Trump Is trying to Rein in Putin, but Prog-Dems, Some Republicans and The New York Times Undercut Him at Every Opportunity

The noise over President Trump's various statements about Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, is deafening in its lack of serious discussion about the merits and goals of Trump's arguments. • • • WHAT IS RUSSIA SAYING? Reuters reported on Monday that one of Russia's top diplomats said government ministries in the United States and Russia should restore direct communications channels with each other as part of a first step to rebuild bilateral ties, inferring that under President Obama, there was no direct communication between Russia and the US at the presidential and senior diplomatic levels. So, it seems logical that President Trump and President Putin would both say they would like to try to mend US-Russia relations. After all, most observers say that under Obama they slid to a post-Cold War low after Moscow's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea. • Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, told the Moscow-based Security Index Journal in an interview published on Monday that restoring inter-ministerial and inter-agency ties between the two countries is now essential. Ryabkov said : "A reset in contacts between ministries and agencies in one form or another has long been needed." In the same interview, Ryabokov said a Russian proposal to discuss cybersecurity issues at an inter-agency level with the United States is still on the table. Under Obama, US intelligence agencies accused Moscow of sponsoring computer hackers to try to influence last year's US election in Trump's favor, allegations Russia denies. Trump, both before and after the election, tried to lower the volume of the Obama accusations against Russia and suggested that Russia was no the only country hacking into US sites. Trump said China and North Korea had done more damage than Russia by hacking into federal personnel databases and by stealing US intellectual property information. Ryabkov said Moscow had many questions on cybersecurity for US officials, citing hacker attacks on Russian web sites. One Russian questions must surely relate to the often-raised presumption in the US that the Obama intel groups could be so sure that it was Russian hacking into the Democrat National Committee, and with knowledge about who did the hacking, only if the US had hacked into Russian government-related sites to get the information. • Ryabkov also dismissed the idea of Moscow agreeing to make nuclear arms cuts in exchange for sanctions relief. This seemed to be in response to Trump's interview statement in January about the possibility that US sanctions on Russia imposed over its 2014 annexation of Crimea could be lifted as part of a deal involving nuclear cuts. Ryabkov said : "We don't discuss the sanctions and won't discuss them." • The Kremlin also said on Monday it did not agree with President Trump's assessment of Iran as "the number one terrorist state" and wanted to deepen what it described as already good ties with Teheran. In this, the Kremlin was responding to comments Trump made to Fox News in a weekend interview in which he complained that Iran had "total disregard" for the United States. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a conference call with reporters that Moscow saw things differently : "Russia has friendly partner-like relations with Iran, we cooperate on a wide range of issues, value our trade ties, and hope to develop them further." Peskov said there was no reason for policy differences over Iran to hinder a Russia-US rapprochement : "It's no secret for anyone that Moscow and Washington hold diametrically opposed views on many international issues. That should not be an obstacle when it comes to forging normal communication and pragmatic mutually-beneficial relations between Russia and the United States." Separately, Russia criticized the Trump administration's move on Friday to impose sanctions on Iran after its recent ballistic missile test, saying again that the test did not violate existing agreements. • And, the Kremlin said on Monday it wanted an apology from Fox News over what it said were "unacceptable" comments one of the channel's presenters made about Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with Trump. In the interview, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly described Putin as "a killer" as he tried to press the President to explain more fully why he respected his Russian counterpart. O'Reilly did not say who he thought Putin had killed. Peskov said : "We consider such words from the Fox TV company to be unacceptable and insulting, and honestly speaking, we would prefer to get an apology from such a respected TV company." An apology has not yet been made by Fox. • • • WHAT IS TRUMP SAYING? President Trump's views on Putin are scrutinized in minute detal in the United States -- where US intelligence agencies under Obama accused Moscow of sponsoring computer hacking to help Trump win office in what was probably an effort to hidethe fact that President Obama had had "zero" success in foreign affairs and was seeing his voter "charm" exercised on behalf of Hillary Clinton going down the drain. The media and Progressive Democrats, and sadly some Republicans, are looking for evidence that Trump really favors Russia and may have known that he was to benefit from any alleged Russian election hacking. Trump's critics say he's too complimentary about the Russian leader. Trump has steadfastly denied this and there is no media evidence that would inculpate Trump. • Certainly the farthest President Trump has gone in favoring Russia was in the Fox