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I post, you decide. Personally, I’ll believe all this talk about a deal to end the Ukraine war when I actually see it happen. – Natylie

Trump reveals he’s spoken with Putin by phone, says Russian president ‘wants to see people stop dying’ in Ukraine war

By Miranda Devine, New York Post, 2/8/25

President Trump has spoken to Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the phone to try to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, he told The Post in an exclusive interview aboard Air Force One Friday.

“I’d better not say,” said Trump when asked how many times the two leaders have spoken.

But he believes Putin “does care” about the killing on the battlefield.

“He wants to see people stop dying,” said Trump.

“All those dead people. Young, young, beautiful people. They’re like your kids, two million of them – and for no reason.”

The three-year-old war “never would have happened” if he had been president in 2022, Trump asserted.

“I always had a good relationship with Putin,” he said, unlike his predecessor.

“Biden was an embarrassment to our nation. A complete embarrassment.”

Trump said he has a concrete plan to end the war.

“I hope it’s fast. Every day people are dying. This war is so bad in Ukraine. I want to end this damn thing.”

Addressing National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who joined him in his study aboard Air Force One Friday night, the president said: “Let’s get these meetings going. They want to meet. Every day people are dying. Young handsome soldiers are being killed. Young men, like my sons. On both sides. All over the battlefield.”

Vice President Vance will meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference next week.

Trump has said he wants to strike a $500 million deal with Zelensky to access rare-earth minerals and gas in Ukraine in exchange for security guarantees in any potential peace settlement.

On Iran, Trump told The Post:  “I would like a deal done with Iran on non-nuclear. I would prefer that to bombing the hell out of it. . . . They don’t want to die. Nobody wants to die.”

“If we made the deal, Israel wouldn’t bomb them.”

But he would not reveal details of any potential negotiations with Iran: “In a way, I don’t like telling you what I’m going to tell them. You know, it’s not nice.”

“I could tell what I have to tell them, and I hope they decide that they’re not going to do what they’re currently thinking of doing. And I think they’ll really be happy.”

“I’d tell them I’d make a deal.”

As for what he would offer Iran in return, he said, “I can’t say that because it’s too nasty. I won’t bomb them.”

***

The Coming Threat of Major Trade War
By Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 2/9/25

How About We Lift Sanctions

The first also relates to a story in the New York Post, a Murdoch paper that has been described as the “paper of wreckage,” that claims that President Donald Trump has told The Post that he has talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin and that the two are agreed that they will talk.

There is certainly room for doubt as to the accuracy of this story but Mercouris is inclined to believe the general thrust of it. Further, his Moscow source is telling him that there are conversations in the Duma as to the likely content of the US starting position. A fairly dramatic one, as one might expect from Donald Trump, which is that the US would remove all or almost all sanctions on Russia and allow Russia to resume pipeline gas supplies to Europe by Nord Stream, in return for a Russian ceasefire.

But, that if Russia does not agree to this, then the US will launch an all-out trade war against Russia and all countries that deal with Russia. According to Mercouris’ source, and it is the assessment of Mercouris himself, as it is mine, many Russians are disinclined to think that the Kremlin should take this seriously.

Calling the Bluff

First of all, why would they believe any promise that the US makes, given the country’s litany of failed promises in the past (Minsk, Istanbul)? Especially, why would they think Washington would be OK with a resumption of pipeline supplies when Washington has so adamantly opposed these ever since Putin and Merkel embarked on Nord Stream, and when Washington remains desperate to beef up revenues from the sale of LNG to Europe?

Second of all, an all-out trade war would force China and India, both of them heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas, to take sides between Washington and Moscow and there is nothing about either of these two countries that would lead one to expect that they are about to abandon the meta-program of the BRICS or to abandon Russia to its fate at the hands of the US (as they know that the US will be coming for them, too). They would be simply giving up to Washington their dream of a multi-polar world.

Thirdly, many Russians suspect that the US is bluffing and that Russia must call its bluff. An all-out trade war would help develop a stronger coalition of anti-US forces (which may now include former US allies such as Canada and Mexico) to combat its trade measures; it would prompt Russia to undertake a total mobilization for an economic and military war; it would greatly elevate prices of energy world-wide and on practically everything else, and this would be very damaging for US consumers and the US economy.

Fourthly, there is nothing being said by Washington at this time, that patently and in good faith picks up on the broader challenge of an agreement that would meet Russia’s legitimate security interests and addresses the issue of a European security architecture (or, as I have said several times in recent days) a global security architecture that would also address China’s legitimate security interests.

Finally, it is every day more obvious that Trump wants to get the US out of Ukraine. The US is even giving up the chair of the next NATO meeting in Ramstein, a position that is being eagerly seized by (“friends with Ukraine for 100 years) the UK in the form of its defense minister, so is unlikely to want to press very hard on any deal he is offering Russia.

Iran Deal Redux

A second issue that is touched upon both in the New York Post story of Trump’s interview and also by Mercouris’ source, has to do with Iran, in the light of recent statements by its Supreme Leader,Ali Khameini that repeat the long-standing prohibition by fatwa against Iran’s development of nuclear weapons something that has also been confirmed over many years both by the CIA and by the UN’s IAEA but that has been spread about ad nauseum for the past twenty years by Netanyahu and is every so often seized upon and amplified by elements of the Israeli lobby and its mainstream media mouthpieces as just recently in a New York Times article that claims that Iranian scientists are discussing a short-cut route to nuclear weapons.

