Donald, time is running out. Your views about Russia, Ukraine and your relationship with Vladimir Putin must be clarified. Be sure that in the forthcoming debates, Hillary will set a trap for you, something similar to Garry Johnson’s “Aleppo moment.” Don’t let her create Syria and Ukraine moments. Putin also knows how to read people and you must not fall for his flattery. With his background in the KGB he is well versed in reading people and the art of the deal as well as maskirovka [deception].
But you are correct; we should explore a possible new relationship with Putin as Reagan did with Gorbachev. And before that can happen, you must realize we cannot forge an anti-Islamist terrorist alliance, with him without serious steps to resolving the Ukraine crisis.
Some basic history: Before the Putin-Trump bromance there was a Bush-Putin bromance in 2001. George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin first met at a June 2001 summit in Slovenia. Putin warned Bush that al Qaida was planning an attack on the American homeland. They also had a discussion about the cross Putin was wearing. As Bush found out Putin is not just a former KGB officer, but a devout Christian. After 9/11 the Russians, bogged down in their war with Islamic terrorists in Chechnya, became our allies and helped us to prosecute Al Qaida and the Taliban with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.
So why did the bromance sour? The trouble began when “W” and his NSA, Condi Rice, launched the 2003 Iraq war, based on faulty and even fabricated intelligence that Saddam Hussein had WMD and ties with al Qaida. Notice, Hillary Clinton vigorously supported and voted for the war in Iraq as a senator in 2002. Unlike many Democrats, she sounded like Vice President Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and other Republican advocates of it within the Bush administration. “Intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program,” declared Hillary.
While many Democrats and some prominent Republicans like Brent Scowcroft questioned the controversial issue of Saddam’s possession of WMD and support for the 9/11 terrorists, she did not. Unlike other public figures, people like Donald Trump who sort of supported the war initially while not having access to intelligence information, she voted for war. By 2004, however, Trump instinctively turned against it,
Along with France and Germany, Russia disapproved of the Iraq war. Why start a new one with Afghanistan unfinished? Then, while still bogged down in Iraq, Bush and Rice launched a drive to enlarge the number of NATO countries at Russia’s periphery without a corresponding deepening of the NATO-Russia alliance. That was not welcome! In the words of former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates “Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching
” Feeling “encircled” by NATO, Putin viewed our ambitions as “hegemonic.” Then came his aversion to the pro-west, 2004 color revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, which surely contributed to his policies of undermining the new democratic leaders in those countries. There followed the 2008 invasion of Georgia and 2014 bloodless invasions of the Crimea and bloody proxy war in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Putin is fully aware of the political and business ambitions of the Clintons. First, there was Hillary’s 2009 “reset” with Russia. Recall that this took place a year after the invasion of sovereign Georgia and occupation of its two provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But with the “reset,” Russia was forgiven.
Ask why? The Secretary of State was busy at the same time swinging a deal with husband Bill’s help that netted them a fortune. She okay-ed at the highest level the sale to Russian firm Rosatom of a Canadian uranium mining company with vast stakes in the American West and Kazakhstan. Russia gained a fifth of America’s uranium! Hardly the art of the deal. The Clinton Foundation got $2.35 million in donations from the company’s happy shareholders and Bill got a $500,000 speakers fee from the Russians!
That was surely fine with Putin, but the real turning point in the U.S.-Russo relationship was the 2011, Hillary- led intervention in Libya. In the debate before the U.N., Ambassador Susan Rice, as directed by Hillary, perpetuated the myth that the U.S. and NATO wanted to intervene in Libya primarily for humanitarian reasons. Supposedly they sought to prevent the massive slaughter of civilians by Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. There was civil war but the slaughter was exaggerated.
As Gates reported, after Gaddafi was killed by the Libyan rebels, the Russians, who had abstained in the U.N. vote, believed they had been tricked. Moreover, a secular leader like Saddam, Libya’s Gaddafi had not only given up his nuclear program, but was eager to fight al Qaida with the U.S. After his murder, al Qaida metastasized and the huge migration to Europe was unleashed. Libya became another failed state like Iraq.
