Circle Jerk

We truly have a circle jerk with Putin, Trump, and Netanyahu pulling each other's chain in what threatens to become World War III.  Trump skipped out of a G7 meeting in Alberta, Canada, presumably to address the rapidly escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, while leaving Ukraine in the lurch.  A Russia-Ukraine ceasefire was the focus of the G7 meeting with Zelenskyy invited to Banff, but the artful dodger was too pre-occupied with other thoughts to pay the Ukrainian president much concern.  

Once again, Trump pitched readmitting Russia into the G7 despite having done nothing to warrant it.  This was a relic from the Clinton years when Bubba was on reasonably good terms with Boris Yeltsin and was trying to give Russia the economic help it needed to emerge from its Cold War recession.  Russia then as now had an economy ranked in the second tier of the G20 but had a huge nuclear arsenal to make up the difference.  In this way, the US hoped that Russia would honor a nuclear non-proliferation treaty signed in 1995.  Russia was kicked out of the G7+1 in 2014 when it invaded and subsequently annexed Crimea, which Trump now regards as a "mistake."

The mistake was admitting Russia into the G7 in the first place.  With a nominal GDP of barely more than 2 trillion dollars, it ranks behind much smaller G7 countries Canada and Italy, and is far behind France, the UK, Germany and Japan. The US economy is larger than all other G7 economies combined.  Meanwhile, China with the second largest world economy and India with the fourth largest economy are not members.  We should have long ago considered these two countries over Russia, then maybe we wouldn't be having to deal with BRICS, which is emerging as a powerful international trading bloc.

However, the prime concern right now is how to stave off another world war. Israel has greatly overstepped its bounds by bombing Iran and taking out senior military and nuclear science officials that is tantamount to war.  In turn, Iran has fired back but is limited as to how much harm it can directly cause Israel.  Meanwhile, Russia had been acting as a back channel in US-Iranian discussions of a new nuclear weapons deal that Netanyahu literally blew out of the water.  The Kremlin had offered at one point to "safeguard" Iran's enriched uranium, which is at the center of this controversy.  This is quid pro quo for Iran supplying Russia with military ordnance in its war against Ukraine, including Shahed drones, which Russia is now producing in Tartarstan.  I imagine many of the same drones found their way into the hands of Hamas and Hezbollah through third party agents.

Ironically, Netanyahu had long looked the other way, as he wanted access to Syria to take out Hezbollah cells operating within its borders.  He could only do this with the help of Russia.  As a result, he kept Israel out of the war in Ukraine, refusing to provide any form of military assistance and only nominal humanitarian assistance.  Yet, Russia has been working openly with Israel's sworn enemy for many years, helping to further develop Iran's nuclear program since 2012.  Iran supports both Hezbollah and Hamas.

While a very unsavory relationship, it was for the most part a regional conflict until Trump came to office in 2017.  It was long assumed that Trump was severely compromised given his numerous real estate deals with Russian oligarchs that stretch back to 1987.  We saw any number of awkward moments where Trump paid deference to Russia while being openly antagonistic to long-standing allies like Germany and France.  Fortunately, Trump had guardrails his first term as the RNC hand-picked all his key cabinet officials so that he was limited in what he could offer Russia.  However, those guardrails are now gone with many members of his cabinet being notably pro-Russian, not least of which billionaire real estate developer Steve Witkoff, who has been acting as Trump's special envoy in Moscow.  Witkoff has been negotiating all sorts of backdoor deals not so much in an effort to end the war in Ukraine as to re-establish economic ties with Russia. The only thing stopping Trump from openly doing so is an antagonist Republican Senate, which for the most part still views Russia as an enemy.

This puts the US in a very awkward position.  The Trump administration can't openly support Russia, so its talking heads use a lot of doublespeak in laying the blame for the war in Ukraine as much at Zelenskyy's feet as they do Putin's feet.  Moreso in fact, as Trump seemed notably upset that Ukraine masterminded an attack on Russia's prized tactical bomber fleet without his knowledge and babbled something about the consequences that would follow.  Those consequences turned out to be the US diverting missiles bound for Ukraine to the Middle East prior to Israel's attack on Iran.  As a result, Russia launched a massive drone strike on Ukrainian cities, knowing Ukraine had greatly limited defensive capabilities.  Yet, Putin says that is still not enough retribution for the damage Ukraine did on his precious bombers.  At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump offers to replace Putin's lost bombers.

All this from a man who promised to end the war in Ukraine in one day and broker a peace agreement in Gaza that would turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East." Since then Israel has continued to bomb Gaza unmercifully, killing far more citizens than Hamas insurrectionists, and turning Gaza into one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory.  Now, Bibi wants to do the same with Tehran. Russia launches as many as 500 missiles and drones at Ukraine every day. This is what happens when foreign leaders let their tiny dicks do the talking.

It is only a matter of time before this blows up into a yuge conflagration that is beyond any of these impotent leaders' ability to manage.  Believe me, I have no sympathy for Iran but it is being put in the same position as Ukraine, although with no one to turn to as Putin isn't willing to defend his ally against Israel and the US, given his own backdoor deals with Netanyahu and Trump. However, Iran has shown before that it can wage war indefinitely and with small drones now being the weapon of choice in this new era of asymmetric warfare, you can do a tremendous amount of damage on a limited budget.  Everyone is learning from the war in Ukraine.  The rules of engagement have changed forever.