In the messy and oft sordid affair that is global geopolitics you sometimes have to deal with the devil. But you don't have to embrace him.
But, sadly, that is what President Trump is apparently doing with Vladimir Putin, a mass murderer, war criminal, and subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant.
When compared to Putin, Trump, who likes to present himself as a tough guy, is a pound of butter under a Florida sun.
Americans, the more enlightened among the 330 million or so, have a right to be wary of this dalliance with a man who, many believe, has some sort of hold over the 47the president.
Be that as it may, President Trump has to remind himself that he is not representing himself in any dealings with Putin. He is representing those 330 million. And most of those, we firmly believe, support the right of Ukraine to exist as a free country and not be threatened by its far larger neighbor.
Most people in Europe, and for sure most in Ireland, also believe in a free Ukraine.
And so do most Republican Party members in Congress, though many are saying little or nothing. The great majority of Republican senators, thus far, have been reflecting the stance they took over the nomination of President Trump's more dubious cabinet appointees. That is to cluck, flap and fold.
But not all are flapping and folding over Ukraine.
North Carolina's Republican Senator Thom Tillis has described Putin as a "cancer" who can't be given any space.
Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican familiar to Echo readers, posted on X: “Putin, and Putin alone, should bear the economic costs of Putin’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. To force Ukraine to pay these costs is the epitome of victim-blaming and victim extortion.”
And Congressman Mike Lawler of New York, again familiar to readers, said this to ABC News with regard to President Trump blaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the war: “I did not agree with the president’s rhetoric about … Zelensky. What I would say is this, it is not — it does not behoove either side to have this public back-and-forth."
So there is at least a trace of independent thinking on the Republican side of the aisle on Capitol Hill. That is to the good, but there needs to be a lot more of it.
On the international front President Trump hosted French President Emmanuel Macron in the White House at the beginning of this week while British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is expected on Thursday. The message from both will be that President Trump embraces Vladimir Putin at his peril; and America's.
Trump can go on all he wants about annexing Canada and Greenland but if you allow Putin in your door you are looking at the United States as little more than a de facto geopolitical extension of the Russian Federation.
Perhaps this is an exaggeration to make the point. But there is a point.
It's no wonder that Europe is thinking that it now has to face into a future without the American guarantee. But perhaps this is not an entirely bad thing. Europe has to stand for what is right in the world, now more than ever, and if need be alone.
