating to intelligence sharing, arms deliveries, Ukrainian elections.

5. Future tense. Putin suggested to  Trump that he stop Kellogg and FUGUP encouraging Zelensky. Putin made an especially negative remark about the role played by Prime Minister Starmer.

6. This is a Russian lesson in escalation control. By putting the memorandum of understanding in Russian hands to initiate, Putin returns to the key parts of the December 17, 2021, draft treaty which President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken summarily dismissed. Placing agreement on these terms first, before a temporary ceasefire, and making that ceasefire conditional on ceaseforce (halt to battlefield intelligence sharing and arms re-supply), Putin has invited Trump to choose between the US and FUGUP; between Zelensky and an elected successor;  and between his personal negotiator advisors, Steven Witkoff and General Kellogg.

7. Reiteration of the formula, negotiations first, then ceasefire.

8. Qualifier repeated – see Key 1.

9. This phrase refers to the European security architecture and mutual security pact of December 2021, as well as to the two declared objectives of the Special Military Operation — demilitarization and denazification.

10. Following Putin’s statement, Ushakov added: “other details of the telephone conversation. Among other things, Putin and Trump touched upon the exchange of prisoners of citizens of the two countries: the format of ‘nine nine’ is being worked out. The leaders also discussed their possible meeting and agreed that it should be productive, so the teams of the presidents will work out the content of the summit between Russia and the United States.”

President Trump’s Statement

Tweet source: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114535693441367601

Trump followed in a stumbling speech in the Rose Garden in which, referring to the morning telephone call, he said “they [Putin] like Melania better.”

Just completed my two hour call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. I believe it went very well. Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire [1] and, more importantly, an END to the War. The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of. [2] The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent. If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later. Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic “bloodbath” is over, and I agree [3]. There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED. Likewise, Ukraine can be a great beneficiary on Trade, in the process of rebuilding its Country.

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will begin immediately. I have so informed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, President Emmanuel Macron, of France, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of Italy, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of Germany, and President Alexander Stubb, of Finland, during a call with me,[4]  immediately after the call with President Putin. The Vatican, as represented by the Pope [5] has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations. Let the process begin! [6]

Keys to Decode

1. Trump accepts that negotiations should come before ceasefire.

2. This amounts to rejection of Kellogg’s 22-point term paper first decided with Zelensky and FUGUP in London on April 23 and repeated by Macron the night before Trump’s telephone call; as well as rejection of Witkoff’s term paper discussed at the Kremlin on April 25.

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76797
From left to right: Witkoff’s interpreter, Witkoff, Putin, Ushakov, Russian interpreter, Kirill Dmitriev. For analysis of the term sheets, read this.

3. Agreement with the business deal-making which Witkoff has been discussing with Kirill Dmitriev. For the deal beneficiaries on both sides, read this.

4. This list includes two Germans, both Russia haters — Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ursula von der Leyen, former German defense minister and supporter of the German rearmament plan to continue the war with Russia into the future. The British Prime Minister has been dropped by Trump, and also Polish Prime Minister Tusk. Included for the first time in this context are the Italian and Finnish representatives with whom Trump has demonstrated personal rapport. Research by Manos Tzafalias indicates that there is a substantial money interest in Finland for Trump’s associate, Elon Musk.

5. Prompt from the Catholic convert, Vice President Vance.

Vance and Rubio meeting with Pope Leo XIV on May 18. They invited the Pope to make an official visit to Washington. The last papal visit to the White House was in September 2015 on the invitation of President Obama and Vice President Biden.

6. Trump has covered his disappointment at failing to hold a summit meeting with Putin in Istanbul on the afternoon of May 16 by dismissing the negotiations which occurred without him. For details of Trump’s abortive summit plan, read this.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Helmer.

The review could in principle lead to a suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. CPJ has been calling for a suspension, as well as for the EU to adopt targeted sanctions against IDF officials and others responsible, since August 2024, on the basis of Israel’s violations of international human rights and criminal law.

Ireland and Spain had previously pressed for an EU review; however, divisions remained within the bloc on openly and publicly challenging Israel. The EU’s decision, along with today’s UK move to pause “its free trade agreement negotiations with Israel” could signal a shift in political opinion in Europe. 

“Although today’s decision is welcome, it comes too late,” said Tom Gibson, CPJ’s deputy advocacy director, EU. “A review must now be carried out swiftly and EU member states must be ready to finally hold Israel to account for its unprecedented attack on press freedom and egregious abuses of international law.”

