THE surprising news that we got to read this week was the full-page advertisement last May 16, 2023 at the New York Times by some of the leading US foreign policy experts composed of scholars, book authors and former officers of the US Armed Forces calling on the Biden administration to finally seek a diplomatic solution to its (and NATO) proxy war in Ukraine.
The move towards diplomacy was made by the Eisenhower Media Network, which is inspired by the late US Army general and president, Dwight ‘Ike’ Eisenhower.
His warning about the danger of the rise of the ‘MIC’ (military industrial complex) is as relevant as when he first mentioned it during his farewell speech in 1961.
The New York Times has become notorious as one of the propaganda pieces of the US government in favor of its foreign policies, no matter how atrocious or contradictory they are.
And its accepting of the advertisement despite its condemnation of the US policy of supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes” and NATO’s unstoppable eastward expansion as triggering Russia’s pre-emptive special military operation in Ukraine last year appears to indicate that the influential paper is subtly changing its mind about the conflict.
This shift in attitude of course has become discernible in some policy circles in Washington and Capitol Hill due to one stark reality: Russia is winning the war. And all the sanctions the West imposed against Russia since last year have backfired and are now coming home to roost in the form of bank closures, uncontrollable US debt (over $31 trillion and counting) inflation, and rising street protests in most European capital.
Whatever is the reason, Pres. Joe Biden would now be under immense pressure to settle his proxy war in Ukraine if the US does not want—again—to lose out to China in the diplomatic front.
On the anniversary of the Russian attack last February 24, China released its 12-point peace proposal to settle the conflict in Ukraine which the US and NATO, but of course, dismissed immediately without even reading it.
But they ended up with red faces later after China upended them when it successfully brokered the peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Even now, the world continues to marvel at the dividends arising from that peace agreement—Syria has been readmitted to the Arab League and is now in talks with Turkey to smooth over their differences.
Warring factions in Yemen too have decided to stop shooting and start talking directly with each other, thru the efforts of the Saudis and Iran (and behind them, China).
And we would not be surprised if a more lasting peace deal is struck between the warring factions in Lebanon, Libya and Iraq to include a more assuring peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
As for Ukraine, the reality is that it is only China that has a concrete set of talking points to resolve the conflict while the West and Washington has none, determined as they are to see Russia defeated first in the battlefield before they signal their puppet Pres. Zelensky to start talking.
It may be too early to say but the advertisement at the New York Times can be the “magnet” that could draw the disparate groups in the United States to unite in calling for a diplomatic solution to stop the war in Ukraine that their government actively planned and is now actively promoting.
Besides, the US election is just around the corner and the best chance of Pres. Biden beating the competition is not the subjugation of Russia (a military impossibility) but in having the war in Ukraine settled peacefully.
That change of approach, that return to sanity, as the advertisement advocated, might bring the numbers he wants during US election day.