Ukraine & Peace

The House Progressive Caucus released a letter supporting peace negotiations over Ukraine. This alters our political landscape. The Progressive Caucus letter was endorsed on Twitter by Matt Duss, Bernie's former foreign policy guru.

I think it's worth supporting. Anybody who reads my scribbling knows I have defended Ukraine's right to defend itself and, if possible, beat the hell out of Russians with NATO support. The Grayzone types are crowing about this, but that doesn't mean it's a bad move.

One does have to ask the difference between the U.S. geo-strategic motive in crippling Russia over the indefinite future, and the Ukrainian interest in simply recovering their territory. I am completely sympathetic with the latter, but not with the former.

The U.S. and Europe have skin in the game, in the form of threats of a wider war. I don't like the idea of using aid to pressure Ukraine, but in general some kind of compromise seems inevitable. Neither side is going to get all they want. It would be good to forego the violence that would occupy any delay in a settlement.

Most any compromise IMO would mean the end of Putin's regime, a side benefit. Meanwhile, today AG Merrick Garland went off on PRC espionage within the U.S., not necessarily ill-founded, but it does tighten the sphincter a bit.