A suspension of the EU agreement would need to be made unanimously by member states and with the agreement of the European Commission.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The March 6 meeting of the Special European Council was a chance for 27 leaders of the European Union to make that point. It was time to cash in on the Russia threat and promote a strategic vision that spoke of elevated dangers. It was, in other words, a good time to be throwing money at the militaries of the various member states.

The language was clear from the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a figure who has become increasingly hawkish in pushing the barrow of the military-industrial complex. Announced on March 4, her ReArm Europe plan entails various measures intended to free up to EUR 800 billion in defence funding. A notable one is enabling member states to use the escape clause of the Stability and Growth Pact to bypass the Excessive Deficit Procedure. Without giving too much by way of details, von der Leyen claims that EUR 650 billion of “fiscal space” could be created were EU countries to increase defence spending by 1.5% of GDP. So much, it would seem, for the bloc’s emphasis on fiscal frugality.

Another measure involves the provision of EUR 150 billion of loans to member states under Article 122 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) that will go into such defence initiatives as air and missile defence, artillery, missiles, armed drones and anti-drone systems, and cyber security. But this is not all: this initiative is not only intended for European defence but aiding Ukraine and, it follows, prolonging the war.

Vague suggestions are also on the table. Von der Leyen babbles about “cohesion policy programmes” that might be used to increase military expenditure, with money drawn from the EU budget. Private capital will also be raised through the Savings and Investment Union and the European Investment Bank.

The five-point agreement that emerged from the summit was approved by 26 of the 27 members. (Hungary did not disappoint in vetoing the leaders’ statement). It spoke to such compulsory conditions as Ukrainian participation in peace talks, and European involvement on matters touching upon its security. “Ukraine’s, Europe’s, transatlantic and global security,” the statement pompously reads, “are intertwined”. EU funding in the order of EUR 30.6 billion was also promised for 2025.

The move brings some unwanted attention to the workings of EU policy. Of interest here is the issue of using Article 122, an emergency provision that is non-legislative in nature and has been previously used in responding to the COVID pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In other words, it is an executive pathway that purposely bypasses the European Parliament.

Resorting to the article in this instance did not impress Manfred Weber, who leads the European People’s Party (EPP) group in the Parliament. “Bypassing Parliament with Article 122 is a mistake,” opined Weber to his colleagues in the Strasbourg plenary. “Europe’s democracy stands on two pillars: its citizens and its member states, (and) we need both for our security.”

European Parliament president Roberta Metsola also urged EU leaders at the March 6 summit that, “Working through the European Parliament, especially on decisions of this magnitude, is a way of fostering trust in our union.” While “swift action” was needed, “acting together is the only way of ensuring broad and deep public backing.”

In a non-legislative resolution, 419 MEPs encouraged member states to, amongst other matters, increase defending expenditure by at least 3% of GDP, create a bank for defence, security and resilience and pursue a system by which European defence bonds might be used to pre-finance military investment. While these approving members thought Europe was “facing the most profound military threat to its territorial integrity since the end of the Cold War”, 204 chose to vote against it, with 46 deciding to abstain.

In the process of reaching the final resolution, it is worth noting that certain MEPs from The Left and The Greens/EFA attempted to include an amendment that was rejected by 444 votes. “The Parliament,” it read, “deplores the choice to use Art. 122 […] for the new EU instrument meant to support members states defence capabilities; expresses deep concern for being excluded from decisional process”.

While the March summit suggested a new turn towards bellicose militarism, the trend is unmistakable and troublingly inexorable: Europe is spending more on defence, and was doing so even before the return of Donald Trump to the White House. In 2024, military budgets increased by 11.7% in real terms, with a number of countries reaching the target of 2% of GDP expenditure agreed by NATO members in 2014. Throughout Europe, the merchants of death, an eloquent, accurate term coined in the 1930s, can only be crowing.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Woman at rally supporting peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Berlin, Germany.  (Photo: Reuters)

When European Union leaders met in Brussels on February 6 to discuss the war in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron called this time “a turning point in history.” Western leaders agree that this is an historic moment when decisive action is needed, but what kind of action depends on their interpretation of the nature of this moment.

Is this the beginning of a new Cold War between the U.S., NATO and Russia or the end of one? Will Russia and the West remain implacable enemies for the foreseeable future, with a new iron curtain between them through what was once the heart of Ukraine? Or can the United States and Russia resolve the disputes and hostility that led to this war in the first place, so as to leave Ukraine with a stable and lasting peace?

