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OCTOBER 25, 2022

Meyerson on TAP

**The Ukraine Conundrum**

Democrats ask 'what's the endgame,' then withdraw the question
(which nonetheless persists).

Now you see it; now you don't. This afternoon, roughly 24 hours after
30 House Democrats sent a letter to President Biden urging him to try to
negotiate a settlement of the Ukraine War with Vladimir Putin, the
signatories withdrew
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the letter. Turns out their signatures were gathered in early and
midsummer, before Ukraine had begun some successful counteroffensives.
At the time, Republicans had not yet been vowing to stop U.S. aid to
Ukraine-a position the 30 Dems have made clear they oppose; they said
they favored both negotiations and a continuation of aid. Within the
past week, however, Kevin McCarthy (who inspires no confidence he could
identify Ukraine on a map) has promised that a Republican House majority
would end aid to Ukraine, which made yesterday's letter look like a
piling on against Biden administration policy and Ukraine.

Apparently, most of the signatories didn't know the letter would be
sent yesterday; some appear to have believed it was effectively dead.
Now, it is-though the questions it raised and the critique it posed
remain unanswered.

That critique was posed most succinctly by George Beebe of the Quincy
Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Beebe was quoted, in The
Washington Post's story that broke the news about the letter, as
saying, "The risk of the [administration's] strategy is it has no
conception of an endgame." That's true enough, although the only
parties that appear to have conceptions-albeit diametrically opposed
ones-of an endgame are Russia and Ukraine.

Despite the ocean of uncertainty and contingency in which we all are
bobbing around, there are, at least, a host of distinct, identifiable
tendencies in how Americans and the West think about Putin's war. To
name just a few, there are, to begin, the simply wrong-headed,
including:

* The pro-Putin fascists. The faction's founder was Pat Buchanan, who
nearly two decades ago began writing that since Putin was clearly
anti-gay, anti-feminist, something of a white nationalist, and an
opponent of liberal democracy, the American right should embrace him.
Subsequent adherents include Viktor Orban, Tucker Carlson, and some
portion of the Trump undergrowth (Steve Bannon comes to mind), though
most have thus far muted their support.

* Wannabe tin-pots. Both Donald Trump and, last weekend, Silvio
Berlusconi (whose party is one of the three now governing Italy) have
expressed their admiration for Putin's presumed toughness, autocratic
verve, and (when they compare him to themselves) relative youth. This is
not to say that these aging thugs aren't also pro-fascist, but
there's a personal element here that shouldn't be ignored.

* Followers of the Republican base. Polling shows that the percentage of
Republicans who want to cut off U.S. aid to Ukraine has now risen to
one-third of party members and leaners-doubtless, the third most
consumed by hatred of Satanic Democrats, and most susceptible to
Trump's and Tucker's Putin-philia. This is a group that most
Republican electeds, and Kevin McCarthy in particular, are mortally
fearful of offending; hence the House GOP pledges to cut Ukraine off.

* The small slice of the left that blames the U.S. for the war: For such
as these, the expansion of NATO to Russia's borders is the

**casus belli**that justifies Putin's follies. To be sure, there were
many on the left (including George Kennan and, well, me) who long ago
wrote that NATO's eastward march was a mistake, but most of us don't
think that exculpates Putin in the slightest for the murderous slaughter
he's chosen to wage. The anti-German stipulations in the Treaty of
Versailles, after all, were not raised as a defense for the Nazi leaders
at the Nuremberg trials.

Then there are those who support the U.S. support for Ukraine, in part
or in whole. They include:

* Foreign-policy traditionalists. This group appears to include such
NATO advocates as Mitch McConnell, who may or may not go to the wall to
defend democratic values (certainly not when it comes to voting rights
for all Americans), but who oppose those who threaten American hegemony.

* Foreign-policy traditionalists also committed to American hegemony but
with a greater appreciation for democracy, and a desire to defend it and
to fight fascism when possible, than Mitch McConnell has. I.e., the
Biden administration, among others.

* Liberals and progressives who are ever ambivalent about American
hegemony but are die-hard democrats and anti-fascists.

* Realpolitikers who, like Beebe, don't see how this ends well and
fear the consequences of prolonged (let alone escalated) war to Ukraine,
Europe, and the U.S. and global economy-but still wish to support
Ukraine.

The 30 signatories to the now-withdrawn letter fall into both of those
latter two categories-as, I suspect, do most liberals and progressives
generally.

How long the American people will support our aid to Ukraine is
anybody's guess. The Republican base is now weaponizing the issue as
part of its anti-Biden diatribes, but there's no telling whether this
opposition will overflow the base. Or, more accurately,

**when**this opposition will overflow the base, as our support, however
necessary and commendable, cannot be indefinite.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

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