Russia Friends And Foes

RUSSIA

Friends and Foes

Before he left for Europe, President Donald Trump reflected on his busy agenda for the upcoming week: meeting British politicians amid the Brexit crisis, NATO leaders whom he berated for paying too little for their defense and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Frankly, Putin might be the easiest of them all – who would think,” said Trump, according to Radio Free Europe. Notably, the US president also described the European Union as a trade “foe” on the eve of meeting his Russian counterpart, the New York Times reported.

The Financial Times, however, disagreed Putin won’t pose a challenge, saying Trump’s meeting with the Kremlin’s head honcho on Monday was by far his most perilous rendezvous on the continent.

The British newspaper wrote that American policy toward Russia under Trump has been “contradictory and at times incoherent” because Trump appears to like Putin personally, while many administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress are suspicious of the Russian leader.

The tension between the two perspectives prompted many publications to issue Cassandra-like predictions for Trump’s sit-down with Putin.

“Putin is about to con Trump in Helsinki,” read the headline of a Washington Post opinion piece by David Kramer, a senior fellow in diplomacy at Florida International University and a former assistant secretary of state under ex-President George W. Bush.

Kramer argued that Putin, a former KGB agent, will flatter and manipulate Trump into doing his bidding: dismantling NATO, giving the Russian military free reign in Syria and easing sanctions imposed on Moscow after the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Trump appears to be undercutting NATO regardless of Russian desires. “How Trump and Putin could kill NATO,” wrote Politico Europe, noting how Trump has said for decades that America’s foreign alliances are a burden rather than a strength.

Because of the special investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election that resulted in Trump’s victory, the American president is somewhat constrained in changing American policy except in the case of Syria, wrote Middle East expert Joe Macaron in Al Jazeera.

“Trump will give up Syria to Putin the way Gorbachev left Iraq to Bush in 1990,” Macaron forecast, in return for Putin’s help in isolating Iran – a concession Putin could make and then ignore because he has little influence over the mullahs of Tehran.

That scenario led Russian maven Anna Arutunyan to declare that “Putin has already won” even before the summit took place. Putin is interested in optics, wrote Arutunyan. Sitting down with Trump makes him look good, especially if Trump badmouths NATO or suggests Crimea belongs to Russia.

That’s a lot of speculation, for sure. But for now, it’s the best the world can do.