Trump Hits the Stalemate Phase of His International Interventions, and It Stings

In Ukraine, Gaza and now Iran, President Trump’s early declarations of easy wins have given way to harsh reality.

Excerpt from The New York Times, May 31

By David E. Sanger

David E. Sanger has covered five American presidents over four decades at the Times, and writes often on the revival of superpower conflict, the subject of his latest book.

image/text from article: One of President Trump’s close aides said recently that destroying nuclear sites from the air is what America does best, and that controlling political events in nations like Iran, Russia and Ukraine is what the United States does worst. Credit...Doug Mills

Article:

... Then there is the Ukraine war, a conflict in its fifth year that Mr. Trump famously boasted he would end in 24 hours after taking office. Sixteen months after he was sworn in, he rarely mentions the war anymore, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently complained that he was tired of wasting time in endless negotiations, suggesting that he would be perfectly happy if some other country wanted to step in and play that role.

For their part, the Russians have quietly made clear that they are tired of periodic visits from the president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Mr. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, according to people familiar with the negotiations. They say they want a stable, diplomatic process, with working groups and regular meetings. They also want an American ambassador to Russia — a job that has been open, astoundingly, for nearly a year. ...

Yet Mr. Rubio, who left the negotiating chiefly to Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner, sounded the other day as though he had given up on moving either side to a peace accord anytime soon. “The U.S. stands ready and prepared to help do whatever we can to help facilitate the end of this war,” he told reporters on Tuesday. “And hopefully the opportunity will present itself at some point that we can play that role again.”

To some experts who have been playing a behind-the-scenes role in trying to spur negotiations, the administration’s mistake has been relying too much on episodic phone calls or visits of special envoys, without the day-to-day engagement of traditional diplomacy to keep talks moving.

“This conflict is ripe for conclusion,” said Thomas Graham, a longtime American diplomat who served in Moscow before the collapse of the Soviet Union and managed a strategic dialogue with the Kremlin during the George W. Bush administration. “The mood has changed in Moscow. The battlefield is different: The Ukrainians have frozen the front line. The economic problems in Russia are building, and some political discontent is bubbling up. Conversations inside the Kremlin are on ‘How do we present this as a victory?’”

But he noted that “you have to have a negotiating process,” and that is still missing. “I think they would like to see the process institutionalized,” Mr. Graham added, “so it’s more than a couple of envoys talking to Putin.” ...

David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges.