Showing the outrageous partisanship on Capitol Hill, Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) demand that 72-year-old President Donald Trump cancel his July 16 summit in Helsinki with 65-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin. With Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein announcing 12 indictments of Russian GRU military intelligence operatives for hacking the Democratic National Committee [DNC] and former Hillary campaign Chairman John Podesta, Schumer and Pelosi demand Trump cancel. Since Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula March 1, 2014, Capitol Hill Democrats and Republicans want nothing to do with Putin. Trump campaigned on a promise to improve U.S.-Russian relations, something that deteriorated under former President Barack Obama’s two terms in office.
With the Democrat Party’s hard left, led by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and the Congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses, accusing Trump of colluding with the Kremlin to win the 2016 presidential election, they want nothing to do with Putin. Yesterday’s 29-page DOJ indictments lay out the case against Kremlin’s GRU military intelligence hacking unit, exposing nefarious activity at the Kremlin. When Wikileak’s exiled founder Julian Assange released damaging emails from the DNC and Podesta July 6, 2016, it embarrassed former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign. Among the most embarrassing emails were from former interim DNC Chairman Donna Brazille who admitted to giving Hillary debate questions in advance of a CNN debate. Brazille was fired by the DNC and CNN for abusing her position to give Hillary an unfair advantage over Trump.
Democrats expressed concerns that Putin would run circles around Trump at their July 16 summit. But if you follow Democrats’ logic, it’s better, like Obama, to have no working relationship with Putin. Trump believes in linkage where a foreign leader like Putin can help the U.S. on the opposite sides of the globe. Whether Democrats and their media friends like it or not, Putin’s a powerful world leader, with strong business ties to Germany, something Trump pointed out at the July 11-12 NATO summit in Brussels. Whatever European Union and Democrats’ objections to Putin’s behavior, especially in Crimea, Trump thinks it’s better to have a working relationship with Moscow. Regardless of what happened in the 2016 election, Trump wants Putin to lean on the Iranians in Syria, currently engaged in mischief near Israel’s Golan Heights, not to mention fueling a proxy war in Yemen.
Trump has Israel and Saudi Arabia in mind when he seeks from Putin some assurances of containing a growing Iranian threat to the region. Obama spent the better part of seven years backing the Saudi proxy war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Seven years of fighting left over 400,000 dead, 12 million more displaced to the Mideast and Europe. Saudi-U.S.-EU-backed seven-year-old proxy in Syria drove the U.K out of the European Union. Exit polls for the June 23, 2016 Brexit vote indicate that British voters wanted out of the EU because of immigration quotas imposed on the U.K. When Trump meets with Putin Monday, Democrats have an agenda for Trump: Confront Putin over Mueller’s indictments of 12 GRU agents. EU officials want Trump to deal with Iranian provocations in the Golan Heights, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order strikes on Syrian and Iranian troops.
Not one U.S. or EU official expects Trump to deal North Korea, where the dictator Kim Jong-un looks like he’s dragging his feet on de-nuclearization. Before Trump met with Kim June 12, Washington and Brussels were concerned about war on the Korean Peninsula. Since Trump’s meeting with Kim, tensions have been ratcheted down for the moment. “It is a fantasy to assume that Russia can in any way get Iran out of Syria,” said an unnamed Western diplomat. “Iran has expended billions of dollars and hundreds, thousands of lives to secure its position in Syria,” drawing attention to the real problem of Iran in Syria. Iran operates in Syria at the invitation of al-Assad. Russia has no interest in fighting Iran’s battles, including any vendetta the Mullah government has with Israel. Trump’s meeting with Putin walks a fine line, especially pushing him too hard on Russian meddling issue.
Unlike Democrats and the press, Trump holds a nuanced position on Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. Trump doesn’t deny that Russian GRU operatives hacked the email servers of the DNC and Podesta. Trump has a problem with Democrats and the press leaping to the conclusion that his campaign colluded with the Kremlin. Putin’s well-known vendetta with Hillary prompted him to expose her shenanigans to help Trump get elected. Mueller’s July 13 indictments emphatically state that no American worked with GRU military intelligence to dig up dirt on Hillary. Trump must do what he can to build rapport with the Russian leader. With a stronger working relationship, Trump can enlist Putin’s help on a variety of world issues, including North Korea, Syria and China’s incursion in the South China Sea. Without Putin’s help, Trump has little leverage on the world stage.