Some European leaders see this moment as the beginning of a long struggle with Russia, akin to the beginning of the Cold War in 1946, when Winston Churchill warned that “an iron curtain has descended” across Europe.

On March 2, echoing Churchill, European Council President Ursula von der Leyen declared that Europe must turn Ukraine into a “steel porcupine.” President Zelenskyy has said he wants up to 200,000 European troops on the eventual ceasefire line between Russia and Ukraine to “guarantee” any peace agreement, and insists that the United States must provide a “backstop,” meaning a commitment to send U.S. forces to fight in Ukraine if war breaks out again.

Russia has repeatedly said it won’t agree to NATO forces being based in Ukraine under any guise. “We explained today that the appearance of armed forces from the same NATO countries, but under a false flag, under the flag of the European Union or under national flags, does not change anything in this regard,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on February 18. “Of course this is unacceptable to us.”

But the U.K. is persisting in a campaign to recruit a “coalition of the willing,” the same term the U.S. and U.K. coined for the list of countries they persuaded to support the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. In that case, only Australia, Denmark and Poland took small parts in the invasion, Costa Rica publicly insisted on being removed from the list, and the term was widely lampooned as the “coalition of the billing” because the U.S. recruited so many countries to join it by promising them lucrative foreign aid deals.

Far from the start of a new Cold War, President Trump and other leaders see this moment as more akin to the end of the original Cold War, when U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik in Iceland in 1986 and began to bridge the divisions caused by 40 years of Cold War hostility.

Like Trump and Putin today, Reagan and Gorbachev were unlikely peacemakers. Gorbachev had risen through the ranks of the Soviet Communist Party to become its General Secretary and Soviet Premier in March 1985, in the midst of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and he didn’t begin to withdraw Soviet forces from Afghanistan until 1988. Reagan oversaw an unprecedented Cold War arms build-up, a U.S.-backed genocide in Guatemala and covert and proxy wars throughout Central America. And yet Gorbachev and Reagan are now widely remembered as peacemakers.

While Democrats deride Trump as a Putin stooge, in his first term in office Trump was actually responsible for escalating the Cold War with Russia. After the Pentagon had milked its absurd, self-fulfilling “War on Terror” for trillions of dollars, it was Trump and his psychopathic Defense Secretary, General “Mad Dog” Mattis, who declared the shift back to strategic competition with Russia and China as the Pentagon’s new gravy train in their 2018 National Defense Strategy. It was also Trump who lifted President Obama’s restrictions on sending offensive weapons to Ukraine.

Trump’s head-spinning about-turn in U.S. policy has left its European allies with whiplash and reversed the roles they each have played for generations. France and Germany have traditionally been the diplomats and peacemakers in the Western alliance, while the U.S. and U.K. have been infected with a chronic case of war fever that has proven resistant to a long string of military defeats and catastrophic impacts on every country that has fallen prey to their warmongering.

In 2003, France’s Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin led the opposition to the invasion of Iraq in the UN Security Council. France, Germany and Russia issued a joint statement to say that they would “not let a proposed resolution pass that would authorize the use of force. Russia and France, as permanent members of the Security Council, will assume all their responsibilities on this point.”

At a press conference in Paris with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, French President Jacques Chirac said, “Everything must be done to avoid war… As far as we’re concerned, war always means failure.”

As recently as 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, it was once again the U.S. and U.K. that rejected and blocked peace negotiations in favor of a long war, while France, Germany and Italy continued to call for new negotiations, even as they gradually fell in line with the U.S. long war policy.

Former German Chancellor Schröder took part in the peace negotiations in Turkey in March and April 2022, and flew to Moscow at Ukraine’s request to meet with Putin. In an interview with Berliner Zeitung in 2023, Schröder confirmed that the peace talks only failed “because everything was decided in Washington.”

With Biden still blocking new negotiations in 2023, one of the interviewers asked Schröder “Do you think you can resume your peace plan?”

Schröder replied, “Yes, and the only ones who can initiate this are France and Germany… Macron and Scholz are the only ones who can talk to Putin. Chirac and I did the same in the Iraq war. Why can’t support for Ukraine be combined with an offer of talks to Russia? The arms deliveries are not a solution for eternity. But no one wants to talk. Everyone sits in trenches. How many more people have to die?”

Since 2022, President Macron and a Thatcherite team of iron ladies – European Council President von der Leyen; former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock; and Estonia’s former prime minister Kaja Kallas, now the EU’s foreign policy chief – have promoted a new militarization of Europe, egged on from behind the scenes by European and U.S. arms manufacturers.

