Where's the Diplomacy?

This war is catastrophic for Ukrainians and dangerous for the world.

“I hope that Chomsky and Varoufakis can get their points across—this war is catastrophic for Ukrainians and dangerous for the world, so we should bring this war to an end as soon as humanly possible.”

It’s crucial to end the war in Ukraine ASAP—see my previous piece on the Ukraine crisis:

• “Is US Policy Killing Ukrainians?” (17 March 2022)

You see a lot of hawkish media coverage that focuses on sanctioning Russia and sending weapons—I hope that FAIR will do some thorough analysis on the following:

• how much the media focuses on diplomacy

• how much the media focuses on the particular diplomatic efforts that Noam Chomsky and Yanis Varoufakis would like to see happen

In his latest interview, Chomsky talks about the prospects for ending the war:

• “Chomsky: Let’s Focus on Preventing Nuclear War, Rather Than Debating ‘Just War’” (24 March 2022)

Chomsky explains in the interview what a “constructive program” would look like and makes the following comment:

There is very little credible information about the negotiations. Some of the information leaking out sounds mildly optimistic. There is good reason to suppose that if the U.S. were to agree to participate seriously, with a constructive program, the possibilities for an end to the horror would be enhanced.

And on Democracy Now!, Yanis Varoufakis laid out very clearly and very nicely what Washington—and the West in general—should be pushing for:

• “Yanis Varoufakis: The West Is ‘Playing with Fire’ If It Pushes Regime Change in Nuclear-Armed Russia” (25 March 2022)

I’ll just include below my notes that paraphrase what Varoufakis said about what the game plan should be:

• the UN countries that didn’t join with the West in voting against Russia represent >50% of the world population—there’s nothing like alignment with the West

• Biden has no game plan—regime change has turned out badly in the past, and it’s dangerous to do regime change with a nuclear-armed country, and yet it seems like Biden’s aim is regime change when Biden calls Putin a war criminal

• the aim should be to give Putin a “golden bridge” to escape over—the “golden bridge” has to allow Putin to be able to claim that he’s achieved something

• a quagmire in Ukraine is catastrophic for Ukrainians

• Biden should have proposals out there right now for a resolution that would mean immediate ceasefire and immediate withdrawal—Biden should offer Putin a deal that Putin can sell to his own henchmen as some sort of victory

• Biden is the only one who can sit down with Putin—the two leaders can talk on the phone to begin with before they actually sit down, and their foreign ministers will have to attend the in-person exchanges

• the idea again is simply to offer Putin a “golden bridge” that he can sell to his own people as a mission accomplished

• a rational solution will leave all parties dissatisfied but will end the killing and lead to an independent and democratic Ukraine

• the Crimea question could be shelved—you could discuss that question in 10 years

And here are my notes that paraphrase what Varoufakis said about neutrality—Varoufakis held up Finland and Austria as great examples regarding neutrality:

• neutrality has been shown to work very well

• Finland had a war with the Soviets—there was a stalemate very much like what you see now in Ukraine, and the result was neutrality

• Finland is a great success story—neutrality allowed Finland to have independence, democracy, success, and shared prosperity

• some might say that neutrality didn’t protect Ukraine from Russian incursion and invasion, but Ukraine never had what Finland and Austria had, namely a summit between the US government-and-leader and the Russian government-and-leader—that handshake between the leaders never happened regarding Ukraine

I hope that Chomsky and Varoufakis can get their points across—this war is catastrophic for Ukrainians and dangerous for the world, so we should bring this war to an end as soon as humanly possible.