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OPINION:
The Trump administration is doing things quickly and producing great results, but it sometimes seems that it doesn’t think some things through before enacting policy.
Example one is the statements by President Trump’s special envoy for Iran and Russia, Steve Witkoff. Having previously said that U.S. negotiations with Iran wouldn’t necessarily require Tehran to end uranium enrichment, Mr. Witkoff reversed himself the next day by saying any deal with Iran must be “a Trump deal” that would require an end to Iran’s uranium enrichment.
Iran has said uranium enrichment is non-negotiable.
So which is it? We know Iran will never give up its nuclear weapons program peacefully, but Mr. Trump’s options are few. He could authorize or join an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, but that would begin a war that neither Mr. Trump nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to start. He could negotiate a deal with Iran to permit U.S. inspectors, not the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, to have unlimited access to Iran’s nuclear facilities, but Tehran would never agree to that. We may be drifting into a large war.
Example two is a statement by Mr. Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Gen. Keith Kellogg. On April 12, Mr. Kellogg said Ukraine could be partitioned “almost like Berlin after World War Two” as part of a peace deal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had discussed this idea with Mr. Trump on March 19 and warned against it. Now, Mr. Trump has proposed that the U.S. could recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and bar Ukraine from joining NATO.
The partition of Germany and Berlin at the end of World War II represented the decisive defeat of an enemy that caused the war, which killed more than 15 million people. Ukraine is not our enemy; Russia is. Russia’s war of aggression shouldn’t be rewarded by giving it a part of Ukraine.
Peace negotiations have gone nowhere. On March 30, Mr. Trump said he was “angry” and “pissed off” at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to any peace deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that the U.S. would give up on the Ukraine-Russia peace talks if progress isn’t made quickly.
Mr. Rubio said, “So we need to determine, very quickly now, and I’m talking about a matter of days, whether this is doable in the next few weeks. If it is, we’re in. If it’s not, then we have other priorities to focus on.” Mr. Trump said the same thing a day later.
Mr. Rubio will meet Wednesday with European allies to promote a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. The Europeans, of course, have a plan that requires U.S. support. Britain and France would send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine but would require the support of U.S. intelligence and anti-aircraft systems.
As this column has said, NATO peacekeeping troops in Ukraine would be a back door to de facto NATO membership for Ukraine, which is a terrible idea. If Russia were to attack British or French forces, they could invoke Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, compelling mutual defense.
Where does that leave our policy on Ukraine? Will we disengage from peace talks, as Mr. Rubio has said, and possibly end aid to Ukraine? Ending the peace talks now is a good idea because of Mr. Putin’s recalcitrance, but ending our aid to Ukraine would abandon it to Mr. Putin’s war of conquest. Instead, we should put more economic sanctions on Russia.
Another statement, this time by Hamas, that it had lost touch with the captors of U.S. citizen Edan Alexander, also needs to be thought through. Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida said, “We announce that we have lost contact with the group holding soldier Edan Alexander following a direct strike on their location.”
That may be Hamas’ attempt to cover up Mr. Alexander’s death. He has been its captive since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. We should remember the little Bibas boys. Four-year-old Ariel and 9-month-old Kfir were kidnapped by Hamas, strangled, and their bodies mutilated to make it appear they had been killed in an airstrike.
We are long past Mr. Trump’s Feb. 15 deadline for the release of all Hamas hostages. He said that if they weren’t released, there would be “hell to pay.” The Israelis have been delivering that hell for us.
Mr. Trump, while lifting President Biden’s ban on sending Israel bunker-busting bombs, has done nothing else to obtain the release of Mr. Alexander, who is believed to be the sole American hostage left alive.
In that war, Mr. Trump’s options are, again, limited. He can’t send U.S. bombers to carpet-bomb the Gaza Strip, and he can’t send the Marines in to occupy it.
When he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers told me that presidents always want options to deal with crises. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine need to quickly develop new options on Ukraine, Iran and Hamas.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and a contributing editor for The American Spectator.
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