Has the passage of time, the passing of the World War II generation and the distortion of history washed away the historical memory of two world wars from a continent that was destroyed by war only 80 years ago? Where is the next generation of French and German diplomats in the tradition of de Villepin and Schröder today? How can sending German tanks to fight in Ukraine, and now in Russia itself, fail to remind Russians of previous German invasions and solidify support for the war? And won’t the call for Europe to confront Russia by moving from a “welfare state to a warfare state” only feed the rise of the European hard right?

So are the new European militarists reading the historical moment correctly? Or are they jumping on the bandwagon of a disastrous Cold War that could, as Biden and Trump have warned, lead to World War III?

When Trump’s foreign policy team met with their Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia on February 18, ending the war in Ukraine was the second part of the three-part plan they agreed on. The first was to restore full diplomatic relations between the United States and Russia, and the third was to work on a series of other problems in U.S.-Russian relations.

The order of these three stages is interesting, because, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted, it means that the negotiations over Ukraine will be the first test of restored relations between the U.S. and Russia.

If the negotiations for peace in Ukraine are successful, they can lead to further negotiations over restoring arms control treaties, nuclear disarmament and cooperation on other global problems that have been impossible to resolve in a world stuck in a zombie-like Cold War that powerful interests would not allow to die.

It was a welcome change to hear Secretary Rubio say that the post-Cold War unipolar world was an anomaly and that now we have to adjust to the reality of a multipolar world. But if Trump and his hawkish advisers are just trying to restore U.S. relations with Russia as part of a “reverse Kissinger” scheme to isolate China, as some analysts have suggested, that would perpetuate America’s debilitating geopolitical crisis instead of solving it.

The United States and our friends in Europe have a new chance to make a clean break from the three-way geopolitical power struggle between the United States, Russia and China that has hamstrung the world since the 1970s, and to find new roles and priorities for our countries in the emerging multipolar world of the 21st Century.

We hope that Trump and European leaders can recognize the crossroads at which they are standing, and the chance history is giving them to choose the path of peace. France and Germany in particular should remember the wisdom of Dominique de Villepin, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder in the face of U.S. and British plans for aggression against Iraq in 2003.

This could be the beginning of the end of the permanent state of war and Cold War that has held the world in its grip for more than a century. Ending it would allow us to finally prioritize the progress and cooperation we so desperately need to solve the other critical problems the whole world is facing in the 21st Century. As General Milley said back in November 2022 when he called for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, we must “seize the moment.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies.

Behind the headlines and all the public huffing and puffing we find several caveats; other countries doing the “heavy lifting” are not named; a plan must be developed; a month long pause in the fighting must precede the deployment of troops; to succeed the effort must have “strong US backing.” This is not understated because Lord Dannet, former head of the Army told the BBC “the UK military was ‘so run down’ it could not lead any mission in Ukraine.” And we read that in Germany, soldiers are practicing with broomsticks painted black instead of with rifles. Finally, no mention is made of the fact that Russia has already ruled out Europe’s participation in any peace deal. Other than that the proposal is good to go.

What all this means is that war mongering European leaders (plus many Democrats, liberals and putative leftists here) are ‘willing’ to send soldiers to their deaths in the war in Ukraine that’s already lost. This is reminiscent of when George W. Bush introduced his national security strategy in 2002 with the phrase “coalition of the willing” — before the US invaded Iraq.

I’ve thought long and hard about why European leaders are incapable of working toward peace. Have these characters totally lost touch with reality? Is it because they can’t admit, even to themselves, that the UK/US used Europe for its own ends and otherwise doesn’t give a whit about the Continent? Is it because they can’t acknowledge this because, as part of the pro-war Atlanticist Establishment, they’ve been absolutely complicit in America’s predatory behavior — and have constantly lied about it? Is it because the European ruling class benefits from their own MIC? Shares in European defense giants soared to record highs today.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Gary Olson.

The previous US President Joe Biden had been more than willing to keep the war machine fed by proxy, furnishing Zelensky handsomely.  The Washington war establishment purred, happy that Ukrainians were doing the dying and bleeding Russia’s soldiery white.  Cant and righteousness were in abundant supply: the Ukrainians were foot soldiers wrapped in civilisation’s flag, democracy worn on their sleeves.  Accusations from the Russian side that Ukrainian nationalism was also adulterated by a history of fascist inclination were dismissed out of hand.  A country famously seized by kleptocrats, with a spotty, ill-nourished civil society, had been redrawn as a westward looking European state, besieged by the Oriental Barbarism of the East.

