President Donald Trump counts on Steven Witkoff, a longtime acquaintance from their New York real estate days, to negotiate solutions to some of the most fraught issues in world politics—those confronting Israel and Palestinians and those driving war between Russia and Ukraine. Witkoff also ventures to speak about improving US relations with Iran.
The real estate magnate concedes that each item on his to-do list is very complicated, but he plunges ahead, confident that President Donald Trump, is behind him as he deals with life and death issues in multiple settings. Both Trump and his envoy seem to think that problem-solving in international affairs is no different from real estate and requires no particular knowledge.
Witkoff told Tucker Carlson on March 22 that the "largest issue" in the Ukraine war is "these so-called four regions, Donbas, Crimea."[1] Witkoff could not remember the names of the border regions--Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—all of which Putin purported to annex in September 2022.Carlson supplied the name of one region: "Lugansk," Russian for Luhansk, as spelled in Ukrainian. Witkoff concurred, saying "and there's two others.” He seemed to think Crimea is also a border region rather than a large peninsula south of mainland Ukraine, annexed by Putin in 2014.
Though Witkoff is shaky on geography, he seems sure that Russian-arranged referenda in the annexed territories showed that “the overwhelming majority of people…want to live under Russian rule.” Does Trump’s envoy know—or care--that the United Nations Security Council on September 30, 2022 passed a resolution to punish Russia for annexing these territories—with 10 yes votes, 1 no vote (Russia’s veto) and 4 abstentions by Brazil, China, Gabon, and India?
Witkoff boasted: I’m always trying to put myself in the shoes of the other person, because a good deal has to work for everybody. He added that every solution comes as a result of President Trump.
The would-be mediator then joined Carlson in demeaning one side’s president.
WHTCOFF: You saw what happened in the Oval Office with Zelenskyy and the President. Disrespecting him is not a healthy way to have a good relationship.
CARLSON: The arrogance of small countries. It’s like, get some perspective. I mean, come on, how can you imagine acting like that?
WITKOFF: And they’re dependent on us. Oh, I know. And we’ve been so good to them. Witkoff hopes to end the war with terms acceptable to each side, but he has no idea how the conflict began. He tells Carlson that Ukraine and Russia have been at each other since World War II—oblivious that Russian leaders have been oppressing what they called “Little Russia” for centuries and that Communist Russia forced Ukraine to function as a Soviet Republic and starved millions of Ukrainians to death in the 1930s.
Seeming to agree with the Kremlin, Witkoff explained: There’s a sensibility in Russia that Ukraine is a false country, that they just patch together in this sort of mosaic, these regions. And that’s the root cause, in my opinion, of this war, that Russia regards those five regions as rightfully theirs since World War II….How are we going to solve this unless we solve the central issue…?
Like Putin, Witkoff blames the current war on NATO expansion, ignorant that Kremlin strategists in the 1990s claimed that Russia had a right and a duty to help “compatriots” in the all the former Soviet Republics.
Witkoff may not know or care that Russia as well as the U.S. and United Kingdom pledged in 1994 to guarantee Ukraine’s security upon its return of all nuclear warheads to Russia,
Witkoff sees Putin as a virtual pacifist. The Russian president asked the U, S, diplomat, “What should I do in a particular area where we have people surrounded and they don’t want to give up? Do I kill them? How do I get them to give up? I’m happy not to kill everybody. I’m happy to get people to wave the white flag if I can get them to wave the white flag.”
WITOFF: Putin is gracious. I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy. Should outsiders worry that Putin for years was a KGB agent? No, because the KGB was the place for Russia’s best and brightest. Putin went to church to pray for Trump after an assassin’s bullet hit his ear,
The U.S. envoy joins the realists who say Ukraine has no cards. Zelenskyy is up against a nation that has four times the population…. he’s going to get ground down. Now is the best time for him to get a deal done. President Trump can deliver him the best possible deal he’s ever going to get. Meanwhile, Witkoff warns, we “cannot allow that country to drag us into World War Three.”
How do those who trust in material might explain North Vietnam’s victories over France and the USA or the defeats by Afghan rebels of the USSR and the USA?
Neither Europe nor the United States need fear Russian expansion beyond what it now occupies, says Witkoff, Trump’s envoy does not know that Putin’s mouthpieces are near-delirious as they map out a future of punishing Europe--with US help.[2] State TV host Vladimir Solovyov foresees the US annexation of Greenland, the disintegration of NATO, and the destruction of the European Union…and economic war between America and Europe. Amerikanist Dmitry Drobnitsky predicts that a future President JD Vance will be Russia’s ticket to global expansion, A Russian newspaper says that Trump plans to own Ukraine and is “proposing that Russia becomes its associate and business partner.”
Meanwhile, Witkoff adds that with Trump as president we have an opportunity to clean up all problems with Tehran so Iran can join the League of Nations and enjoy better ties with the United States. Trump’s master diplomat does not know that the League died in World War II and was succeeded by the United Nations in 1946 with Iran as a founding member,
The amateur hour plays on as Trump’s top security officials discuss war plans among themselves (the “principles” --who cares about spelling?) including the editor at The Atlantic, designated by Trump as a failing magazine.
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Walter Clemens is Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, and Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Boston University. He wrote Blood Debts: What Putin and Xi Owe Their Victims and The Republican War on America: Dangers of Trump and Trumpism.
E-mail wclemens@bu.edu
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[1] https://singjupost.com/transcript-of-steve-witkoffs-interview-on-the-tucker-carlson-show/?singlepage=1. Carlson said that Google banned the transcript from YouTube.
[2]https://cepa.org/article/plotting-a-russian-us-war-on-satanic-europe/