“We came, we saw and we killed him,” crowed Hillary, who now was bent on providing more arms to anti-Assad, rebels in Syria. Advised by her unofficial adviser, Sid Blumenthal, an Anglophile figure with contacts among arms dealers, Clinton continued to reap hefty donations for her private hedge fund, the Clinton foundation.
On Sunday we are approaching the anniversary of 9/11 but also the four years anniversary of Benghazhi-gate. Now we know there was no consulate in Benghazi but a mission that included a large CIA annex engaged in shipping the Libyan weapons to Syria via Turkey. The research of investigative reporters Seymour Hersh and Christophe Lehman show that Ambassador Chris Stevens, was aware and even involved in the annex arms shipments Hillary oversaw. Moreover, as we learned, he was preparing for Secretary Clinton’s visit later in the year. That’s why he was in Benghazi on the day he was killed.
But the kicker is the assertions of these two reporters that the weapons for Syria were accompanied by the sarin gas allegedly used by Assad on his own people. The sarin, when tested, was not from Syria, but from Libya! These reports have to be verified. If true, they would put a different spin on America’s presumed reasoning as it considered military intervention against Assad in September 2013 to punish Bashir Assad. To us this is not a final verdict, but it surely must be explored.
The Obama-Hillary plan for Syria, as earlier in Iraq and Libya, became regime change and free elections. But once again Hillary disregarded the Middle East’s historical legacy and a political culture that had no prior experience in democracy. Was she even aware of the fault lines between Sunnis and Shiites?
Much earlier than Hillary’s critics in America Putin’s foreign service reached the conclusion that ambitious and trigger happy Mrs. Clinton is a dangerous and an unreliable partner. Unsurprisingly, Republican architect of the Iraq war, Paul Wolfowitz, and two other ardent supporters of it, Elliot Cohen and Max Booth, are now supporting Democrat Hillary and not Trump. They surely remember Hillary’s robust interventionism.
Putin is well aware that both Russia and America are facing a long struggle with a common enemy, “Islamic terrorism,” the two words Obama and Hillary find so hard to pronounce. But the bottom line is that the resolution of the Ukraine crisis is the sine qua non of a return from a new Cold War back to the constructive relationship Putin started to develop with Bush. Its equitable resolution is a precondition for our lifting of the sanctions against Russia.
The negotiations with Putin on Ukraine must not be left to Angela Merkel, Sooner than later, she will be out of office for letting in the Muslim deluge and the making of post- Brexit Europe. America must be involved in art of deal making on Ukraine. Possible compromise; Putin’s withdrawal of his military from eastern Ukraine, the international guarantee of Ukraine’s genuine independence and territorial integrity based on armed neutrality a la Switzerland.
We must say no to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, yet Ukraine can be armed with NATO defensive weapons. Full autonomy and civil rights must be provided to Russian speakers in the Eastern Ukraine. Russia’s right to use the naval base of Sevastopol in the Crimea, home of the Black Sea fleet, must be guaranteed in perpetuity. However, as we did in the case of the Baltic Republics, we must never recognize de jure incorporation of the Crimea into Russia. It’s special status must be negotiated. For details on a negotiated proposal see my interview by Alexander Motyl in The World Affairs Journal, “Ukraine a Bridge linking Russia and the West?”
Back to you, Donald. All of your critics should remember, when Winston Churchill faced Hitler, he took the other monster, Stalin as an ally. He said, “If Hitler were to invade hell, I would at least make a passing reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” Putin is no angel, but he’s no Stalin. In a nutshell, it is imperative that you not be accused of being a Putin stooge or supporting another “Munich agreement ” on Ukraine. Yet you should, of course, pursue a relationship.
Obviously, in the remaining time, you must get to know the basics. Again, you must remember Winston Churchill; “Study history, study history; in history lie all the secrets of statecraft.”
Dr. Jiri Valenta and his wife and partner, Leni Friedman Valenta, are supporters of Mr. Trump since the publication of their Open Letter to Donald Trump on July 4, 2015. A long standing member of the Council on Foreign Relations and author/co-author of many books, he and Leni publish together frequently in leading periodicals.
