Conservative columnist George Will has a strong op-ed piece in the WaPo in which he illustrates the enormous danger of the upcoming performance review meeting between Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and his employee Donald "Rump" Trump. Viewing the meeting through the lens of Rump's Singapore capitulation to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, who is now accelerating his nuclear program, Will sees the vainglorious and ignorant Rump as being an easy mark for Putin. He quotes Korean expert Nicholas Eberstadt in assessing Singapore's impact:
"Singapore was, Eberstadt believes, probably the greatest diplomatic coup for North Korea since 1950 and a milestone on “the DPRK’s road to establishing itself as a permanent nuclear power.” And the sanctions that were the Trump administration’s strategy of 'maximum pressure' will be difficult to maintain now that a 'defanged' — Eberstadt’s description — Trump has declared the nuclear threat banished." (our emphasis)With Rump beholden to Putin in a way that he could never be to Kim, their Helsinki meeting holds huge dangers for NATO, for the nations of Eastern Europe that Russia covets, and our national security. At a minimum, he'll commit to reducing or eliminating the sanctions on Russia that were imposed after its invasion of Crimea and Ukraine. Beyond that, we can only shudder to contemplate.
Will closes by imagining how Rump will react, once he realizes he's been the mark at the poker party:
"The most dangerous moment of the Trump presidency will arrive when he, who is constantly gnawed by insecurities and the fear of not seeming what he is not (“strong”), realizes how weak and childish he seems to all who cast a cool eye on Singapore’s aftermath. The danger is of him lashing out in wounded vanity. Meanwhile, this innocent abroad is strutting toward a meeting with the cold-eyed Russian who is continuing to dismantle one of Europe’s largest nations, Ukraine. He is probably looking ahead to ratcheting up pressure on one of three small nations, Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia, each a member of the NATO alliance that, for the first time in its 69 years, is dealing with a U.S. president who evinces no admiration for what it has accomplished or any understanding of its revived importance as the hard man in Moscow, who can sniff softness, relishes what Singapore revealed." (our emphasis)So many ramifications for those Dems that sat out the 2016 elections.