interview with Bill O'Reilly, when Trump, commenting on allegations that Putin is a "killer," asked how "innocent" the United States itself has been. Trump said in the interview that he respects Putin : "but that doesn't mean I'm going to get along with him. He's a leader of his country. I say it's better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and islamic terrorism all over the world -- that's a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea." O'Reilly then said about Putin : "But he's a killer, though. Putin's a killer." Trump responded : "There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country's so innocent?" Putin, in his 17th year of Russian political domination, is accused by some Kremlin critics of ordering the killing of opponents. Putin and the Kremlin has repeatedly rejected those allegations as politically-motivated and false. Trump has said he wants to try to mend battered US-Russia ties and hopes he can get along with Putin. That is the total story between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. • • • GOP LAWMAKERS CRITICAL OF TRUMP'S PUTIN COMMENTS. Trump's comments irritated some Congressional Republicans who rejected any comparison between how Russian and US politicians behave. Several GOP lawmakers tried after the Trump interview to distance themselves from his comments. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell immediately said in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union : “Putin's a former KGB agent. He's a thug. He was not elected in a way that most people would consider a credible election. The Russians annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine and messed around in our elections. And no, I don't think there's any equivalency between the way the Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does." Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican who is one of Trump’s fiercest critics, said on ABC’s The Week that : "there is no moral equivalency between the United States of America, the greatest freedom living nation in the history of the world, and the murderous thugs that are in Putin's defense of his cronyism.” Sasse added that he didn’t know what Trump was trying to do with “comments like these.” Ohio Governor John Kasich, who dislikes Trump so intensely that he refused to attend the GOP National Nominating Convention held in his own state of Ohio, said : "America has been a beacon of light and freedom. There is no equivalence with the brutal regime of Vladimir Putin." Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, said : "@POTUS statement suggesting moral equivalence between Putin's Russia and the United States of America is deeply troubling and wrong." Florida Senator Marco Rubio also commented, saying : "When has a Democratic political activists been poisoned by the GOP, or vice versa? We are not the same as #Putin. MR." • Vice President Mike Pence tried to reduce some of the heat on Trump in his interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, saying : "American ideals are superior to countries all across the world. But, again, what the President is determined to do, as someone who has spent a lifetime looking for deals, is to see if we can have a new relationship with Russia and other countries that advances the interests of America first and the peace and security of the world." • • • RUSSIA-US STICKING POINTS. There are two major problems standing in the way of establishing a working relationship betweem President Trump and President Putin. • NATO AND UKRAINE. The first problem is NATO and Russian incursions into eastern Ukraine and military support for rebel factions there, and its annexation of Crimea. Retired General Mike Flynn, who is now President Trump's national security advisor, favors a strong US commitment to NATO. President Trump is scheduled to attend the NATO meeting in May, and Flynn will suggest that he support letting Montenegro join NATO, according to a senior administration official who spoke with Politico on Monday. Politico also reports that allowing Montenegro into NATO would bother Russia, which opposes any eastward expansion of the Western military alliance. Montenegrin leaders, according to Politico, have accused Russian President Putin of trying to create instability in their nation. Montenegrin leaders say that Putin has tried to erode support for Montenegro’s inclusion in NATO by fomenting alleged plots by pro-Russian movements to attack its parliament and kill its prime minister last year. In this regard, Putin has continually expressed concerns about NATO inching closer and closer to Russian borders, making its defense perimeters indefensible. NATO has said it is not moving east to encircle Russia but to bring in newly independent eastern European states who want to be part of the NATO defense alliance. Objectively looking at the Ukraine conflict easily leads one to the conclusion that NATO's and the Euroepan Union's consideration of membership for Ukraine, which is on Russia's borders, was the last straw for Russia, and Putin acted to make it clear that having NATO on Russian borders is a non-starter. • Trump could block Montenegro’s bid, Politico added, as the alliance requires unanimous support from all its members. Twenty-three of the 28 governments comprising NATO have backed Montenegro’s addition, with heavy hitters Canada, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and the US yet to weigh in. If voted in by NATO, Montenegro’s parliament must ultimately ratify an accord on joining NATO. Albania and Croatia joined NATO in 2009, so Montenegro would be the third Balkan nation and former Soviet satellite to potentially enter NATO. Adding