Peace Prize for Trump? Ukraine situation not likely to help
President Trump wants many things.
He wants a gilded ballroom, a triumphal arch, a football stadium with his name on it, his face on Mount Rushmore and a presidential library that includes a hanger for an equally gilded 747.
And he wants a Nobel Peace Prize.
The reason is nakedly transparent. Barack Obama was awarded that prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
The rationale was more than that. I have spoken to enough Europeans to understand what Obama’s election meant to them. If the United States could elect an African American man to the presidency given America’s history of slavery and racial discrimination, what other challenges could also be overcome? For them, the Obama presidency was a symbol of hope in a time when the war on terror and a global financial meltdown had left precious little cause for it.
Perhaps no one has campaigned so openly and so shamelessly for the prize as President Trump and it has cost some countries nothing to ostentatiously nominate the president for the prize, hoping to curry favor.
So, clearly President Trump’s inability to move Russia and Ukraine closer to peace is something that gnaws at him. He has made the extremely dubious claim that he has ended eight wars in eight months, calling himself the “president of peace.” Instead, there are a collection of fragile ceasefires and agreements where the U.S. involvement was of minor importance or nonexistent.
Perhaps we should not care about the president’s motivation. If he wants to try to use American influence to end conflicts, have at it.
However, motivations matter for they clarify the objectives and red lines that shape agreements. Is the motivation behind conflict resolution support for democracy, for sovereignty, for the rule of international law? Or is it purely transactional with an eye toward what one might extract? Mineral rights? Future business deals? A trip to Oslo?
The president absurdly set a Thanksgiving deadline for Russia and Ukraine to accept a 28-point peace plan that is little more than a Russian wish list with no input from Europe or Ukraine. It is, quite simply, a non-starter for a hundred different reasons.
Europe and Ukraine have gingerly figured out how to say “no” without saying “no.” Best not to anger the volatile and mercurial figure in the Oval Office. They call the plan “a starting point” and there are talks in Geneva.
There have been hints that if Ukraine does not agree that the U.S. would withdraw intelligence cooperation and might stop selling American weapons to Europe, which then transfers them to Ukraine. On Saturday, the president called Ukraine “ungrateful.”
President Trump has been unable to move Vladimir Putin from his maximalist demands, so now he is trying to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept those demands because he sees Ukraine and Zelenskyy at a moment of great vulnerability. The country is exhausted, and a political scandal is nipping at Zelenskyy’s heels.
If the president really wanted to move President Putin, he would have signed the sanctions bill languishing in Congress instead of stopping after sanctioning two oil companies. He could have stepped up sanctions enforcement and given Ukraine the means to fight. Instead, he rolled out a red carpet for Putin.
Slowly — too slowly — Europe has been stepping up, trying to fill the gap left by America’s pull-back. What should motivate all is that this challenge to the international order should be met with force and unflinching resolve. Russia’s aggression cannot and should not be rewarded.
If I were a betting man, I would say that President Trump will never receive the Nobel Peace Prize. As one analyst pointed out, they don’t give the prize for trying to coerce a surrender.
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.