If words of support could be counted as weapons, then Zelensky would have had a fresh arsenal in the aftermath of his tongue lashing by President Donald Trump and his deputy J.D. Vance.  Much of these were provided by leaders gathered at Lancaster House on March 1 hosted by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.  Starmer, for his part, promised that Europe would continue sustaining Ukraine’s efforts and, were a peace deal to arise, aid the country in improving its defences to ensure that “Ukraine can draw on munitions, finance and equipment to defend itself”.

French President Emmanuel Macron tried to clarify any doubt that had arisen in the Oval Office savaging.  “There is an aggressor: Russia.  There is a victim: Ukraine.  We were right to help Ukraine and sanction Russia three years ago – and to keep doing so.”  The “we” in this case, Macron went on to add, involved “Americans, the Europeans, the Canadians, the Japanese, and many others.”

Germany’s Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz also declared that “we must never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war”, affirming that “we stand with Ukraine”.  The country’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, thought it prudent to point out that the Oval Office brawl “underlined that a new age of infamy has begun”, adding that Russia would be withstood “even if the US withdraws support, so that it [Ukraine] can achieve a just peace and not a capitulation”.

Other leaders expressed supportive words of standing.  Donald Tusk of Poland: “Dear [Zelensky], dear Ukrainian friends, you are not standing alone.”  Spain’s Pedro Sánchez: “Ukraine, Spain stands with you.”  Canada’s Justin Trudeau: “[we] will continue to stand with Ukraine and Ukrainians in achieving a just and lasting peace.”

When they were not standing, many of these effusively supportive leaders were scrambling, teasingly suggesting a bloc of military support that may, somehow, be formed in the absence of US involvement.  This would comprise the sillily worded “coalition of the willing” (that expression, when used in 2003, saw the United States, UK and Australia, along with a motley collective, violate international law in invading Iraq).  Such a coalition, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen dreamily envisaged, would transform Ukraine into a “steel porcupine that is indigestible for potential invaders”.

This imaginatively foolish and recklessly irresponsible undertaking does little to patch up the irreplaceable role the US plays in a number of areas, not least the budgetary coverage of NATO, coupled with the promise for military intervention in the event a member state is attacked.  Macron has, at stages, taken pot shots at NATO as cerebrally obsolete, a brain dead creature best be done away with.  But these articulations, beyond such reports as NATO 2030, have not resulted in anything significant that would cope with an absentee US.

European states, furthermore, are divided ahead of the March 6 summit, where the EU will supposedly approve some 20 billion euros for the purchase of missiles and air defence equipment for Ukraine.  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in a letter to European Council President António Costa, offered the view that the EU, “following the example of the United States – should enter into direct discussions with Russia on a ceasefire and sustainable peace in Ukraine”.

Slovakia’s Prime Minister, Robert Fico, was even harder in his response, suggesting that financial and military assistance to Kyiv could be refused were ceasefire efforts not pursued, rejecting such notions as “peace through strength” being advocated by various EU members.  It was also incumbent, Fico went on to insist, that any settlement “explicitly include a requirement to reopen the transit of gas through Ukraine to Slovakia and Western Europe.”

With this in mind, and the pressing, crushing implications of power, not as fantasy, but as coarsening reality, other options must be entertained.  Given their lack of punch and prowess, one arising from years fed by the devitalising US teat, European states are simply playing with toy soldiers.  Eventually, they will have to play along if peace in Ukraine, however much detested in its form, is to be reached.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Al Jazeera headlined with: “Von der Leyen’s re-election consolidates Europe’s shift to the right: The German technocrat’s second term at the helm of the European Commission will focus on business, conservative values and external security threats.”

With respect to democracy and the transparency of the process that underpins Von der Leyen’s re-election, BBC noted: “Ursula von der Leyen has been re-elected as president of the European Commission following a secret ballot among MEPs.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Allen Forrest.

CPJ and other organizations recently reported that Greece is the only EU country to currently have two open cases of impunity for the murder of journalists and that almost no other country in the EU has experienced such a high number of physical attacks which endanger the safety of journalists in the last few years.

Read the full text of the letter below:

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Trump kept to his speech script and did not mention the historic impeachment trial that was set to reconvene in the U.S. Senate in Washington later Tuesday. But he couldn’t resist commenting when asked about the trial by the hordes of reporters covering the forum in Davos.