a new NATO member is a treaty measure requiring support from two-thirds of US Senators. The US Constitution delegates the power to negotiate treaties to the President, so that even before the Senate could speak, Trump might delay backing a Montenegro entry into NATO, stalling the process indefinitely. Trump has repeatedly questioned NATO’s usefulness, and he has also voiced openness to having closer ties with Putin. Refusing to act on the Montenegro NATO entry would send a message to Putin that Trump sees a Russia-US rapprochement as more important than adding one more member state to NATO. The question of Ukraine will surely weigh heavily on Trump's decision about Montenegro and his decision will most likely be read as an indication of how he will handle Urkainian issues. • IRAN. This is the much tougher issue separating Russia and the US. But, it seems the Trump White House is looking for ways to cut through the Iran-Russia jungle. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that senior White House officials are looking for ways to put a wedge between Russia and Iran and weaken their cooperation. • This may not be quite as difficult as it seems since Russia and Iran are natural competitors for hegemony status in the Middle East. The common interests that hold Moscow and Teheran together now are their conflicts with the United States and their isolation from the rest of the world, through sanctions and pariah status -- Iran because of its missile program and flimsy adherence to the Obama nuclear deal, and Russia through its Ukraine and Crimea military presence and to a lesser degree its Olympic athletics doping problems. Given that neither state has a significant ally, the two neighbors -- both have borders on the Caspian Sea -- forged a loose alliance. But listen closely and you will hear occasional mutterings from Iran that they are not in Russia's pocket. • In the last 150 years, Russia and Iran have fought a variety of wars, at the end of which Iran usually lost territory. During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied most of Northwest Iran and supported the independence of two short-lived Kurdish and Azerbaijani states there. Today, Moscow carefully monitors Iran’s activities and impedes Teheran’s moves to widen its influence in the Caspian region. Moscow’s firing of cruise missiles in October 2015 from the Caspian Sea into Syria -- some of which dropped on Iranian territory -- undoubtedly annoyed Iran. Russia and Iran are also strategic competitors in the energy sector, where they compete for foreign investment. Iran’s immense gas reserves could, other things being equal, challenge Russia’s ham-fisted dominance in several markets in the European Union. In 2007, when Iran launched gas supplies to neighboring Armenia, Russia's Gazprom immediately bought up the pipeline within Armenia and built it with a small circumference to prevent its future use for transporting gas to European markets. Turkey could also become a gas market battleground for Russia and Iran, but Turkey doesn't have a lot of love for either country. • In the current Syrian and wider Middle East conflicts, Russia and Iran interests don't always overlap. Russia’s deployment in Syria to support its armaments client, the al-Assad regime, and ensure its continued Mediterranean presence through its Syrian port, forced Iran into a secondary position there. The vacuum created by the Obama administration was used by Putin to deepen ties with several US allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Israel -- Iran’s top rivals in the Middle East. Russia is also working to rebuild its ties with Egypt, a Russian ally that jumped ship to the US after Egyptian president Gamel Abdel Nasser's death. • • • CAN TRUMP PULL RUSSIA AWAY FROM IRAN? The Trump administration’s decision to improve relations with Russia will surely lead to a weakening of Russia’s cooperation with Iran -- if Russia takes the Trump bait of better worldwide relations and a bigger place in international diplomacy and decisionmaking. The Bush and Obama administrations either pigeonholed cooperation with Russia to useful projects or, in Obama's case, was testy with Russia and then ignored Putin. But, Russia does not work like that. It views discreet US policies toward Russia as part of one overarching relationship, in much the same way that the US views discreet policies toward its traditional allies as part of one whole relationship. • Trump would be well-advised to treat Russia as an equal -- although no longer true, because, above all, President Putin seems to be searching for recognition of Russia's strength and continued major position on the world stage. That cannot be offered piecemeal. But, if Trump is able to build a personal relationship with Putin, and if Secretary of State Tillerson can walk back the strident comments he made about Russia during his confirmation hearings and treat Russia and President Putin as he treated State Department employees in his February 2 introductory remarks, saying he would treat everyone equally -- expecting accountability, honesty, and mutual respect -- he will help Trump enormously. It will also hold President Putin's feet to the fire. He will either cease aiding Iran, the world's largest exporter of terrorism, and cut back on his dictatorial tendencies at home or he will prove that he is the "thug" that Washington likes to think he is. • As for Iran, the Trump application of new sanctions and the promise of more if Iran does not stop testing ICBMs will perhaps make Iran a less attractive partner for Russia. After all, Russia at least partially enforced the earlier UN sanctions aginst Iran at the cost of selling advanced