OPINION | Wait, I Thought This War Was About NOT Offering Putin Any Concessions
US should speed weapons to the battlefield before considering offering Russians anything
No sooner has the US approved billions of dollars in new aid to Ukraine to keep beleaguered Ukrainians in the fight against Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion, than some in the United States think now those same Ukrainians should pack up to go home and see what Putin will take to end the war.
Such is the case with Elise Jordan, a veteran of the White House and State Department during the George W Bush administration.
“I do hope that the Biden administration is doing whatever they can to push the Ukrainians not only to success, but to start seriously thinking about negotiations, and what are going to have to be the concessions they want from Putin, what are going to be the concessions that they’re willing to make,” she said Monday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
Whoa, hold on a minute, there!
I thought that the rationale for supporting Ukraine — other than doing right by the Ukrainians, of course — involved denying the Russian leader any inch or advantage in Ukraine, lest Putin is emboldened to move on the next Eastern European neighbor to conquer.
President Biden has said as much, declaring just last December, “Today, Ukraine’s freedom is on the line. But if we don’t stop Putin, it will endanger the freedom of everyone almost everywhere. Putin will keep going, and would-be aggressors everywhere will be emboldened to try to take what they can by force.”
At this point, wouldn’t concessions be exactly what Putin would want? Especially after Republicans back in Washington dithered on approving new aid for months, letting Ukraine fall on the back foot.
Ukraine needs time to make up the ground and momentum it’s lost this year waiting for US assistance to come in the form of resupplied ammunition and other wartime necessities.
And, even on a matter like Ukraine’s future admittance to NATO — certainly something that Putin would be pleased to see not happen — alliance members have already been fairly unequivocal that entrance to NATO is nearly a fait accompli once the war is over.
Jordan also complained about the conflict in Ukraine becoming an “endless war.”
Endless?
The struggle is barely into its third year, and whatever delays there have been, can be laid squarely at the feet of House Republicans who faltered while a noisy number, like Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, parroted Russian propaganda in an attempt to forestall any further US assistance to Ukraine.
If Jordan and her ilk are so worried about Ukraine taking too long to push the Russian military off Ukrainian soil, perhaps we should focus on sending more-advanced US weapons systems to the battlefield more quickly.
The Biden administration has too often slow walked escalation of weapons systems to Ukraine.
If time really is of the essence — and it is, just maybe not in the way Jordan thinks it is — we should be passing ever-more-capable arms to the Zelensky government in Kyiv, to accelerate the fight.
That should be instead of thinking about giving Putin a single thing, before the ink on the check for this new US aid even has even had a chance to dry.
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