PATRICK LAWRENCE: What? Peace in Our Time in Ukraine?
The Trump regime’s 28–point Ukraine peace plan accepts Moscow’s core concerns as legitimate. That’s essential for any possible settlement of the war, or the broader crisis between Russia and the West. There are any number of reasons you may not like, or may even…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Al-Qaeda Goes to Washington
Al–Sharaa’s White House visit is a reminder of Washington’s longstanding abhorrence of democratic processes and anyone — beyond the perimeter of the West and sometimes within it — who stands for them. I never thought I would see the day, but the…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Desperation Row
Reflecting Volodymyr Zelensky’s confidence that the Trumpster would oblige him, he, Zelensky, actually visited Raytheon, the Tomahawk’s maker, before his session at the White House. What a big game Volodymyr Zelensky talked before his latest little while in the Oval…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Trump & the Russophobes
The extent to which Trump’s démarche toward Moscow succeeds will be the extent to which the U.S. can transcend a long, regrettable history and finally embrace the 21st century. There is no saying yet whether Donald Trump will succeed in…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: How to Read the Durham Appendix
The method of those who built Russiagate’s tower of lies and disinformation grows clearer and the list of their names longer. Not that we needed more evidence to dismantle the extravagant tower of lies and disinformation known as Russiagate: This was…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Trump Dead-Ends Putin
For a good long time what’s been happening in Ukraine is nothing more than postwar gore. If you have lost a war but cannot admit it, you are playing the old game of pretend. Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: ‘Completely & Totally Obliterated’
The Iraq invasion and the bombing of Iran are acts of desperation — the conduct of a wounded, uncertain nation that went on the defensive when the Twin Towers went down and history arrived on its shores. I have heard many…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Diplomatic Chess, Ukraine the Pawn
In Istanbul, a door was pried open after a soap opera’s worth of chicanery in London, Paris, Berlin and Kiev. Now the question is what Trump can do to address Russia’s concerns. As was universally expected, little came out of Istanbul…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Late–Imperial Maladies
The worst part of living this distance from reality — or maybe the best part — is the knowledge, even if it is only subliminal, that we cannot go on like this. I am sick of reading that the Israelis’ genocidal…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: New Year’s Notes on Purported Leaders
It is no use hoping for any alteration in the collective West’s course so long as today’s “purported leaders” remain in office. “Heaven is high and the emperor is far away.” So did Chinese peasants celebrate their distance from the…