missile technology to the Ayatollahs -- whether Russia was part of the nuclear triad from hell -- Iran, North Korea, Russia(?) -- is hard to determine without being privy to intelligence. • Michael Curtis wrote an article in American Thinker recently, in which he summarized the Iran situation as follows : "On January 29, 2017, Iran tested a cruise missile, Sumar, that can carry a nuclear weapon in addition to test-firing a ballistic missile and is capable of carrying a warhead and has the ability to reach Israel. It flew 600 miles from a site near Semnan, east of Teheran. The Sumar is said to have a potential range of 2,000 to 3,000 km, flies at low altitudes, and can evade radar and defense missiles. Cruise missiles are not mentioned in any UN resolutions that ban work on ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. For President Trump and the king of Saudi Arabia, the launch in January 2017 is regarded as an event destabilizing regional activities. Trump has 'put Iran on notice.' Though there is no specific action related to the term, Trump on February 3, 2017, imposed sanctions on 13 individuals and 12 companies, freezing any property and funds they have under US jurisdiction.The urgent question is whether the Trump administration will go farther. Will it end the nuclear deal? Will it impose greater sanctions? Will it deal with foreign companies doing business with elements of Iran's economy dealing with missile programs? In connection to the JCPA, the US State Department Parameters on April 2, 2015, explained the prospective deal would state that US sanctions on Iran for terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles will remain in place under the deal. Iran is a country that abounds in violations of human rights, a large number of executions and use of death penalty, arbitrary detention and prosecution of journalists, human rights defenders, and women rights activists, and acceptance of child marriage. Islamic dress code is imposed in public places. Restrictions are numerous on opinions and freedom of expression. Websites that carry political news are monitored, and religious and ethnic minorities – Bahá'í, Kurds, Jews, Sunni Moslems – are attacked. Is there a better candidate in the world for further US sanctions?" • • • DEAR READERS, if you have ever known or worked with Russians who live in Russia, or if you have traveled in Russia, you know that Russians are warm-hearted, friendly people who cherish family and love their country with an almost religious patriotism. They will give you gifts that represent Russian culture and folklore and feed you with good Russian food and vodka -- even during the Soviet era when they had almost nothing, they shared it. That is the key to understanding Russians. They are proud, patriotic Christians who are convinced that Russia is one of the impregnable poles of the world. Trying to force a proud Russian president like Vladimir Putin into a position of public humiliation, trying to make him or his Russia seem inferior, will win you unending anger and attempts at retaliation. That is not to say that Russia or Russians or Putin are perfect. They are not. And as Trump said to Bill O'Reilly, neither are we. Nobody is. Look no further than Bill and Hillary Clinton if you need proof of that trusim. • And the latest nonsense spun out Tuesday by the New York Times Editorial Board -- calling the Trump-Putin relationship a "Bromance" --is so parochial and ill-mannered that it deserves the strongest condemnation. Here is the gist of the NYT's tirade : "The bromance between President Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, long a source of puzzlement and alarm in the West, has gotten even more disturbing. This weekend, Mr. Trump dismissed a question about why he respected “a killer” like Mr. Putin by drawing a moral equivalency between the United States and Russia....Mr. Trump seemed to appreciate Mr. Putin’s brutality -- which includes bombing civilians in Syria and, his accusers allege, responsibility for a trail of dead political opponents and journalists at home -- and suggested America acts the same way.....Since taking office, Mr. Trump has shown little support for America’s traditional roles as a champion of universal values like freedom of the press and tolerance. In fact, as he has worked to cut Mr. Putin slack, Mr. Trump has bashed allies and laid the groundwork for an aggressive campaign that could lead to conflict with Iran, which the Pentagon has ranked behind Russia as a threat." THAT IS JUST PLAIN WRONG AND EVILLY UNTRUTHFUL. It does not deserve a detailed response. Let us just say that the NYT is once again proving that it is the mouthpiece of globalist Progressive Democrat ideology -- that the truth is meangingless to the Times -- that the NYT will stoop to any base level to attack traditional America and the President it elected -- that it is morally bankrupt and the best example in the world of a free press bought by special interests who do not have America's or the world's well-being at heart. • I carry no brief either for Russia or for Vladimir Putin, but in the hope that President Trump will be able to put together a working relationship with Putin that will lead to a more stable and less terrorist-haunted world, I am willing to let the President work in his own way in his own time and with the tools and words he thinks may produce the desired result. If there are "killers" stalking the world, they resemble Prog-Dems and the flagship NYT that supports their propaganda. • As President Trump tweeted on Tuesday : “I don't know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy - yet Obama can make a deal with Iran, #1 in terror, no problem!”