Trump claims he wants to do a deal with Iran that would give Washington and Israel the security (which in effect it already has) that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons in return for which Washington will lift some or all of the sanctions that it has imposed on Iran.

Khameini, however, is saying, quite understandably, that Iran will not enter into negotiations with the US. Why would it? The last time it did so (leading to the JCPOA), Trump in his first term welched on the deal. However, Iran and Russia now have a strategic partnership arrangement which puts the lid on the possibility of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Russia, therefore, is now in a position where it can offer guarantees to Washington that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons in return for which Washington can remove its sanctions on Iran and, at the same time and in the context of a package deal, remove sanctions on Russia and accept Russian conditions for a ceasefire deal on the Ukraine conflict (Istanbul Plus, the terms laid out by Putin in July 2024).

Russian Security

In brief, Russia’s diplomatic status in the Middle East, which appeared wobbly after the implosion of Assad in Syria, is now strengthened, first because of the strategic partnership agreement with Iran and second because the latest news from Damascus suggests that the new Turkish-backed and Western-supported terrorist leader of Syria, al-Jolani now favors the continued presence of Russia in Syria and the maintenance of its naval base in Tartous and its military base in Khmeimim. This could pave the way to coordination between Russian and Turkish forces in Syria, making life more challenging for Kurds to the northeast and east, and Israel to the south and to suppression of the worst feature of HTS rule, their vengeful aggressions towards Alawites and Christians. As things stand HTS has very little control over Syria beyond Damascus, and the economic and security situation of the country is fast deteriorating.

Washington-Moscow Deal on Tehran

In the context of Iran, therefore, it is not implausible that a solution to what for Washington is the “problem” of Iran could be resolved by an agreement between the US and Russia, one in which the voices of China and India would at a later date need to be heard. Similarly, in the context of Ukraine it is not implausible that a solution to what for Washington is the “problem” of Russia’s SMO could be resolved by an agreement between Washington and Moscow, which at a later date would involve China and possibly India, while the voices of Europe and Ukraine would be marginalized since neither bloc at this time seems capable of addressing the root causes of the problem or of negotiating in good faith.

Israeli Obduracy

Of course, none of this will placate Israel for whom the issue is nothing really to do with nuclear weapons – these are just a pretext weilded by a country, Israel, that has hundreds of nuclear weapons. What worries Israel is that Iran is a threat to Israel’s regional supremacy and that one day Iran could revert back to being Washington’s BFF, as it used to be before the 1979 revolution. And that Iran could be an obstacle to Zionist ambitions for a Greater Israel. Iran’s support for (but not control of) Hezbelloh in Lebanon and Syria, and of Hamas in Gaza, is a strong additional consideration. Israel will not be pleased that Hezbollah will once again enjoy a presence in the Lebanese parliament.

And even as it pretends to take Trump seriously on the US taking ownership of Gaza, Isreal prepares for further war and genocide.

Israeli Defense Minister Katz has ordered the IDF to prepare for the “departure” of Palestinians from Gaza, while framing this as “voluntary.” The plan will include “exit options via land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air.” Katz wants countries who have been critical of Israel’s genocide to allow Gazans to enter their territory. Not to do so, he claims, would be hypocritical. In other words, it is not just Egypt and Jordan that Israel would like to take Palestinians but also western countries like Ireland or Norway. Palestinians, Jordan and Egypt and other Arab countries are strongly opposed to such ideas as they are to a US takeover of Gaza. There is loose talk by the Trump administration about Palestinians leaving so that the land can be cleaned up for their return, but nobody seriously believes that Palestinians would ever be allowed to return.

Peace Talks, Zel and Europe

The prospect of being excluded from talks, along with clear indications from Washington that it wishes to get rid of Zelenskiy, if necessary by insisting that he call national parliamentary and presidential elections before the end of 2025, appears to be behind recent extremist statements from Zelenskiy about how Ukraine can develop its own dirty nuclear bomb and his persistent demands for more Western missiles and other weapons.

Zelenskiy appears not to want to proceed just yet with a bill that has already been prepared in the RADA that would lower the age by which men can be mobilized to 18, but instead favors a measure that would boost voluntary recruitment by offering better rewards. This may be because Zelenskiy understands that the mobilization measure would be deeply unpopular, and that if it led to the deaths of very large numbers of young people, as it well might, then he would be even less likely to survive than he already is. Also Zelenskiy must wonder whether the war will last for long enough to make it worthwhile for him to start an expensive, coercive mass mobilization right now.

Europe’s weakness continues to be undermined by turbulence in Germany over the flirtation between the CDU and its leader – and likely soon to be next chancellor – Merz, and AfD, which would conceivably give AfD some element of veto power over a continuation of the war with Russia over Ukraine.

In France the government of Francois Bayrou has just passed a budget by decree – the same, virtually, that brought down the previous government. The new measure has not, as was at first expected, led to a successful vote of no confidence, since it was not supported by Melanchon’s leftist bloc (now falling apart) with whom Bayrou had previously consulted and which has no reason to think it would do very well in a likely ensuing election to replace Macron at this time, while Marine Le Pen’s National Rally also calculated that its interests would not be best met if there were to be presidential elections just yet. Another vote of confidence is anticipated very soon in relation to government immigration proposals.