“It’s disgraceful,” Trump said of the proceedings.

Trump’s two-day visit is a test of his ability to balance his anger over being impeached with a desire to project leadership on the world stage. His speech amounted to an election-year pitch to all those he referred to as “hardworking, ordinary citizens” of the U.S. who “felt neglected, betrayed, forgotten.”

Trump reminded the audience that when he spoke here in 2018 “I told you that we had launched the great American comeback.”

“Today I’m proud to declare the United States is in the midst of an economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen before,” the president said.

American economist Kenneth Rogoff took issue with Trump’s comments, saying some of Trump’s claims about the strength of the U.S. economy are true. But Rogoff noted that the economy wasn’t doing badly when Trump took office. “It’s been a good 10 years and his three years probably better than expected,” Rogoff said, adding that he thought Trump was careful to keep his comments about climate change to a minimum to avoid getting booed.

Climate issues are a main theme at the forum and the phrase “Act on Climate” was written in the snow at the landing zone where Trump’s Marine One helicopter set down in Davos.

Trump’s lone reference to climate issues in his speech was when he announced the U.S. would join a World Economic Forum initiative to plant 1 trillion trees worldwide. Afterward, in an apparent reference to those who warn about climate change, Trump said the world must “reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse.”

Earth just finished its hottest decade on record with the five last years as the five hottest years on record, according to U.S. and other science agencies. Scientists repeatedly point to more extreme weather as a problem worsened by human-caused climate change. There have been 44 weather and climate disasters in the United States that caused at least $1 billion in damage since 2017, killing 3,569 people, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Late last year, the Trump administration began pulling the U.S. out of the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement under which nearly 200 nations set goals to curb emissions of heat-trapping gasses that lead to climate change. Trump has called the Paris accord an unfair economic burden to the U.S. economy.

“In America, we understand what the pessimists refuse to see: that a growing and vibrant market economy focused on the future lifts the human spirit and excites creativity strong enough to overcome any challenge,” Trump said.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg, who has been criticized by Trump, said world and business leaders aren’t taking the threat of global warming seriously.

“Planting trees is good of course but it’s nowhere near enough,” Thunberg said.

Trump’s participation at the forum provided another conspicuous split-screen moment in his presidency. Before entering the hall to deliver his speech, Trump called the trial “disgraceful” and part of “the witch hunt that’s been going on for years.”

Asked whether Trump would tune in to the impeachment trial, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in an email that Trump has a “full day” in Davos “but will be briefed by staff periodically.”

Trump spent nearly all of his approximately 30-minute speech describing U.S. economic gains under his leadership.

“America is thriving. America is flourishing and yes, America is winning again like never before,” Trump said before talking about a newly signed trade deal with China and a pending U.S. trade agreement with Mexico and Canada. He also spoke of record low unemployment, stock market gains and millions of people removed from the welfare rolls.

Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz criticized Trump for failing to address the climate emergency beyond a commitment that the U.S. will join the trillion trees initiative.

“He managed to say absolutely zero on climate change,” Stiglitz said. “Meanwhile we’re going to roast.”

Trump’s appearance at the forum ends Wednesday when he travels back to a Washington that’s consumed by the impeachment trial.

The Democratic-controlled House impeached the Republican president last month for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after it was revealed that he had pressed Ukraine’s president to announce investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat and a Trump political rival. Trump withheld foreign aid that Congress had approved for the Eastern European nation and dangled the prospect of an Oval Office meeting as leverage.

Trump denies any wrongdoing and argues that Democrats want to remove him from office because they know they can’t deny him reelection in November. Trump would be forced to leave office if convicted, but the Republican-controlled Senate is expected to acquit him.

Trump met Tuesday with the forum’s founder and the new European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the first woman to hold the position. Trump zeroed in on her reputation as a tough negotiator, saying that was “bad news for us.”

Trump said he wants to make a trade agreement between the U.S. and European Union and has threatened to apply tariffs to their auto imports if that doesn’t happen.

“I f we’re unable to make a deal, we will have to do something, because we’ve been treated very badly as a country for many, many years on trade,” he said.

“They know they have to do something and if they’re fair we’re not going to have a problem,” he said.

During a meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, Trump suggested he would not travel to Pakistan when he makes his first visit to India this year.

“We’re visiting right now so we won’t really have to” go to Pakistan, Trump said.

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten and Pan Pylas in Davos and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.